INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF URBAN EDUCATION
Springer International Handbooks of Education VOLUME 19
A list of titles in this series can be found at the end of this volume.
International Handbook of Urban Education Part One Editors William T. Pink Marquette University, U.S.A. and
George W. Noblit University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.
Section Editors Africa Kevin Brennan Julius Nyang’oro Asia Pacific Masturah Ismail Allan Luke Europe Elisabet Öhrn Gaby Weiner Latin America Belmira Oliveira Bueno North America Michele Foster United Kingdom Carol Campbell Geoff Whitty
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-5198-2 (HB) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-5199-9 (e-book)
Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
xi
Introduction George W. Noblit and William T. Pink
xv Part One
Section 1 Africa 1
Urban Education in Africa: Section Editors’ Introduction Kevin Brennan and Julius Nyang’oro
2
Urbanization and Schooling in Africa: Trends, Issues, and Challenges from Ghana during the Colonial Era Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah
23
Language Education in Cameroon: From the Colonial Era to the 21st Century Funwi F. Ayuninjam
49
The Politics of National Culture and Urban Education Reforms in Post-Independent Zimbabwe Douglas Mpondi
75
Reforming the City School in South Africa: Mapping the History from Apartheid Durban to Post-Apartheid eThekwini Jenni Karlsson
91
3
4
5
3
6
Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi: Opportunities and Challenges Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota
7
Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation: Explaining Educational Inequalities in Kenya Alwiya Alwy and Susanne Schech
129
Dimensions of Diversity: Educating Urban Township Learners, a Case of Umlazi Township School in Durban, South Africa Thabisile Buthelezi
145
The Middle School Climate in Senegal: The Case of the Diourbel Middle School Abdou Karim Ndoye
183
8
9
v
115
vi
10
Table of Contents
Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization: The Case of Educating the Youth in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements Kinuthia Macharia
205
Section 2 Asia Pacific 11
Urban Education in Asia Pacific: Section Editors’ Introduction Allan Luke and Masturah Ismail
12
Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality: China’s Pressing Challenge in a Context of Economic Growth and Political Change Rui Yang
231
Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems: Retrospect and Prospect Jill Blackmore
249
The Urban and the Peripheral: New Challenges for Education in the Pacific Priscilla Qolisaya Puamau and G. Robert Teasdale
265
13
14
15
Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India Anita Rampal
16
Withering the State? Globalization Challenges and Changing Higher Education Governance in East Asia Ka Ho Mok
221
285
305
17
Madrasah and Muslim Education: Its Interface with Urbanization Sa’eda Buang
18
Women in East Asian Education and Society: Whose Gains in Whose Perspectives? Grace C. L. Mak
343
Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research on Life Planning and Pathways in Singapore David Hogan, Trivina Kang, and Melvin Chan
359
19
20
New Urban Terrains: Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers Karen Dooley, Cushla Kapitzke, and Carmen Luke
321
381
Section 3 Western Europe 21
Urban Education in Europe: Section Editors’ Introduction Elisabet Öhrn and Gaby Weiner
22
Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain: Urban Education, Ethnicity and Multicultural Issues Benjamín Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva
397
413
Table of Contents
23
School Differentiation and Segregation in the Parisian Periphery: An Analysis of Urban Schools’ Logics of Action and their Effects Agnes van Zanten
vii
431
24
Urban Citizenship Tuula Gordon
447
25
Territorial Stigmatisation, Hip Hop and Informal Schooling Ove Sernhede
463
26
Between the Road and the Town: An Ethnographic Study of the Education of Traveling Attractionists Francesca Gobbo
481
The Limits of Compensatory Education in Spain: A Comparative Analysis of Some Autonomous Governments Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonal
505
27
28
Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism Yvonne Leeman
29
Urban Regions and their Potential for Teacher Education: The Hamburg Example Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen
523
539
Part Two Section 4 Latin America 30
Urban Education in Latin America: Section Editor’s Introduction Belmira Oliveira Bueno
31
History of Brazilian Urban Education: Space and Time in Primary Schools Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana Gonçalves Vidal
581
Learning Cycles: Transition Policies for a New Logic of Compulsory Schooling in Brazil Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia Souza
601
School Failure and Public Schools: Theoretical and Pedagogical Challenges in Brazil Denise Trento Rebello de Souza and Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza
619
Chilean Educational Reform: The Intricate Balance Between a Macro and Micro Policy Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo
641
32
33
34
35
Public Policies and Educational Equity in the City of Bogota Gloria Calvo
561
665
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Table of Contents
36
Primary Education: Changing Mainstay of Uruguay Juan A. Bogliaccini
37
Educational Policies and Realities: Teachers’ Initial Education in Mexico Etelvina Sandoval
705
Learning to Work in an Industrial Mexican City in Transition (1990–2000) María de Ibarrola
727
38
39
The Fragmented Composition of the Argentinean Educational System Guillermina Tiramonti
685
747
Section 5 North America 40
Urban Education in North America: Section Editor’s Introduction Michele Foster
765
41
Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter
779
42
Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting: How Causal Explanations Shape Urban Educational Research and Practice Joseph Flessa and Diane Ketelle
43
The New Immigrants: Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape Lisa Konczal
44
Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts: Exploring the Immigrant Factor in Urban Education Carl E. James and Roger Saul
45
Urban School Reform: To What End? James H. Lytle
46
Success Stories in Urban Education: A Critical Look at the Ethic of Care in Programs, Projects, and Strategies that Work from the Classroom to Community Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, and Valerie Ooka Pang
47
Rebuilding Schools, Restoring Communities: A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation Rodney K. Hopson, Jennifer C. Greene, Katrina L. Bledsoe, Trinidad M. Villegas, and Tanya A. Brown
803 825
841 859
883
905
Section 6 United Kingdom 48
Urban Education in the United Kingdom: Section Editors’ Introduction Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty
929
Table of Contents
ix
49
History of Urban Education in the United Kingdom Gary McCulloch
50
Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question to End of Millennium Gerald Grace
959
Combating Racism in Schooling: A Critical Perspective on Contemporary Policy and Practice David Gillborn
979
51
943
52
Reforming Urban Education Systems Martin Johnson
53
Urban Learning and the Need for Varied Urban Curricula and Pedagogies Richard Riddell
1027
Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods: The National College for School Leadership and Beyond Pat Thomson
1049
54
1007
55
Urban School Improvement Barbara MacGilchrist
1079
56
Urban Schools: Performance, Competition and Collaboration Philip A. Woods
1105
57
The Governance of Urban Education in the UK: A Public, Private or Partnership Future? Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty
1123
58
Multi-Agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice Lyn Tett
1139
59
Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse
1157
Coda 60
Coda: An Urban Education Dystopia George W. Noblit and William T. Pink
1175
61
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050 Allan Luke
1177
62
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Africa Kevin Brennan
1183
63
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from the Asia Pacific Masturah Ismail
1187
x
Table of Contents
64
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Europe Elisabet Öhrn and Gaby Weiner
1191
65
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Latin America Belmira Oliveira Bueno
1195
66
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from North America Michele Foster
1199
67
Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from the United Kingdom Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty
1203
Biographical Statements
1207
Subject Index
1229
Author Index
1241
PREFACE
Urban education, as a field of study, has been plagued by a social problems orientation. Urban areas are often seen as collections of problems and urban schools are as well. The sad reality is that urban areas are full of both poverty and wealth and the educational system reflects both of these. In practice, urban schools are often segregated by class, caste, and race. Such schools are also segregated because public policy allows this to be true. Policy creates the schools that serve young people who are marginalized and for whom life is difficult and unforgiving. Such schools make it difficult for students to use education to alter their life chances. The field of urban education emerged precisely to highlight the above and to argue that such students and families, and the schools that serve them, deserve better. The field itself has led to many new understandings about how to improve schools and how to better serve such students and their families. These are great accomplishments but they are also always limited by the asymmetry of possibilities created by social stratification, segmentation, and segregation. Urban schools that are created to reflect divided societies cannot significantly improve without the dismantling of the schools that serve those that derive considerable benefits from the stratified society. In turn, this would seem to require dismantling the wider societal stratification systems. The field of urban education then exists both as an amelioration in such societies and as a moral conscience – calling attention to effects of racialization, class formation and maintenance, and patriarchy. This moral conscience is never far from the research in urban education whether it be in service of improving schools or critiquing policy and practice. Across the globe we have been experiencing a steady process of urbanization. Yet urbanization takes on different forms given different social and cultural histories. In many parts of the world, the poor are not in the central cities but in rings around the city. The schools that serve them (if there are schools that serve them) share the challenges of all schools that serve the urbanized poor. This Handbook enables the reader to compare the different forms of urbanization and urban education and to make some fundamental comparisons about what is different and what is the same about urban education xi
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across the globe. We encourage a critical reading of these works. Readers should delve deeply into the chapters and into the myriad issues evident. In doing so, the editors and authors of these works invite you to reconsider the lenses you use to understand urban education. If these chapters do nothing else, they should make it clear that context is almost everything in urban education. Urban schools contain a society’s hopes and limitations. In declaring the schools to be problems, we blame the victims for what others have done to them. The charges should be leveled not at the victims but at the perpetrators. Who set in motion rural destabilization such that migration to the cities becomes the only option for the displaced? Who created an economy that leaves so many impoverished, unemployed and/or underemployed? Who created residential segregation? Who promotes stratification and segmentation of a society’s people? Who set up educational systems that cannot meet the needs of people who must rely on them? Who is culpable for the draining of resources from urban schools? Who is responsible for not addressing these and other issues? We have emphatically stressed who because social science along with those with power have created a language that suggests processes and factors that are beyond the control of people. This creates an image of inevitability and, of course, leaves the poor to exist as an unfortunate fact of life. Globalization is a phenomenon that some portray as a process or force that has an independent existence. It permeates the chapters in this volume. Every local scene is interpenetrated with an economy that spans national borders. Every urban area, every urban school, finds itself subject to economic shifts connected to the global economy. This said, it is also true that the global economy was and is being created and recreated every day by the actions of business leaders and policymakers. It is inevitable only because these leaders see benefit in it for themselves and for global trade, which in the end benefits the dominant classes worldwide. If this is who, then the question becomes how do we hold them accountable for increasing poverty? For a centralization of wealth that has all but destroyed the middle classes? For displaced populations that are now urbanized and marginalized? The only mechanisms that have some history are governmental or involve the universal politics of protest and insurrection? The former seems all too compromised to act definitively, while the latter has an unfortunate history of demagoguery and antidemocratic effects. Thus globally, this could be a turning point in governmentality – one where potentially both the economy and the population exceed the reach of the state. In this, it seems clear that urban areas will be the terrain of struggle. Hope must be possible for the alternative is devastation. We offer this volume in service of hope. This project began over 7 years ago as it became apparent that globally urbanization was proceeding at a remarkable rate, and that, in both policy and popular imagination, urban education was the locus of the action. As we thought through the volume’s orientation, this became increasingly true. Riots in Paris immigrant suburbs, the bulldozing of squatters villages in Africa, and the exportation of school reform ideas from the West to the world all increasingly signaled the centrality of urban education in the new world order. We began the substance of the work by engaging lead scholars from across the globe in discussions about the way the world was organized and divided, especially in regards to urban education. From these emerged, the sections of this book and the invitations to section editors. We wish to be clear that the sections of this book are not meant to be
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some definitive statement about the way the world is partitioned. Rather our discussions yielded this organization as a heuristic to begin to understand urban education as a global phenomenon. It was more a way to come to understand than the sense that this is the way to understand urban education globally. We are convinced that now, after we have assembled some semblance of what is known about urban education around the world, we would want to reconsider the sections and potentially change them in fundamental ways. For example, we were unable to organize a section on what used to be called Eastern Europe but this is clearly an arena that needs to be investigated. We wonder about the wisdom of going with continents like Latin American and Africa. There is much variety as well as similarity across these continents. They deserve additional consideration. We have the US, the UK and Europe as sections. We were all aware from the beginning that these sections reflect Western dominance in global affairs (and not inconsequentially the major book markets). This deserves even more interrogation. The Asia-Pacific reflects a more recent understanding of how the old “East” is now a set of emerging economic and political relations. This heuristic seems to be productive here but is it the best way to organize our understanding of urban education or, as importantly, will it be as useful in the near future? In future volumes, we will take on these and other tasks, but for now we revel in what has been revealed by the heuristic we did employ. The sections and chapters create a knowledge base that has never before existed. It will be studied as the state of the art in the field of urban education and serve as the starting point for a new research agenda for this century, this world. This accomplishment should be credited, not to us, but to the entire team who made it possible. The section editors conceptualized their sections, sought out who they thought to be the best thinkers and scholars in the regions to write chapters, diligently and doggedly worked with the authors to produce high quality pieces, and wrote the section introductions. The authors had the major responsibility for conducting the necessary primary and secondary research, for conceptualization and writing, and finally for the quality of the chapters themselves. We have been fortunate to work with some of the best scholars in the world and this volume demonstrates how impressive their collective work can be. It is important for the reader to be aware that just as urban education varies so do the practices of scholars. You will note variations in research and writing practices across the sections and even between nations or regions within sections. Some of this is really about the limits of translating into English, but less than might be presumed. We have learned much about scholarship internationally by working through this volume, and in particular learned to acknowledge the differences in practices but even more so to respect what the practices yield. A number of the section editors were able to meet together at the American Educational Research Association conference in San Francisco, California in April of 2006. The others were consulted with via email and in-person meetings in other venues. In these discussions, we worked on pulling the volume together. One key item was how to end the volume. It seemed to all involved that there was no sensible way to write a conclusion to the volume. Yet the section editors thought that there was value in some novel way of pulling the work together. In the end, Allan Luke offered to write a dystopia that would allow the section editors to envision the future from where they were now in each region. This became our way to push the volume beyond what was
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known to what could be. Time and events will tell, of course. But we think this ending has both practical and pedagogical merit. It allows readers to move outside the box of current understanding and to think broadly about the forces that will affect urban education in the future. It also provides a teaching tool for those who teach courses in urban education. Moving from what is known to what is not is always the challenge of teaching. We hope these brief excursions will help students think their own way free of current assumptions. As the overall editors of this volume, we have spent several years thinking, reading, discussing and arguing with each other, the section editors and contributors. We have been exceedingly fortunate in all this. We hope that all scholars have the opportunity we have had, largely made possible by the smaller world created by internet technology. All the work for all these years has been worth it in so many ways. We think this work obligates us and, we hope, all readers, to seek to change the world in which we live to benefit all its peoples. This is not an issue of simple will. It requires all of us to think more deeply about how we are quick to judge and slow to understand. It pushes all of us act more inclusively and less selfishly. It demands courage and diligence. It takes both knowledge and moral conscience. We hope we are up to the challenge and that you are as well.
George W. Noblit and William T. Pink
Introduction URBAN EDUCATION IN THE GLOBALIZING WORLD George W. Noblit* and William T. Pink† *
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.; Marquette University, U.S.A.
†
Urban education has long been viewed as a localizing endeavor, placing education into a specific geographic context. From this perspective, schools belong to the city and usually a specific city. The schools of London are different from those of Chicago, which are different from those of São Paulo, which, in turn, are different from those of Singapore. The generalization that these are all urban is actually not about the nature of the cities, for that would be a foolish abstraction that belies the real differences in region, nation, peoples, culture, and even climate. Urban, rather, is a generalization as much about geography as it is about the idea that urban centers have problems: problems of too many people, too much poverty, too much crime and violence, and ultimately too little hope. Cities, of course, are also about the mirror image and this is signaled by the term “urbane.” In this term, we see the city as the locus of high culture, sophistication, and an area with a population with the means to participate in what was once known as a “cosmopolitan” way of life (Merton, 1957). Urban-urbane is a problematic that drives this book, an exploration of the state of urban education across the globe. As an International Handbook, the goal has been to capture much of the range of perspectives from around the globe. Yet, of course, this can only be a partial accomplishment, for no book can truly hope to capture the full range of perspectives around the world about any topic. Scale defies scope, while extent exceeds range. Nevertheless, the International Handbook does achieve more than any other has in this regard and requires us to explore the limits of our traditional understanding. We must push urban beyond a locale and explore its global nature. In doing so, we do not reject the notion of a city as a locale, rather we stress a conjunction as in the popular claim that the local is global – the global is local (GibsonGraham, 2002). This “glolocal” conjunction points to a meaning for urban that is as expansive as it is significant. Yet, to date, this conjunction only heightens the problematic of urban-urbane by adding an additional dimension. This dimension may be seen in the cosmopolitan idea – one that has changed the world, making a new class that is beyond a locale. This upper class has long moved between cities and nations and xv
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now it is a force in globalization. Their social, economic, symbolic, and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) spans the globe, making the world smaller, and more interdependent, even as it increases the dependency of working classes that are subject to the economic forces of globalization. In ways never imagined even in the industrial era – when immigration was a vehicle to create both the needed workforce and sufficient surplus labor to suppress wages – global capital now sees labor as almost infinitely mobile, subject to the whims of capital as it seeks the lowest cost production and services. This almost infinite mobility is both real and virtual. As with industrialism, the real mobility of labor fuels immigration and diaspora. African labor is spread across Europe and North America. Latino immigration is mostly to the United States at this time but that is likely to be temporary. Asian labor (both physical and intellectual) is dispersing across the globe to countries with dominant positions in the international economy and with well-developed educational systems, especially higher and graduate education. The new “creative class” (Florida, 2002) is also moving, but in opposite directions to oversee plants (and design processes and technology) with low labor costs in Costa Rica and China, for example. Virtual mobility, of course, is made possible by the expansion of computer-based technology and, literally, the world-wide web. Some workers are able to work from home or off-site because their work does not require face-to-face interaction. It is computer mediated at the minimum. While many in the West joke about technical support for their computers being based in India or other nations, this is only the first move. India is outsourcing this work as well, to places with even lower wages. What we once so definitively referred to as the Third World is now an ever-shifting landscape that capital slides through extracting profit before moving on in search of ever more profit. Indeed, this International Handbook can be seen as an example of virtual mobility. The book is written in English by many people whose first language is not English. This is because the largest market for books is in English speaking nations and/or educational systems that are based wholly or in part in English. The chapters were written wherever and sent via e-mail to the United States and then once organized and edited sent on to the European publisher, Springer. From here the text was transmitted to India where it was put into production, which resulted in authors receiving page proofs as PDF files. With virtual labor mobility, the worker stays in one place while her/his production travels to where it makes the most profit for global capital and the urbane class. Education takes place in urban, suburban, and rural areas and, while none of these can escape the forces of globalization, the urban schools are the ones most caught up in the urbane-urban problematic. There are many reasons for this, including that urban educational systems are part of the social problem side of the conjunction. Clearly, urban centers have highly prestigious schools and universities, sometimes private, but the bulk of the population in cities is relegated to schools that are as stigmatized as the people who attend them. It is no wonder then that students escape them by dropping out, but this is usually after the school has already made clear that the institution is so devalued that it cannot deliver on its promises of an education that will enable students to change their life circumstances. Urban schools also fail such students by pushing them out because the institutions cannot survive in their current form by having students who understand how things actually work (Fine, 1991). Put directly, they must be
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put out to save the myths that allow the institution to survive: we continue to blame the victim not the school for the large-scale academic failure of urban students. This means that urban as an adjective to education also is not only about geography. This adjective covers a host of sins, one might say. In economically dominant nations, urban education is about stratification in its most distasteful form. The prevalent myth is that schools stratify either in the name of mobility or meritocracy, but urban schools can promise neither (Anyon, 2005; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Oakes, 1985). They are more closely connected to welfare and criminal justice agencies than they are to institutions of higher education, or even to employing organizations. In dependent economies, urban education is almost the only hope for any education even if this education has little currency beyond the low probability of minimal employment (which is, of course, a step above abject poverty). Urban education adds to the problematic its own contradiction: urban education is all about hope and the thwarting of hope. This is not to say there are not exceptions to this conception of the problematics of urban centers. As we note in this volume, European cities are decidedly urbane and education in urban schools is less problematic than in the United States. In these cities, the immigrants and poor are systematically pushed to the suburbs and the schools there take on both the stigmatization and the learning challenges of the people they serve. Even in the United States, there are moves in this direction as central cities are “gentrified” and public housing demolished in favor of high-end housing and amenities. Nevertheless, the problematic remains because it is not fundamentally about geography but rather about the conjunction of high culture and low classes. The International Handbook of Urban Education cannot be guided by simplistic definitions of terms that easily demark what is and is not urban education. Indeed, in Mexico, the problem of insufficient teachers for rural areas, for example, is driven by teaching being more attractive in the cities. Sandoval (Latin America Section) in her chapter entitled “Educational Policies and Realities: Initial Education in Mexico,” notes that because the teacher education system in Mexico is large, diversified and uneven in quality this presents problems with respect to the ability of teachers to teach diverse students in an intercultural context. Some argue that urban can be demarked by the size and density of populations, which, while true, misses the mark entirely. If urban is a context, it is a context that is nested, constrained, and constructed. It is nested in that urban must always be relative to suburban and rural. A city is nested in a state, a state in a region, a region in the world. It is constrained in that an urban area is usually bounded by other geopolitical borders. It is also constrained by cultural and economic assumptions about what the city is and how life proceeds therein. It is constructed in that any city is made over time by people and by power. Cities are constructed by the deep-seated beliefs of residents and dominant classes and by multiple and intersecting forces of change. It is nested, constrained, and constructed in and by local interests, public policies, worldviews and ideologies, global capital, and most importantly, by the necessities of everyday survival. The urban context so defined offers little definitiveness – it remains a problematic to be studied, to be interrogated, and hopefully to be transformed. This is how we recommend the reader approach this volume. It should be read not as a set of facts, although it is full of them, rather it should be read as an intellectual
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project. This intellectual project should be as constructive as it is critical, as efferent as it is aesthetic (Rosenblatt, 1978), as scholarly as it is activist. Our primary motivation in conceptualizing this International Handbook was to stimulate and guide transformative thinking that would lead to improved education for all citizens living in urban centers worldwide. To this end, we worked hard to recruit both section editors and contributors who are as committed as we are to constructing a text that both interrogates current thinking about and practice in urban education and problematizes how that thinking and practice might be reformed in the future. In short, we are all committed to the project of the International Handbook leading to new possibilities for the globalizing world. To this end, we invite you, the reader, to read with six concepts or analytic lenses in mind. Each concept or lens tries both to embrace all that is included here and to speak to the urban-urbane problematic. The six concepts are: multiplicity, power, difference, capital, change and intersectionality. A useful analogy here is the visit to the optometrist for a periodic vision check. Once you are seated in the chair and a vision chart is projected onto the screen, the optometrist proceeds to slide different lenses into the frame covering your eyes. The question posed each time is, “Is this better or worse?” Your task is to tell the optometrist if the symbols on the vision chart are made clearer as each lens is inserted. This process is repeated, “Is this better or worse?” until the best clarity is achieved. Using this analogy, we suggest that the following six concepts or analytic lenses can be used to help bring urban education into sharper focus. The last concept or lens, intersectionally, lays out the necessity for looking through multiple lenses at the same time in order to bring urban education in the sharpest focus possible: it is this multiple “causality” argument, of course, which suggests that the reform of urban education, independent of context, must rest on multiple rather than single interventions.
Multiplicity As we read the draft chapters, we were drawn all too naturally into seeking patterns across chapters, nations, and regions. There was so much richness that capturing such patterns would have required a strategy to make all the complexity manageable. Reducing it all to themes that could stretch across the chapters revealing similarities and differences is a common process for researchers and one that seemed productive when we started out. Yet we ultimately found this to be a poor plan for understanding the complexity that these chapters present to us. This process also has a tendency to strip the context from the individual themes, leaving the themes to largely stand on their own. As scholars, we know that there are ways to deal with this when engaging in a qualitative research project. Even attempts to synthesize studies have techniques to counter the context stripping of thematic analysis (Noblit & Hare, 1988; Patterson, Toren, Canam, & Jillings, 2001; Thorne, Jenson, Kearney, Noblit, & Sandelowski, 2004). Yet as we read deeper it was apparent that our natural inclinations were leading us astray. A text such as this has such range and diversity in topics as well as locales that the thematic approach ultimately fails. We suggest that context (culture, nation, and region) is so central to understanding urban education that a better approach is to read each chapter
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so that themes are embedded in the specific context and subsequently to work hard to understand how the linkages between themes can be clearly understood. We understand that the typical approach for a reader to make sense of a book of this size is to develop a way to think about the mass of pieces as a whole: to construct, if you will, normative patterns or statements. But we argue that a better way to approach this is not to summarize and construct generalizations, but rather to recognize and embrace multiplicity. The differences between nation and region, and even within nation and region, deserve to be respected. This, in turn, means that instead of seeking some unifying process, we suggest that the reader is better served by embracing the formulation that the nature of urban education in a global sense is multiple. Urban education really is different in different places and thus understanding the many meanings of urban education is the educative goal. Importantly, we think this approach is also more likely to lead to ideas about change in any one part of the world. Through comparison, it is possible to reconsider the meanings, social practices, and policies of urban education in your own nation or locale. Indeed, we hope that embracing multiplicity will lead to transformative efforts based on the idea that there are many ways to conceive of and enact urban education that can provide alternatives to the prevailing and frequently restrictive local conceptions and enactments. Thus we recommend that you, the reader, begin this International Handbook of Urban Education accepting multiplicity as a key concept which must be both understood and embraced. Many questions arise from such a fresh perspective, including (1) “How is it that there are multiple forms of urban education, multiple interpretations, multiple arenas and multiple actors?” (2) “What can we learn about our own setting from seeing a wide variety of settings?” and (3) “What strategies enable us to consider multiplicity as an asset for change and for empowerment?” We do not wish to predetermine the answers for these questions and would also note that it is indeed a mistake to attempt to anticipate either the questions or answers for parts of the world we have not inhabited. Yet we can offer an example of the kind of thinking that we recommend. As two scholars with a long-held interest in school improvement and who reside in the United States, we naturally read the chapters that follow asking in what ways they can inform our own conception of reform for urban schools in the U.S. Using a chapter from this Handbook should suffice to illustrate the approach we recommend for the reader with respect to the concept of multiplicity. In the Europe Section, Francesca Gobbo offers an intriguing chapter on Italian circus people entitled “Between the Road and the Town: The Education of Traveling Attractionists.” Gobbo offers considerable insight into the lives of circus folk who carry both their education and their homes with them as they move around from work site to work site. Clearly, there are circuses that travel the United States and who educate the children of circus employees. Gobbo’s chapter from Italy, we suggest, while clearly situated in a particular social and cultural context, can help us understand the education of circus children in the U.S. Since there is little educational literature in the United States on the education of circus children, there are good reasons to use this study from Italy to open up that line of study here. However, in suggesting this we also want to remind the reader that we want to push this work beyond merely noting the similarity and difference to be found in the two contexts. This chapter, for example, has real
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power because it forces us to consider how education tends to be fixed to a site, a school, and a community. Pushing this further, we wonder how education the United States might be different if schools were not tied to fixed geographies. That is, if education was mobile would it also be possible to escape the stigmatization attached to education in cities? This also makes us rethink Castells’ (1979) key argument about the urban crisis in the United States. He argues that there is, in fact, no crisis because what is defined as a crisis is long-standing and because it is better understood as a crisis of a specific form of capitalist accumulation, consumption, and reproduction of the social order. Moreover, he argues that instead of understanding urban areas as having problems based on what is there (e.g., poverty, underemployment, crime, deteriorating buildings), it is more useful to understand these problems as products of what has left (e.g., capital, the upper and middle classes, political control of the city). This leads us to ask if education is not already mobile for people of privilege? The upper and middle classes, for example, have long had the resources to relocate to areas with the most desirable schools. While school desegregation efforts that transported AfricanAmerican students to White schools certainly had elements of mobility, what was missing, of course, was the option for the African-American families to also move their residence and place of employment. As a consequence, they could never belong to the new school in the same ways as White families did. Gobbo’s chapter on the education of circus children also leads us to consider how education might be different when the community itself provided it, rather than the state (see Shujaa, 1994). This raises profound questions about the future of education in cities. One central question we must ask is, “Is it possible to remove the blight associated with urban schooling by moving outside the governmental system that created and sustains the inner city schools as we know them today, by reconstituting them using a self-help logic?” The point we are making is that reading this volume through the analytic lens of multiplicity of conceptions and forms will enable us to reconsider the assumptions we have about urban education in our home countries. We suggest that multiplicity both invites and enables us to develop a key insight essential for us to gain communicative competence (Bowers, 1984). Here, we are better able to surface and name our takenfor-granted assumptions, understand how these assumptions constructed via primary and secondary socialization have both a positive and negative impact on our thinking and action, and how this insight forms a basis for an assessment of which assumptions we should change or modify, as well as which assumptions we should keep (Pink, 2004). Our invitation to read this volume with multiplicity in mind is not, of course, an innocent one. Put directly, we see reading for multiplicity as a key way for the reader to imagine doing otherwise, and potentially to actually do otherwise.
Power While there are clearly many different contexts and dynamics at play in urban education globally, urban education cannot be understood by assuming that it has come about as some sort of natural development. We must now acknowledge that the Hegelian-type histories that show time to be moving away from a primitive state towards an advanced state are not credible accounts of inevitable forces of development. The point here is multiple
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as well. History does not march forward. Indeed, this linear notion of time is clearly a Western idea, which was imposed on the wider world as part of colonialism. This linear conception of time did, of course, enable the railroads to be built in the U.S. and to run on a timetable. This was a rather different conception, however, from other notions of time as spiraling or repeating in fundamental ways. It was also clearly different from notions of time being embedded in activity, such as the farm cycle, instead of being a measure to control activity. The point is that time simply has no meaning outside of the interpretations constructed by humans. Interpreting history as the march of progress, therefore, says less about history than about our cosmology and cultural beliefs. Progress has become a problematic for a world in the face of so much destruction of human life such as in Darfur, or Iraq, or in the face of the unfortunate fate of all too many nations that escaped the control of the USSR and moved towards democracy only to fall victim to despots and criminals. Francis Fukuyama’s (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, for example, turned out to be less prescient than he had wished. Nevertheless, urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon. The question becomes, “If we reject the notion of history moving naturally towards life being characteristically urban, then how are we to account for this?” Again the answer will be multiple. Urbanization has different histories in Europe than in the United States, for example, and certainly different from Asia or Latin America or Africa. In Europe, many urban centers have their origins as fortifications, castles, redoubts, and the like. The centuries of war over who was to be the dominant king, the expansion of realms in terms of empires, and/or which was to be the dominant religion structured settlements as defensive sites. With so much conflict and conquest, many farmers came to live in or near the fledgling urban center and to leave the center for the day (or longer) to work the fields before returning home to the security of the defended settlement. While this pattern was replicated in the early settlements in the U.S., western expansion and the systematic decimation of the Native Americans who contested control over the land meant that farmers were more widely dispersed geographically. The Industrial Revolution changed patterns of urban life in both Europe and the United States. In the former, factories were often set up near cities to take advantage of labor but in the latter farmers had to be converted to urban dwellers to create a potential labor force. As factories grew in the United States, the immigration of Europeans came to be a policy of creating surplus labor to restrain wages, making the cities the multiethnic enclaves that led to the phenomena of ethnically hyphenated identities such Italian-American and African-American. In parts of Africa, by contrast, urbanization has been fueled by both failed agricultural policies and the push to westernize the economy. The chapter entitled “Urbanization and Schooling in Africa: Trends, Issues and Challenges from Ghana During the Colonial Era” by Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah (Africa Section), for example, details the power of both missionary and British colonial interventions in Ghana to shape schooling using a materialistic European model, which showed an arrogant disregard for local practices, traditions and customs. In the chapter by Rui Yang (Asia Pacific Section) entitled “Urban-Rural Disparities in Educational Equality: China’s Pressing Challenge in a Context of Economic Grown and Political Change,” the problematics of the concentration of wealth in the urban centers of China is explored: Yang notes how these policies must be revisited, especially in light of rapid urbanization and the growing market economy,
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while arguing for the urgent need to develop the idea of social justice in education both in the urban and rural regions of the country. Yet the point is that the development of urban settlements is not natural but rather can be understood as the result of contests over power. It not necessary to accept Foucault’s (1977) notion of power being everywhere to understand how cities are the result of struggles over who shall control the different arenas of life. Foucault offers an interesting explanation of power though that helps us understand the link between power and the apparent inevitability of urbanization. Power and knowledge are inextricably linked in what he calls regimes of truth. Put more simply, power is based in forms of knowledge and the exercise of knowledge legitimates and makes political arrangements seem natural. Power also makes subjects of people because those without it can be negatively characterized and treated as less deserving: women, for example, are enslaved for sex trafficking in cities across the world, while both genders are forced to work in factories and those who are not physically coerced may have no other option than a sweat shop to earn even an insufficient wage for family survival. We remain unsure about Foucault’s argument while insisting that even the enslaved have, as Scott (1990) has argued, “arts of resistance.” Whatever perspective the reader takes on the nature of power, it is clear that cities come to exist and change through the exercising of various kinds of power. Similarly, we suggest, urban education is fully imbued with power and struggle. Education itself is always political, and when the state sponsors it or denies it to some, education is clearly being used as a currency of power. People can be denied access to knowledge and/or to jobs through such knowledge, or less robustly through credentialing: work in the sociology of knowledge, for example, has argued how access is managed by the powerful elites as a mechanism for retaining high status knowledge for those selectively chosen (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Education systems are also large employment systems themselves, meaning that the system can be used to benefit some over others simply in terms of jobs being provided, through direct patronage or more subtly through structuring who gets access and who can be credentialed. Education, of course, is also a system that creates stratification both in terms of identifying who lacks “academic ability” and ultimately who can claim credentials as professionals (Oakes, 1985; Ogbu, 1978). Thus, education is not only structured by power, but also acts so as to create who has access to the existing power and status structures. The educated, and here we must include all of those who have contributed to this Handbook (and those of you reading this Handbook), enjoy the privilege of positing the reality of things and thus creating both ideology and, through professing ideology as true belief, hegemony. We, the educated, can create ideas that can be claimed to be facts and in doing so make the history we noted above that, over time, comes to be viewed by others and ourselves as both natural and inevitable. In many ways, the chapters in The International Handbook of Urban Education serve as a corrective to such notions of power hidden behind knowledge. Thus, we see in Latin America, for example, a conscious effort to identify the social movements that challenge the education being used to primarily serve the dominant classes and the state. Several chapters in the Latin American Section (e.g., chapters on Brazil by Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana Goncalves Vidal, and Denise Trento R. de Souza and Marilene Proenca R. de Souza, and
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the chapter on Chile by Dagmar Raczyski and Gonzalo Munoz-Stuardo), for example, interrogate how both the changing form of education in different countries, together with a reassessment of the hegemonic power of the traditional curriculums that worked to reify the power and status of elites and the state, is surfacing opportunities for significant reform of urban education. In the United Kingdom, the chapter by Martin Johnson entitled “Reforming Urban Education Systems,” creates an interesting inversion by demonstrating that even efforts to improve schools have such a political dimension that they are reserved for London with its political might rather than expended, we might say, in the provinces where the impact might escape notice. He argues that the most important force for school reform in the United Kingdom namely, national level policy, has been focused on urban schools with the singular intent of raising student achievement: it is the political, economic and social capital, London, that has enjoyed most of the attention with respect to both the reform initiatives and the available funding. Adkins (1997) has argued that educational reform is in many ways a form of colonialism, albeit a form of internal colonialism (Blauner, 1972). Her argument, when applied to urban education, highlights how cities are seen by many to exist to be exploited for economic and political gain. In noting that cities and city schools exist for reasons that benefit the ruling classes, it is easier to understand how efforts to reform either or both are likely to be used for similar purposes. The irony here is that while corruption scandals signal the possibility of a remedy, the nexus of knowledge and power often constructs inequity as natural and immutable. Thus, even those most exploited may not be able to see how educational systems make them believe they failed, rather than understanding that the system was organized to make them believe this was the case (Fine, 1991). Our point here is to suggest that reading this Handbook through a power lens provides us with insight into a dynamic that is frequently hidden from sight – hidden from sight by the explicit design of those with power to name, control and benefit from the ways things currently work.
Difference Power, of course, creates all kinds of difference. Put all too simply, those with power can decide who is with them and who is against them. This two class set-up is easily elaborated into a wider stratification process that controls who gains access to the spoils of the system. Typically, these stratification systems employ sycophants, individuals not included among the powerful but who benefit by virtue of being aligned with those in power. These individuals are used by the powerful to serve their own interests. These “lesser” individuals can be kept subordinated by assumed differences in class. A good example is the role lower class Whites played in suppressing African-Americans in the American South. Here, African-Americans were constructed by the dominant White classes as threats to the economic position of lower class Whites. The “Lost Cause,” for example, where Whites during Reconstruction (the period post-slavery) suppressed, among many other things the voting rights of Blacks, ultimately led to “Jim Crow” segregation of Blacks from Whites (Tyson, 2004). Here we see the former plantation owners trying to impose the share-cropping system on Southern Blacks and Whites, alike.
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They tried to carefully articulate the system so that Whites saw it in their interest to intimidate Blacks, thereby reducing the demands of both “races” on the landowners to share their profits in ways that would enable those working the land to change their economic and social status. This, of course, is a rural example but the urban cases are no less heinous. The guest worker program in Germany is a good urban example. In this case, while workers from the Middle East were given access to work in the burgeoning German economy in the 1970s, they were systematically denied voting and other rights. Rist (1978) documents that as a response to a worker shortage, German cities filled with Turkish workers who did the unskilled work in factories. Ironically, we must note that at the same time as their labor was important to the expansion of the German economy, these same workers were denied citizenship. The result of this officially sanctioned second-class status is that Middle Eastern nationalities became a racial formation – a distinction that made a significant difference in their life chances in Germany. This ambivalence about the “other” is not an anomaly. Rather, it is the typical pattern: cities often are full of people from different places, but this difference is stratified, so that in practice some benefit from their relocation, while most do not. Urban life has a long history of being attached to two phenomena: gesellschaft relations and difference. Toennies (1955) proposed that one key difference between gemeinschaft (community) and gesellschaft (association) patterns of living was that gesellschaft settings lacked the tight bonds of kinship and history in urban living. Thus, there was a sense that in escaping these bonds the individual had the opportunity to redefine both their belief and action. This conceptualization does seem to promise a new sense of freedom. People move to the city to make something new of themselves. Tönnies formulation did not directly address who would find this an attractive exchange or whether this exchange was equally available to everyone who was drawn into the city: the attraction being less personal relations for more possibility of redefinition. We must also recognize that while gemeinschaft societies built on personal relations are not only more binding, they also worked to exclude some people and groups. As we better understand now, community works to both include and exclude. Thus, as we saw with the rural South in the United States, African-Americans escaped the rural and small towns and moved to the cities in the hopes that they would be “freer” there. In this way, relative freedom becomes an attractor for those who by caste or class are disadvantaged by gemeinschaft life. It is essential to recognize how factors such as class, race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, are all coterminous with the impersonality of social relations in the city. Yet Tönnies’ distinction is also replicated in the city, but again differentially. The wealthy can create enclaves in which gemeinschaft relations may be developed and through their politics and economics of exclusion residential segregation can be imposed on others. It is important to note, however, that in these barrios, ghettos and/or neighborhoods, the gemeinschaft relations can be reconstructed. Gemeinschaft can exist within gesellschaft or, more specifically, gesellschaft relations exist between groups and gemeinschaft can exist within groups. In short, group identity can be constructed within cities and within the racial, gender, class, and sexuality divisions imposed by the dominant groups. As noted above, these relations of difference can be geographically marked in the U.S. In some cities, for example, poor, racial minorities
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are encapsulated in the inner city. In France, by contrast, they may be relegated to the suburbs. In Latin America and Africa, they may be ensconced in “squatter” settlements that encircle the urban areas. In cities that are predominately raced, class becomes geographically marked. Yet there remain neighborhoods or sections of cities that are less exclusive and many consider these sites of possibility. Here, race and/or class, for example, vary but efforts may be made to stabilize these proportionately. The term for this in the United States when referring to race is “stably integrated neighborhoods.” In these neighborhoods, difference is accepted, if not embraced: difference in these settings is seen as a desired quality by the residents, rather than as a liability. At the same time, however, we also see a growing pattern of gentrification where the wealthy buy up property, forcing out the less affluent, in order to transform the neighborhood into residential properties that only the rich can afford. Our argument is that difference is a key attribute of urban areas and urban education and that these patterns of difference make themselves a difference in the way that urban education plays out. We suggest that it is productive for you, the reader, to keep difference in the forefront of your minds as you read this volume: difference, in multiple forms, we argue, is a key factor for an understanding of urban education in the past, present, and future. Looking through this difference lens raises a number of critical questions: for example, “What patterns of difference are in play in the cities, nations, regions and educational systems discussed in this Handbook?” “How is urban education implicated in the reproduction of difference?” “What possibilities are suggested for how difference can make less of a difference, or better yet, no difference?” “In what ways does difference intersect with context and with what result across the various locations in the Handbook?” “How can schools be less reproductive of existing patterns of dominance and become the center of counter-hegemonic interrogation and change?” and finally, “What is the role of education in situations of extreme deprivation and how could that role be recast to reduce or even eliminate such deprivation?” The chapter by Thabisile Buthelezi (Africa Section) entitled “Dimension of Diversity: Educating Urban Township Learners, a Case of Umlazi Township School in Durban, South Africa,” on the ways students construct their own sense of safety in and around their school in South Africa is a powerful illustration of taking up the last question that we posed above. Using student drawings and diaries depicting their characterization of self within what are seen as dangerous and often violent situations, Buthelezi explores how teachers and administrators can both understand themselves in these depictions and how they might reconceptualize their role in changing the perceptions students’ have about their school and their community. In short, we can see here how understanding difference, by using a difference lens when reading these chapters, can help us develop a set of personal strategies that can contribute to change, rather than the maintenance of the status quo.
Capital Historically, capital referred to accumulated wealth that could be mobilized for investment. As such, capital is a force in much of history. In colonialism, capital was accumulated by extracting raw materials from colonized lands and selling them in other markets.
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In industrialism, these materials were transformed often in the colonizing nations and sold at a profit, enabling even more capital accumulation. In post-colonialism, raw materials and industry can be distributed globally in service of capital accumulation. All this was made possible by the development of finance. Currently, the captains of industry are no longer the owners of industry. Instead, the owners are financial corporations which buy and sell corporations to maximize profit. While these may be publicly held corporations “owned” by shareholders, the new financial elite work by owning significant quantities of stock which, in turn, are used as sources of pressure to maximize their return on investment. Capital accumulation has become the dominant industry itself. Even technology firms, which seem to be a driving force of the new knowledge-based economy, are evidence of this change. The term “venture capital” signals that knowledge and technology are the products of capital in fundamental ways. Clearly, venture capitalists are hoping that the new developments they are funding will enable even more capital accumulation to be once again ventured. Yet in this process, the production of goods and services is not the basis of capital accumulation but rather the reverse. Capital, through marketing and manufactured consumption, becomes the basis of production, and industries are but temporary vehicles for capital to expand upon itself. The global economy is characterized by a shifting geography of industry, not simply because the goods can be produced more cheaply, but because the profit margins can be maximized through such diversification. One of the ironies in this shift to a global economy is that many living in urban areas are made destitute, while at the same time the city remains the only hope for earning a living wage. The maximization of profit margins within globalization appears to be insensitive to the geographic destruction of cities and the lives that it can leave in its wake. In the global economy, there are but two classes: the creative class (Florida, 2002) and a dependent class that serves the creative class. In a twist of economic logic, the creative class is both the generator of wealth and the primary consumer. The dependent working class is to consume as well, of course, but the distribution of wealth is such that they are very much the secondary market. It is becoming clearer now that the targeted market of this new economy is not a middle class that has disposable income enabling it to be a consumer class: this class is quickly disappearing as technology is enabling the replacement of the managerial class’s control of work and workers with information systems. Rather, the new market, the growth market, has become public services themselves (Murphy, 1999). In this view, education is seen as a new market: this new market can be characterized as public services for private gain. This logic is not new, of course. Governments require the purchase of goods and services. One key turning point though was the development of what came to be called the “military industrial complex” after World War II. What is new now, however, is the concept that capital can deliver governmental services better than the government itself. The irony that must not be lost here is that these services were originally designed to protect citizenries from the excesses of capital (Murphy, 1999). Simply put, urban education is a key market because of the scale of the operations. Millions of children need breakfast and lunch, books, paper, transportation, etc. In the United States, the No Child Left Behind legislation took the move to privatization to a new level requiring, for example, that schools purchase tutoring and so on if schools
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are unable to raise test scores to a sufficient level: in Chicago, the schools were prevented from offering such remedial after school tutoring themselves and were forced to spend millions of dollars to hire for-profit venders. This effort and many others like it might well be characterized as a back door into voucher systems of private education that have enjoyed repeated support from the present federal government, but have received little support from the majority of parents and public school teachers and administrators. These fiscal systems are intended to fund proprietary schools: the danger here, of course, is that such a shift in funding priorities might ultimately reduce if not eliminate public schooling. The goal is not actually to reduce the cost of education but to transform it into a profit center for capital accumulation. This “reform agenda” now spans the globe. This makes education and urban education in particular, one the newest markets of the new economy. Bourdieu dramatically expanded the concept of capital in his work on the forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986). He argued there are several forms of capital including symbolic, social, cultural, as well as the better known economic capital. Yet the logic of capital seems to work for each of these. His point is that each of us accumulates each of these forms of capital and that these different forms have a particular value in the various marketplaces of social life: each form of capital, he notes, can be exchanged in the appropriate marketplace. His conceptions have been used singly in very productive ways. Social capital has found a following among sociologists as network relations and obligations that can be used to signal levels of access and advantage (Coleman, 1961). Cultural capital similarly has found a home in anthropology and especially in analyses of education (Levinson et al., 2000). Symbolic capital, to date, (Bourdieu talks about both recognition and misrecognition) is but a footnote to this work and has been less popular in the social sciences. In any case, Bourdieu was never as interested in these types of capital singly, than he was in their transformations into economic capital. That is to say, he was less interested in the discrete conceptions themselves, than he was in developing a conceptual framework that could explain how people made something else of them. Focusing on transformation has a particular significance in urban education. Cities offer both peril and promise, as we have argued above, and this can be true for each type of capital that Bourdieu has theorized. Social capital often brings people to cities. Individuals often follow another family member in migration, or they realize that it will only be through patronage and/or sponsorship that they can change their status in life. Historically, cities have offered more possibilities for such transformations than the village. Social capital is also often imperative to survival in cities. Patronage is often required for protection and thus gangs can be seen as reasonable options for urban dwellers. Gaining access to work may be so organized that social capital is essential for job and housing consideration (Schmidt, Scott, Lande, & Guasti, 1977). Similarly, family or gang membership can be used to compete for and take over some economies. Even getting access to schooling, certainly what is typically considered “good schooling,” depends on social capital. Admissions decisions to selective high schools and colleges, for example, must be made on some basis and being “connected” often lends an advantage to the applicant. Tribes, families, networks, patrons, and friends all are essential to urban survival. Access to K-12 schools may require such capital, while success in schools often
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depends on being assigned to the high status classes and on being associated with the right student groups (Coleman, 1961; Foley, 1990; Oakes, 1985; Ogbu, 1978). While cultural capital acts in a more subtle way, it has great authority. With social capital, the individual needs an affiliation, which is not always an easy accomplishment. With cultural capital, by contrast, the individual signals that they belong by speaking and acting as if they belong to a group. Every group has a cultural capital, but some groups command a higher status in a society. Being a “natural” member of such a group or passing as a member of a group means holding and projecting a complex set of assumptions, beliefs and ways of acting that signal group membership (Goffman, 1959). It is important to know which fork to use at a formal dinner not because eating is impossible with the wrong fork or no fork, but because the use of the correct fork signals the affiliation of the individuals with the class that displays such “correct”/high status table manners. Cultural capital is often difficult to achieve because, in many ways, it is the small things that trip up pretenders. This is all complicated globally by colonialism, of course. Being British, for example, may require a certain way of acting at home, but with a foreign War Lord a different way of acting may give more status and more possibility of reward. Schools are often regarded as mechanisms of social mobility but cultural capital is a currency of such mobility. Access to a higher class is typically problematic for those not born into that class: this difficulty points to the difference between analysis using designations of social class versus those using socioeconomic status (the former are built around notions of class as cultural difference, while the latter are built around notions of class as an economic factor). Schools can teach elements of this but most public schools are culturally middle-brow, at best. Access to schools for the elite, by contrast, usually takes having social capital, together with the knowledge that your beliefs and social practices are appropriate for that status. Being successful in such schools, or say merely attending a Public school in England, converts into more social capital for the elites and into economic capital via subsequent entry to high status occupations. Symbolic capital refers to the recognition of status: dressing “well,” for example, does not mean the same thing for all classes. The key here is that how the individual dresses signals that they belongs to the status group. Like culture, symbols are subtle yet definitive. The individual may dress “down” but how that is done signals to others that the individual belongs, when others dressed the same do not. Symbolic capital can come with credentials as well. Graduating from the “right” schools and having the “right” family are signs for certain classes. The key, of course, is that the symbol has worth as a marker of belonging to the group in question. Clearly, having a set of appropriate symbols is more convincing that a lone symbol. Urban areas allow a considerable range of symbols to be available to all participants, but not all have currency in the labor force, or even in schooling. Teachers are key actors in adjudicating who can have access to and use which symbols in schools and thus who can potentially transform such symbols into economic capital (Bowers, 1984; Bowles & Gintis, 1976). Education is arguably the major arena where social, economic and symbolic capital may be parlayed into economic capital. That schools function as an arena for the transformation of capital does not deny that they are also institutions of social reproduction. Indeed, social reproduction is made possible by allowing some individuals and groups
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to transform, while denying that transformation to others. This makes educational institutions much more complex and dynamic than we have been led to believe by correspondence theories (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). This understanding also problematizes the usual notion of transformation as being part of liberatory or emancipatory work. Rather, the argument is that only some have currency that can be tendered in exchange for economic gains, and what is denied is not access to education but rather the ability of the individual to transform social, economic and symbolic capital into economic capital. By slipping on the capital lens, we encourage you, the reader, to examine how urban areas and urban education work together to both enable and deny the transformation of capital for individuals and groups, as well as examining how education itself has become a market that transforms public funds into private capital. Two chapters in the United Kingdom Section will illustrate the kinds of insights that can be discerned about urban education when examining it through this lens. In her chapter entitled, “Urban School Improvement,” Barbara MacGilchrist (United Kingdom Section) argues that while both research and reforms have become progressively more sophisticated over time, they have failed to fully explicate how school effects and background effects can be conjoined to close the gap in student academic achievement between white students and students of color. In short, her position is that the most important issue still confronting urban schools is how they might function more effectively to raise the social, symbolic, cultural and economic capital of students who are other than white and middle- and upper class. While arguing that schools must be seen as capable making a difference in disrupting the movement of students from social class origins to social class destinations, she notes how they certainly cannot do it alone. In taking up a set of emerging and problematic issues with respect to the privatization of urban schools, Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty (United Kingdom Section) in their chapter entitled, “The Governance of Urban Education in the UK: A Public, Private or Partnership Future,” ask if the use of private sector strategies to address public sector problems is viable, especially when the persistent and long-standing difficulties with differential student learning (connected to factors such as race, class, gender, and school organization, etc.) are at play. In particular, their analysis details a variety of reform strategies that that are built on either rebuilding the local capacity to offer key services, or outsourcing for these same services. Here, of course, they highlight the distinction between believing that individuals in the local urban school community have the ability to improve their own education, versus the view that not only are these individuals unable to do this but that the required expertise is commanded only by experts that typically do not have their own children in the schools to be reformed. Again, our suggestion here is that to bring urban education into better focus the International Handbook should be read through the lens of capital, in each of its types.
Change We are socialized to think that change is ubiquitous. We take our aging to be natural so that as we experience the passage of time we identify it with change itself. Yet, since all lives follow this process it could be as easily argued that this is not change at all, but
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rather a steady state. We also apply a similar interpretation to the passage of time and to events. We link events and create sequences of them: we then proceed to objectify what we have subjectively created. To these patterns we can also assign broader meanings, putting them in wider contexts. It is in this way that we wrap assumptions around the passage of time to create such things as trends, causality, eras, and epochs. As Berger and Luckmann (1967) argue in their discussion of the social construction of reality, the language that we use to communicate and think is learned through both primary and secondary socialization: the problematic, of course, is that within this received language that we uncritically internalize and use to engage in the process of communicating with others, are encoded the values, beliefs and taken-for-granted assumptions of our significant others. Consequently, as we live our lives we are experiencing history in the making. More pointedly, it can be argued that we make history by the assumptions we wrap around the passage of time in human life. That is to say, we are both implicated in history and historicity. History is typically defined as the narration of events, sequences, and meanings of these sequences of events in such a way that generates an interpretation of the past as having some order amidst the documented changes. Most history narrates how one thing leads to another, even if the claim to causality is over-wrought. History then normalizes change in a particular manner. Change is narratively created as normal, leaving pace to be one of the few things that may vary. Thus, when we say that things are moving faster now than they were before, we are also normalizing change as ubiquitous. History, however, is also lived and experienced by humans. This historicity can have a rather different character than history itself. In some parts of the world, the lived history is chaotic and filled with chance rather than being a sequence of events that connect and/or unfold. Change understood in this way is less a grand narrative and more a lived life, comprising all its mundainities and drama. We can think of life on the streets of the city in this same way. Life on the streets is both struggle and boredom. Life on the streets is both dangerous and tedious. Life on the streets is both outside the experience of other urban dwellers and fully in interaction with these dwellers, as with pan handling and hustling. Change in this way is close to experience and rather distinct from the narrative of change as normal. Pace may be less salient than demarcations of drama which concentrate and explicate both the everyday routines and their disrupture. We argue that much of what follows in this International Handbook is constructed as history that explicates change and stasis. Yet the chapters that focus on close study of cases may invite us into how lives are spent over time. Change, then, for us is not an assertion of how the world is but rather an interrogation of how history and historicity both characterize urban life and urban education. To illustrate this point it would be useful to cite several chapters from the text. A chapter by Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang (North American Section) entitled “Success Stories in Urban Education,” details the importance of care in classrooms purposefully designed to be both personally and culturally relevant for urban students: we see here how powerful is the impact of trusting student-teacher relationships to students’ developing a perception of themselves as capable and valuable members of a learning community. In the chapter by Priscilla Qolisaya Puanau and G. Robert Teasdal (Asia Pacific Section) entitled “The Urban and the Peripheral: New Challenges for Education in the Pacific,” they focus on detailing
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the historical shifts in education in 15 independent and self-governing nations in the Pacific region. Noting how the education on these islands remains a legacy of varied colonial interventions, they argue that these old-world practices and ideologies are highly resistant to change. Puanau and Teasdal detail the potential impact of the PRIDE (Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education) program for guiding curriculum reform and new pedagogical practices, especially for urban students: their focus on the impact of urbanization on the various indigenous cultural systems and vernacular languages is particularly insightful with respect to the ways histories are constructed. This theme of constructing a different history is also taken up by Ove Sernhede (Europe Section) in his chapter entitled “Urbanization of Injustice, Immigrant Youth and Informal Schooling.” His focus is on a group of marginalized youth from immigrant families, segregated in a Swedish suburb, who develop a positive identity for themselves which is very different from the identity projected on to them from a history of colonialism and the prevailing cultural perceptions concerning both discrimination and inequality in the society: the catalyst for building this alternative history is the development of a hip-hop subculture that enables these youth to project themselves as the leaders of the marginalized under-class. A final example is the chapter by Kinuthia Macharia (Africa Section) entitled “Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization: The Case of Educating the Youth in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements,” that explores the marginalization of Kenya’s urban population, with a particular focus on the limited access to schools afforded the children in Nairobi’s “informal settlements.” He documents the efforts underway to provide schooling for the street children in Nairobi, as well the successes of the Olympic Primary School opened to provide an education for students living in the Kibera “slum” outside Nairobi. Again, this is an illustration of the ways in which schooling can both disrupt and rewrite the conventional history. It is clear that one of the ubiquities in urban education is migration. Here again, migration seems to have contradictory meanings. For the people moving, change is evident. Yet history is replete with exodus and entrance, suggesting that migration is less a novel change than a common process of urbanization, for example. Urban centers are formed by war, by failed agriculture and by opportunities for work and a way of life. Cities have an existence because of changes and even the desire for changes, but over time migration becomes less a change than a stabilizing force. As above, Castells (1977) argues that the urban is stabilized by the exodus of particular social classes, capital, and political control. The contradiction of stasis and change may explain more about urban education than the simple presumptions of change, and often change for the worse, that is rhetorically invoked as part of calls for action to reform cities or city schools. Reading what follows for how migration defines the issues, but in the end is not easily understood as change, will offer insights into how processes of change may, in fact, change little while simultaneously allowing a claim of “crisis” that justifies extreme actions that inevitably benefit some over others (Castells, 1977). Change can be understood quite differently as well. In our epoch, change is a trope that is used to explain the emergence of urban problems, while conveniently ignoring the fact that these problems are perennial, rather than new. The issue here, of course, is determinism: to what extent can it be said that a prior event determines the emergence
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of a subsequent event? Giddens (1979) argues that this cannot be stated definitively because intention is always in play. Intention or will, of course, brings with it a set of unacknowledged conditions. Intention will arguably lead to some of what is intended but just as importantly, will create unanticipated consequences. For Giddens, the point is that intention is based in unacknowledged conditions and as a result denies the possibility of a deterministic world. Instead of will creating a specific outcome, it creates a set of outcomes, many of which are unanticipated. The narrative of history is challenged here as a retrospective reconstruction of lineages and linkages, rather than an objective account of what happened. What happened is that intention created so much more than intended and less of what was intended than a history captures. We can see this outcome played out in teacher education in Mexico in the chapter by Etelvina Sandoval (Latin America Section) entitled “Educational Policies and Realities: Teachers’ Initial Education in Mexico.” Here she argues that policies were promulgated but did not consider the policy context of multiple institutions and multiple stakeholders. Thus, again and again, policies are attempted only to misspecify the issue and ultimately to lead to unanticipated changes: we simply must acknowledge that things infrequently work out in practice in the same ways as they appear in a written proposal or policy statement. The chapter by Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen (Europe Section) entitled “Urban Regions and their Potential for Teacher Education: The Example of Hamburg,” illustrates this problematic. In noting how urban regions are well placed to coordinate a new program for the preparation of teachers, if only because there is a concentration of teacher preparation institutions in urban regions, they detail a series of unintended outcomes from policy decisions designed to coordinate factors such as a standardized curriculum and student teaching experiences: many of these problems centered on the resistance of both faculty and administration to change in historical practices and the perceived shifts in power that might follow as a result of collaborative projects. This same problematic is also explored in a different context by Lyn Tett (United Kingdom Section) in her chapter entitled “Multi-agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice.” In exploring the efficacy of multi-agency collaborative efforts designed to promote social justice and reduce social exclusion, Tett notes how what happens in practice is frequently very different from what is written from the perspective of overly idealistic policy language concerning multi-agency partnerships: in particular, Tett illustrates the power of organizational histories, internal role practices and power differences between agencies as the reasons for such a distortion in moving from idea to practice. Finally, multiplicity sets a different stage for change as well. Many Western thinkers argue that there are optimal ways to reach desired ends. We have previously commented on the limits of this line of thinking, but an important question to ask is “How did we come to assume that there are optimal ways to obtain the desired fix?” As in mathematics, there are likely different ways to reach the desired end. Such equifinality in organizations has policy significant implications for urban education (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Specifically, instead of searching for the best way to improve urban schools, it might be more profitable to consider all the ways that could accomplish this. Such a stance “frees” urban education from the constraints of conformity, while enabling the development of culturally unique programming. It is evident that there are
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many ways to achieve educative ends and many ways that urban schools could be organized to realize them. The chapter by Sa’eda Buang (Asia Pacific Section) entitled “Madrasha and Muslim Education: Its interface with Urbanization,” develops this point while examining both the history and contemporary developments in Muslim religious schools. In exploring how these schools attempt to remain faithful to religious beliefs in the face of increasing urbanization and a diversifying economy, Buang notes how the responses have been different in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey: this is a clear example of the different ways in which the same ends can be achieved within the context of different socio-economic and political settings. A second interesting illustration of the need to explore multiple ways to reach the goal of closing the achievement gap between urban students and others is the chapter by Maria de Ibarrola (Latin America Section) entitled “Learning to Work in an Industrial Mexican City in Transition.” While the learning of trade related skills in the shoe industry in Leon is the focus, rather than the education offered in the traditional schools in the city, what emerges is that this form of hands-on, apprenticeship learning is a highly effective pedagogical strategy. This insight leads to a discussion about the possibilities of linking schools more directly with the work sites, of bringing the participatory style of learning experienced in the work site into the school, and of developing a range of school programs that speak directly to quality, relevance, and equity. In short, the chapter points to the importance of developing a variety of school programs and learning strategies that will vary by context for improving the learning of students attending urban schools. Equifinality also offers a critique of globalization. Globalization is often seen as a social and economic process to create “one world.” In this view, difference is destroyed as is its correlate, creativity. If there are many ways to achieve a similar end, then the “one world” view is not necessary and may actually have real drawbacks. The new economy, for example, is heavily based in math, science and technology. Yet this economy is driven by a logic that is artistic. Creativity giving way to design is what fuels both technological and scientific advancement. Instrumental logic has its place, but its place is highly dependent on aesthetics. Embracing equifinality brings us back to where we started, arguing that the reader should use the multiplicity lens when reading this International Handbook. Urban education and the world, we argue, are sufficiently diverse for new conceptualizations and new possibilities to emerge.
Intersectionality The sixth and final concept or analytic lens that we want to note is intersectionality. Returning to our analogy of the visit to the optometrist, this is the point where multiple lenses are used at the same time in order for urban education to be brought into the sharpest focus possible. This construct can be seen in the movement away from the idea of linear, cause-effect thinking central to social science grounded in positivism, to thinking in post-positivist social science, the naturalistic or interpretive paradigm, that acknowledges both the social construction of reality and the existence of multiple and simultaneous causality (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The thinking in play here, of course,
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is that life is experienced differently because individuals are different: the same classroom, for example, is experienced differently by boys and girls, white and students of color, and students located in the top and lowest reading groups, etc. This leads us to question the credibility of statements about life in classrooms that fail to recognize and account for such individual differences. To complicate this idea some more, we must also acknowledge that any analysis must account for the multiple characteristics of individuals: it is not sufficient to think about gender, for example, as the social marker for any individual because each individual also holds other social markers such as their social class or whether they are good at sports. Thus, in conducting research in a classroom we must ask “What is the experience of an individual who is a boy, Black and in the top reading group?” as well as “How is that experience similar and different from an individual who is a boy, Black and in the lowest reading group?” We want to note that this isn’t the same logic as engaging in analysis to control for both gender and race while assessing the impact of reading group location, rather it is a question that asks how do gender, race and reading group location work together to structure the classroom experience for the individual. In short, we would be engaging the analytic lenses of gender, race and reading group at the same time. This perspective has made the greatest gains in education in the field known as Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado & Stefancic, 2000; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). This work has skillfully integrated theorizing from several diverse fields in education, that is, Black and Chicano Studies, critical pedagogy, feminist and multicultural education, while posing questions about the experiences of individuals and groups who are both the same and different with respect to characteristics such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, etc. This sensitivity to the ways in which individual and group characteristics both interact simultaneously and play out differently in different contexts has enabled a significant shift in our understanding of the variability of the day-to-day lived experience. The examination of the intersectionality of these characteristics, the recognition that such characteristics are never in play alone but always function in concert with each other, opens up new ways for us both to understand how urban education functions and to conceptualize new ways of attacking the long-standing problems associated with urban education. This means, for example, that it would be a mistake to attempt to remediate the low reading scores of fifth graders in an urban school in Chicago simply by adopting a new reading program. The power of the intersectionality lens reveals that in order to remediate such low reading scores we must also consider factors such as the ways in which teachers relate to children from cultures different from their own, the ways in which the school values student learning over (or vis- a` -vis) discipline, and to what degree the students receive adequate food, sleep, and warm clothing, etc. The chapters in this International Handbook illustrate rather dramatically the importance of recognizing intersectionality as a tool for understanding urban education and for the development of reform strategies. A few examples would be helpful here. In a chapter entitled “Educational Policies, Local Dynamics, and Segregation in the Schools of the Parisian Periphery,” Agnes van Zanten (Europe Section) documents how the organization of schools and instruction, together with the outcomes that they produce, must be seen as the result of government policy, local education authorities,
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local political bodies and environmental configurations. In short, she notes how our understanding of these urban schools must remain incomplete if we do not analyze the intersectionality of these key factors: focusing on the complexity of factors shaping the education of students in urban schools, rather than searching for a single cause, also highlights the necessary scope of subsequent reform initiatives. Following a similar line of argumentation, Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Munoz-Stuardo (Latin America Section) in their chapter entitled “Chilean Education Reform: The Intricate Balance Between a Macro and Micro Policy,” argue that while the Chilean educational reforms of the last 25 years have been somewhat successful, the learning gains cannot be considered adequate and the inequality of the system still persists. They suggest that the best way to address these short-comings is to integrate macro with local level micro policies, strengthen the autonomy of schools to fashion their own practices, develop specific intervention projects to address inequitable learning outcomes and prevent schools from choosing their own students and thus promoting forms of stratification. Again, this view acknowledges the intersectionality of a broad range of factors that must be addressed together in order to achieve urban school reforms. A third and final example is the chapter by Gerald Grace (United Kingdom Section) entitled “Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question to the End of the Millennium.” Grace notes the importance of situating an analysis of education in an intersectional interrogation of the cultural, economic, historical, political and social relations in a given society. He suggests that future theorizing about urban education reforms must be built on an understanding of their historical and structural difficulties: this new theorizing, he suggests, will benefit from the promise offered by the sophistication of intersectional analysis. All this said by way of introducing the text, we suggest that this International Handbook of Urban Education is best read as a tool for opening up conversations about the current status and possible futures of urban education: this view posits the importance of six framing concepts or analytic lenses namely, multiplicity, power, difference, capital, change, and intersectionality. We now invite your close reading of the text. Again, we must remind you that the intent here is neither to narrowly define urban education, nor to offer specific solutions to problems. Rather, our goal is to focus attention on urban schools around the world and to stimulate both debate and action that will lead to improved educational opportunities and outcomes for all students attending such schools, independent of their geographic location or specific context.
References Adkins, A. (1997). The colonial vestiges of education reform. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Anyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. New York: Routledge. Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise on the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Blauner, B. (1972). Racial oppression in America. New York: Harper & Row. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press.
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Bowers, C. A. (1984). The promise of theory. New York: Teachers College Press. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America. New York: Basic Books. Castells, M. (1977). The urban question: A Marxist approach. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Coleman, J. (1961). The adolescent society: The social life of the teenager and its impact on education. New York: The Free Press. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that informed the movement. New York: The New Press. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (Eds.). (2000). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts. NewYork: Teachers College Press. Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. New York: Basic Books. Foley, D. (1990). Learning capitalistic culture: Deep in the heart of Tejas. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. New York: Vintage. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press. Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2002). Beyond global vs. local: Economic politics outside the binary frame. In A. Herod, & M .Wright (Eds.), Geographies of power (pp. 25–60). Oxford, UK: Blackwell (2002). Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems of social theory. London: Macmillan. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. (1978). The social psychology of organizations. (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. Levinson, B., Borman, K., Eisenhaut, M., Fosteu, M., Fox, A., & Suttan, N. (Eds.). (2000). Schooling the symbolic animal. Lanthan, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Lincoln, Y., & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Merton, R. (1957). Social theory and social structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Murphy, J. (1999). New consumerism: Evolving market dynamics in the institutional dimension of schooling. In J. Murphy, & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of educational administration (2nd ed.) (pp. 405–419). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Noblit, G., & Hare, R. (1988). Meta-ethnography: Synthesizing qualitative studies. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ogbu, J. (1978). Minority education and caste: The American system in cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic Press. Paterson, B., Toren, S., Canam, C., & Jillings, C. (2001). Meta-study of qualitative health research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pink, W. T. (2004). Going backstage: Enhancing communicative competence for pre-service teachers. Educational Foundations, 18(3–4), 45–58. Rist, R. (1978). Guestworkers in Germany: The prospects for pluralism. New York: Praeger. Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem. Carbobdale, IL: Southern Illinois Press. Schmidt, S., Scott, J., Lande, C., & Guasti, L. (Eds.). (1977). Friends, followers and factions. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Scott, J. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shujaa, M. (Ed.). (1994). Too much schooling, too little education. Trenton: Africa World Press. Thorne, S., Jenson, L., Kearney, M., Noblit, G., & Sandelowski, M. (2004). Qualitative metasynthesis: Reflections on methodological orientation and ideological agenda. Qualitative Health Research, 14(10), 1342–1365. Toennies, F. (1955). Community and association. London: Routledge. Tyson, T. B. (2004). Blood done sign my name: A true story. New York: Crown.
1 URBAN EDUCATION IN AFRICA: SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Kevin Brennan and Julius Nyang’oro University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, U.S.A.
Introduction We present here one set of snapshots of urban education in Africa, one set out of a universe of possible sets. We have engaged in this collection with authors whose disciplinary approaches describe a wide range of work available in each author’s country of focus. As a result, the reader will find references to local, regional, and national issues in each country studied. Beyond this are found references to Bronfenbrenner’s social psychology, Bourdieu’s notions of social and cultural capital, Saussure’s ideas about language and culture, and approaches in public policy around both the establishment of national language(s), and national identity formation. In addition, authors here take from urban sociology the ideas of equity in education and distributive justice as per John Rawls and Amartya Sen. In short, we sought to permit authors the space to take up their perspectives, in the context of their own research, including the particular national contexts in which they worked. On this point, Suleiman A. Adebowale (2001), in his examination of four prominent journals focusing on Africa (Canadian Journal of African Studies; Africa Development; Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines; and, the Journal of Modern African Studies), points out how few of the articles published in these four journals are written by African scholars. He takes the point further in noting how few Africans are doing their work in Africa. We sought deliberately to incorporate voices of Africa-based, African scholars in this work, in acknowledgement of the point Adebowale is making, and we have succeeded, in part. Other aspects of Adebowale’s argument, such as the idea that African scholars must know the theories of Western scholarship while the reverse is not true, is also partially dealt with here in that readers have an opportunity to investigate the Africa-focused ideas presented here, even as all authors did, in fact, connect their chapters to notions held in Western scholarship. 3 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 3–22. © 2007 Springer.
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What we have included are nine chapters that represent seven countries in Africa (Kenya and South Africa are each represented twice, a result arising from our own personal and professional experiences). Thus, a bare one-eighth of the countries in Africa are represented. As such, this collection in no way presumes to be a definitive statement of urban education in Africa. Rather, it is hoped that the work presented here only constitutes one more place to which scholars can turn to find material on issues in education in Africa.1 Beyond the need to see this work as representing a necessarily broad brush view of education in Africa, a second reaction involved the Handbook’s focus on “urban education.” This term, in the North American context that is home not only to ourselves but also to the general editors of the Handbook, often too blithely and stereotypically evokes images and thoughts of children and families in socio-economically disadvantaged, “at risk” circumstances, and schools that are in “unsafe” areas, surviving with minimal materials and supplies more readily available in American or Canadian suburbia. We consciously offered an open-ended opportunity to prospective contributors when defining for them the parameters of the Handbook project. In this sense, our initial thoughts regarding this volume held that the Africa section might well present examples, situations, and explanations of urban education that run counter to those examples presented from one or more of the other geographic regions represented in the larger volume. Representative of this initial perspective is this comment from Buchmann and Hannum, who themselves are citing Lloyd and Blanc (1996) in noting that: extended family networks in sub-Saharan Africa enable children with academic promise to move to households of “patron” family members, who help them gain access to higher quality schools – often found in urban areas. (2001, p. 83) In the end, we opted to leave it to the authors themselves to define what “urban education” means in their research and their social, economic, and political contexts. What we have found, in the collected chapters, is that our initial sense that urban education in Africa means as much “best schools” as “at risk” environments was not wholly supported. For example, Macharia’s chapter on Nairobi’s street children and efforts to return these children to schools in Nairobi’s slums, as well as Buthelezi’s work in eThekwini/Durban on schoolchildren’s perspectives regarding safety in certain school environments see much that is “at risk” in the schools they describe. Nevertheless, numerous works on schooling in Africa show that urban-based schools are frequently among the older (read: most well-established) schools in a given country.2 Resources for such schools are often found more easily at hand – larger, more accessible, and educated populace, government resources, related infrastructures, etc.3 In late 2004, when the International Handbook of Urban Education project was initially described to us, we thus felt a range of disparate, even contradictory reactions. While it seemed obvious that any such volume would by necessity have to hold within it a sufficient number of chapters and sections such that geographic breadth was achieved, it also seemed that through such achievement the Handbook would pretty well remain just that – broad. It seemed that breadth would also characterize the ways
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in which the volume’s central concept, urban education, would come to be defined. What disciplinary directions and conceptual frames would the various chapter authors utilize to focus their working definition of urban education? Finally, in our specific geographic region, Africa, how would we use the chapters available to us to describe a continent with more than five times as many countries as we had chapters? As quickly as the above realizations came to us, so too came the realization that our choices for inclusion in the Handbook would be in no sense comprehensive or definitive. Rather, we would seek authors from, or working in countries throughout Africa, and pursue chapters that would allow us to offer a multiplicity of perspectives, from a range of academic disciplines, such that an outline might emerge of the complexity of the issues faced by those whose work focuses on education in urban settings. This approach permits us to problematize the “African” as well as the “urban” in education. Joel Samoff points out (1999) that when any given country is a complex entity, often comprised of many different cultural and social backgrounds, to study, for example, Ghanaian education is a sufficiently big enough task. So, as well, would be any study of Guinean education. In Africa, a continent of 50 plus countries, to presume that a single set of ten chapters can describe and offer analysis about a continent’s efforts in education is to presume too much. For us, it is enough that each chapter included in this collection stands as one measure of urban education in its particular country, urban environment, and specific location. The collection itself necessarily becomes descriptive, and comparative, and something to be viewed in light of the contributions from other geographic regions.
Description of Africa Chapters In this section, we offer brief synopses of the included chapters on urban education in Africa. As already noted, these chapters span a number of disciplinary approaches. We have collected them here in something akin to a historical arc, beginning with four chapters that can be thought of as addressing issues in education arising out of colonial endeavors in the respective countries. We then move to a pair of chapters that look at education policy, with a focus on rural-urban comparisons. The final three chapters are more ethnographic and case study in orientation. Kwabena Ofori-Attah’s work focuses on colonial education practice in Ghana, and its impact on what subjects were to be studied. Ofori-Attah focuses primarily on coastal areas of high population, which coincides with the idea of “good schools” in colonial Ghana, which was then known as “Gold Coast.” Ofori-Attah points out that coastal areas became the site of most early schools because that is where the services (including missionary society efforts) supporting colonial governmental and commercial efforts were to be found – piped water, electricity, etc. The so-called Gold Coast Golden Triangle (the territory bound by the railroad lines built by British colonial authorities, Accra – Kumasi – Cape Coast/Takoradi) would be where 90% of colonial-era schools were located. Ofori-Attah argues that this link to commercial and governmental activity is tied to the curricula on offer in the colony’s schools, curricula still tied to those on offer in today’s schools in Ghana. For Ofori-Attah, the hegemony of missionary and
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British colonial approaches to schooling led to students’ and parents’ materialistic views of schooling, seeing education primarily as a pathway to employment, and permitting, even at times encouraging, an ongoing disregard for local practices, traditions, and customs. Thus when one analyzes the crisis in Ghanaian education today, the historical legacy of colonialism must be at the forefront of such analysis. Funwi Ayuninjam, writing on language policy in Cameroon, focuses on the ways in which colonial practice impacted which of Cameroon’s 200 plus languages, if any, would be spoken and heard in school environments.4 Ayuninjam describes the need in present-day Cameroon to define a national policy around the nation’s diversity of language(s) and their use in schools. Ayuninjam connects the choice of language with urban education in noting that Cameroon’s urban centers are polyglot sites where local languages have ceded influence to English and French (the two dominant colonial languages), as well as to Pidgin-English, which is described as a third national (though very much unofficial) language. Ayuninjam details national and regional language policy efforts at all education levels, and the need to incorporate indigenous languages and Pidgin-English as practical circumstance dictates. The inability of the Cameroonian government to come up with a clear and satisfactory language policy is a reflection of the contradiction in national development, and the inability of the government and education policy to shake off deep-seated colonial legacies. Ironically, Cameroon represents the contradictory colonial legacy in Africa where you have both the English and French influences in the contradictions. The inability of most African governments to shed the colonial legacy in education is a common theme in all chapters in this section of the Handbook. Douglas Mpondi’s chapter is a critical examination of Zimbabwe’s national cultural policy and national identity formation in the period after 1980, as Rhodesia morphed into Zimbabwe following a violent war of liberation led by the two guerrilla movements, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwean African Peoples’ Union (ZAPU). At the end of the liberation war, ZANU was triumphant and essentially forced elements within ZAPU to join ZANU in forming the new government. He coercion underlying the merging of ZANU and ZAPU under the former’s leadership meant that the “national question” was going to be a point of contention not only in politics, but also in other spheres, including education. National consent/unity around Zimbabweanization has been “manufactured,” with elements of the population being rewarded and others de-legitimated.5 Mpondi focuses on national examinations and curriculum and notes the conflict in the government’s Zimbabweanization policy. That is, if examinations are “national,” and thus the same for all students taking them, then the exams reflect nothing so much as the government’s imposed view of what “Zimbabwe” means. Mpondi concludes by describing the repressive apparati of cultural conformity to the Mugabe government’s presentation of “Zimbabwe,” and shows how teachers are punished for teaching critical thinking about life in the country today.6 Concluding the set of chapters that focus primarily on historical forces at play in education in Africa today we have Jenni Karlsson’s history of the architecture of public schools in colonial, apartheid-era, and post-apartheid South Africa, and the ways in which constructed spaces generally advanced the colonial and apartheid-era policies of separation of race and ethnic groups in South Africa. Karlsson uses “memory accounts”
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of adults who attended schools in apartheid-era Durban, similar accounts of teachers working at these schools, photographs taken during the period of research, personal communications with school administrators and architects, and school documents to reconstruct a complicated history of the use of “constructed space” to determine the kind of education being passed down to students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds in South Africa. Karlsson’s insightful analysis of the conflation of race and class in pre-1994 South Africa, and the contradictions of change within South African socio-economic system provides a window for a much more critical analysis of education in general, both in the apartheid and post-apartheid period in South Africa. Karlsson looks at present-day learner mobility, and the ways in which class re-emerges as a dividing line in terms of what schools are available to be attended by what kinds of students. Her study concludes with a description of a school built after the fall of political apartheid, showing the ways in which security, as a social and school-based issue, has led to the construction of exactly the kind of security fences and gates that reduce the connection between a community and a school, rendering to the school a kind of outside status and leaving it prone to more, rather than less, vandalism. In our doublet of chapters that take a comparative approach to rural and urban schools, we first offer Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota’s focus on resource allocation and the challenges being faced by schools in terms of the unequal distribution of state and private resources in Malawi. In Malawi, urban schools are viewed as relatively more privileged than rural schools, reflecting the distribution of wealth in the country’s political economy. The authors invoke Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital as a means of examining issues of urban education in Malawi, which they show as being relatively advantaged and privileged in comparison with rural schools. But MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota also list a set of challenges to urban schooling, including incipient overcrowding, the presence of street children, more visible poverty, higher incidence of HIV and AIDS, and other realities of street life. Attempts to deal with these issues stress public resources, increase reliance on private resources to maintain high quality urban schools, and in the final analysis, squeeze out middle-class and lower-class families. The second chapter in the urban-rural comparison is by Alwiya Alwy and Suzanne Schech, who have undertaken a comparative study that looks at ethnicity, politics, and the allocation of scarce state resources that result in inequality in terms of access to educational opportunity in Kenya. Alwy and Schech invoke historical forces in explaining how Kenya has been divided, provincially and ethnically, in ways that have constructed patron-client relationships that enable national leaders to privilege certain regions over others in terms of access to resources for education. In essence, theirs is a comparative analysis of the two regimes that have ruled Kenya since independence: that of Jomo Kenyatta (1963–1978); and Daniel Arap Moi (1978–2002). The authors argue that in both instances, the regimes privileged the ethnic groups from whence the leaders came: Kikuyu and the Central Province under Kenyatta, and the Rift Valley Province under Moi. In both instances, regions such as Coast and North East Provinces were left hanging in terms of resources allocation. Thus, Alwy and Schech bring in the ideas of distributive justice and equity in education of John Rawls and Amartya Sen, and describe how the state should endeavor to support access for the less advantaged
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members of society, such that a level playing field is sought (if not attained).7 Alwy and Schech also briefly note the differences in approach between Tanzanian and Kenya post-colonial education efforts, explaining that it may be Kenya’s elite, and their laissez faire approach to education and societal changes that has led to regional and ethnic differentiation being maintained in Kenya, whereas Tanzania expended much state energy is ameliorating such differentiation. The remaining chapters primarily use qualitative methods in their case studies. The first case is Thabisile Buthelezi’s ethnographic look at how students construct their own sense of safety and utility about and around school in Umlazi Township in eThekwini (formerly Durban), South Africa. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of human development is used as an organizing analytical frame, and Buthelezi uses artsbased qualitative methodologies (drawings & diaries primarily) to get students to focus on describing themselves, their neighborhood or community, their sense of safety and other issues. Schools are a seen as a site of secondary socializing, that is, a site, like their home community, where students begin to formulate conceptions about themselves and their lives. Buthelezi is writing about ways in which this secondary socializing force is realized, and how school-based actors (teachers, administrators) can organize and understand themselves in this role. In the specific case of Buthelezi’s analysis, schools are characteristically overcrowded, and neighborhoods are often violent. School may be a safe place for most respondents, but homes are often not. And the space between the two, often to be negotiated on public transport, is similarly frequently unsafe. Utilizing the arts-based approach, Buthelezi analyzes students’ drawings, finding that both boys and girls draw aspects of strongly materialist culture, with girls generally somewhat more positive in their depictions, and boys more prone to note violence, drugs, and other pernicious elements of township life. The analysis puts a damper on the euphoria of political change in South Africa in the post-apartheid period. The next chapter is a case study of Diourbel, a middle school in a peri-urban area of Senegal, and the ways in which students and teachers create a “school climate.” Abou Karim Ndoye writes the case study from three perspectives: the relationships among the students of the school; the quality of the academic offerings of the school; and, the physical security of the school. Ndoye’s work, which describes a piece of a larger effort funded by the World Bank to begin incorporating school climate and other qualitative measures in their project design planning for Africa,8 looks initially at what students (and their parents) see as the purpose of education/schooling. Ndoye focuses more on teacher perspectives regarding their students, school administrators, and general aspects of school climate, including security and conflict. He concludes with a description of how this analysis will fit in with other research that takes school environment into account when trying to determine how successful a school is at the tasks it pursues. The final chapter on urban education in Africa is by Kinuthia Macharia, who writes about the marginalization of sectors of Kenya’s urban population, specifically, the children of Nairobi’s “informal settlements,” and their limited access to schools, especially for the “most poor” of the poor. Macharia interrogates the notions of power, ethnicity,
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and race, as he briefly describes the rise of Nairobi from a Maasai watering hole for cattle, to a British supply site for the East African railway, to the capital of Kenya, to home of some of Africa’s most densely populated slums. Macharia writes that city policy since independence continues to privilege the politically well-connected and wealthy. Macharia describes the work being done with street children of Nairobi by the Undugu Society of Kenya (USK), which has established a series of schools in Nairobi (and other Kenyan cities) specifically designed to offer these children an opportunity to reclaim some of the lost opportunities that formal education could provide. Macharia also describes the Olympic Primary School located in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums, on the outskirts of Nairobi, pointing it out as an example of how community support, parent dedication, Head teacher effort, and other factors can create an environment in which children are supported, and learn well.9
Analysis In writing this chapter, we have sought to identify a mechanism through which we can examine the various perspectives presented by the authors in this collection in a way that offers a comparative perspective while capturing the breadth of manifestations of education in Africa. While we could have investigated individual state level issues, we felt that a more macro-level approach would be more appropriate. We wanted a perspective that would resonate across the continent, connect history in Ghana with national identity formation in Zimbabwe with rural-urban disparities in Kenya and Malawi. While many African leaders were noted for their interest in education,10 and while national governments are arbiters (to a degree) of educational policy,11 we have opted to focus our analysis on the impacts of the single biggest actor influencing public expenditure on education throughout Africa over the past 40 years, the World Bank and other related international financial institutions (IFIs).12 As Heneveld and Craig note at the beginning of their 1996 report, Schools Count: World Bank Project Designs and the Quality of Primary Education on sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank Technical Paper no. 303), since 1972, the World Bank has provided loans to governments in Africa of more than $620 million in assistance for school construction.13 In roughly that time frame, enrollment in primary schools14 increased 350% (which increase might be taken as a proxy for the new classrooms constructed), though the authors note, high population growth during the same time frame has meant that relative participation rates have only increased marginally. While it is not explicitly stated whether the construction of new schools was focused more on urban or rural areas, it seems clear that urban population growth in the period being considered was significantly higher than general population growth.15 Over this time, World Bank policy makers would shift their focus numerous times regarding what types of education the Bank would support. For the first two decades of its involvement in funding educational expansion in Africa, the World Bank focused its analysis and preference on human capital perspectives,16 which measures benefits of Bank loan programs through the filter of the training of able-minded workers
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in vocational and technical schools to support the economy of their country. As Heyneman explains: From 1962 to 1980 all education investments supported by the Bank required justifications on the basis of manpower demands. Hence all Bank education investments centered on the focus of manpower analytic techniques and the scarcities of technicians and engineers. (2003, p. 317) In this scenario, engineering came to be seen as a proxy for infrastructural development. By increasing spending on the training of engineers, the Bank could say to the governments involved that its programs, and through these programs the governments themselves, were helping support the burgeoning infrastructure of Africa’s developing nations. By 1974, the Bank had hired its first science educator as well as its first educational sociologist, to undertake tracer studies of the work being done by graduates so as to showcase the “practical” nature of the curricula, and by extension, the success of the pre-figured ideas of the Bank itself.17 Heyneman writes: Though the “vocational school fallacy” argument (Foster, 1965) had been published a decade earlier, most World Bank staff were unaware that there was an alternative to the “practical” education assumptions under which lending was justified. It was taken as axiomatic that “practical subjects” and technical skill training were more useful in the labor market. That the opposite might be the case, that academic skills might be more useful, was heresy because it threatened the philosophic underpinnings for the lending program. (2003, pp. 311–312) Seeking to support development of academic skills rather than technical or vocational training was seen as incipient credentialism, and was to be avoided. In addition to its decision to focus on human capital analysis, the Bank’s policy to loan out funds for capital expenditures, and leave recurrent costs to be the responsibility of the governments agreeing to the loan terms was similarly prescriptive. This left countries financially responsible for the full range of recurrent costs associated with operating schools, staff salaries, classroom materials, and other ongoing costs. The trouble with this approach is that it does little to acknowledge the labor intensive nature of education. While it is true that education costs can be somewhat mitigated by use of technology, this presumes the ability by local governments to purchase and maintain such technology, not an easy presumption in many school sites in Africa.18 Indeed efficiencies in education can be attained, larger class sizes being one such way, but there are upper end limits to these that are more easily reached than the Bank’s initial education planning made it appear. In 1980, the World Bank released its Education Sector Policy Paper, which changed the existing lending rules, to acknowledge some of the concerns that had been raised over the first two decades of its efforts in Africa. After an extended internal debate, the Bank opted to shift away from support of only technical and vocational education. Quality of education, secondary and tertiary education, and education research all became the legitimate focus of World Bank loan programs, in what would, by the late 1980s, come to be known as its short education policy menu.19
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In retrospect, Heyneman argues that the 1980 policy paper could have constituted the start of a revolutionary shift in Bank policy. But this shift must be seen in the overall context of outside pressures during the decade of the 1980s to push the World Bank to modify not only its policies around education, but all of its social programs to address, for example, environmental, human rights, and women’s issues, even as structural adjustment programs were being negotiated that demanded that public expenditure on social programs, including education, be rationalized.20 Macro-level economic trends during this period also took their toll on access to education throughout Africa, especially for poor and working-class families. As Bredie and Beeharry (1998) point out in their World Bank discussion paper, entitled School Enrollment Decline in Sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the Supply Constraint: [T]he difficult economic conditions [of the 1980s and 1990s] that have led to lower household incomes have made the (direct and opportunity) cost of education an important burden for many households. As the same time, the benefits of education in terms of increasing the chances of securing employment have also deteriorated because of fewer employment opportunities. Demand for education, even at primary level can no longer be taken for granted. A number of education sector studies report that parents find that education is no longer a worthwhile investment, and that expenses outweigh the potential benefits. (p. 4) Bank policy had opened up to quality issues, and expanded beyond vocationaltechnical support, but the broader economic environment had been impacted by negative global market impacts just as the structural adjustment programs had led to tightened public expenditure on these kinds of educational inputs – increased staffing, materials purchases, etc. Even as the World Bank recognized that its initial vocational-technical oriented approach to supporting education in Africa was in need of change, and even as its human capital-focused analysis was giving way to rate of return analysis that was somewhat less limited by economistic interpretations, many manifestations of education continued to be left out of the planning and design of Bank programs.21 Still, Heyneman describes an “ex ante agnosticism” at the Bank regarding education policy frameworks. In other words, after the changes wrought in the 1980s, there remained an ongoing attempt to avoid wholly prescriptive policies, and allow some (though by no means complete) flexibility for national self-determination as to how to use borrowed World Bank funds. External efficiencies would still be used, so comparative analysis of the program experiences in different countries would continue to be used as a primary appraisal criterion. In this, Heneveld and Craig’s 1996 report is indicative. They do note forthrightly the limits of World Bank policy, for example, in stating that they were unable to visit any of the 26 projects being analyzed for the report. They go on to note, “[T]he econometric input-output model of schooling and the techniques that stem from this model are not adequate to understanding and planning improvements in what goes on in schools and classrooms” (p. 3). Later in the report, they have this to say: “[N]ot one project includes a specific reference to planning for planning for in-school supervision of
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textbook use. Overall, it appears that the World Bank’s programming is paying good attention to textbook supply issues, but that much less consideration has been given to ensuring their effectiveness use in classrooms” (p. 34). It is informative that, after these kinds of comments, they nevertheless utilize a methodological framework that is entirely western: school effectiveness measures; school improvement characteristics; and school climate factors. These are then mapped onto the African contexts of the study. So, even as the change noted by Heyneman was occurring in the Bank’s policies and practices, there remained embedded Bank practices and tensions, well-removed physically from the environments for which their educational programs were designed, but which nevertheless impacted how these programs would be realized. Gonzales offers one example: [T]he allocation of promotions within the Bank are based largely on whether an official has met or exceeded her/his lending quotas. Given the extensive timecommitments required for the project appraisal process, Joel Samoff (1993) argues, World Bank officials will develop a general inclination toward lending to large-scale projects to meet these quotas rather than concentrating on what is appropriate for the host country and its needs. (1999, p. 125) In other words, Bank practice was to see success in terms not of how projects and programs worked in output terms, that is, success or failure to educate children (a longer term measure, for certain), but rather in internal, financial terms, that is, how successful the Bank’s officials were in loaning funds for projects (a decidedly shorter term measure). Gonzales notes that by the mid-1990s, the Bank’s President, James Wolfensohn, pushed to change this internal climate, informing staff that promotions would subsequently be based on the success of their projects over time. This, says Gonzales, had little immediate effect inasmuch as the projects and programs with which staff were involved were typically seven to 10 years in duration, meaning functional links between completed project cycles and World Bank promotions would scarcely be likely. Richard Sack notes: In the early 1990s, a major, in-depth World Bank report ascertained an alarming rate of non-performing projects. This report “discovered” that beneficiary countries of World Bank loans/projects had little sense of “ownership” of the development project whose conception and elaboration was often determined by World Bank staff more concerned with the logic of their institution (and its “approval culture,” according to that report) than by that of the country (the “borrower”). (2003, p. 11) The internal decision-making dynamic as described above does not get at a separate matter, which is the way data were being collected for analysis and report. Joel Samoff (1999) points out several limitations to relying on World Bank data. First, Bank officials are reliant on state-level data collection which it then aggregates. State-level data are themselves aggregates of school-, district-, and region-level collection. Mistakes at
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any of these levels are thus brought into Bank analyses, thus potentially skewing results. This is a well-known problem particularly as it relates to data collection and reporting in most African countries. Second, published analyzed measures of expenditures on education often are taken only from state-level calculations. Rarely is there a comprehensive view of what individuals, families, and local governments spend on education. This tends to overemphasize the percentage of total expenditure resulting from both state government and World Bank sources. Finally, the Bank’s own reports are, at times, contradictory. By way of one example, Samoff notes that seemingly straightforward questions such as how many children are in school? or, what percentage of children are in school? are not as easy to answer as one might believe. Samoff shows World Bank reports, and indicates that the Bank can get data mixed-up. For example, the World Bank lists 1960 enrollments at 46% in one report (World Bank, 1993), only to then list enrollment at 50% for 1960 in a different report (World Bank, 1995). Samoff’s point in all of this is that data are not always reliable, and should be taken to be estimates only. As such, broad inferences, and public policy decisions based on such data should minimally be critically examined, if not avoided. In addition to poorly reported data, numerous writers have raised the issue of how the data are collected in the first place, beyond that described previously here of the economistic nature of the analytic methods. Gonzales notes that into the late 1990s, the World Bank continued to hold on to longstanding practice of utilizing more easily measured input variables, in lieu of more qualitative measures. Heneveld and Craig concur, in describing that: Overall, a closer look at the planning done for the twenty-six projects reinforces the conclusion that the closer the factor was to the life of the school and to what touches the children directly, the less likely it was to be planned for explicitly in these projects assisted by the World Bank. [italics in original] (p. 44) In standard Bank analytic practice, for example, rather than qualitatively measuring how students progress through school, it was often assumed that an average student progressed through school by completing one level of schooling per year. But there exist long-noted patterns of interruption in educational progress that make such an assumption troubling.22 Similarly, the Bank continued to use foregone earnings as a proxy for opportunity cost incurred by those children who could be undertaking wage-based work, but who choose to remain in school. This runs the risk of overstating project costs since not all school leavers are employed in cash positions at prevailing market wages. Each of these data-related issues points to the need to incorporate more qualitative methods of data collection into World Bank planning and program design. As Buchmann and Hannum note: The study of school factors and educational outcomes similarly highlights the importance of the social and economic contexts of schools. By offering counterpoints to the common notions (usually based on US research) regarding how school factors affect student achievement, studies in less-developed contexts
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clearly demonstrate that the impacts of specific policy initiatives depend on the environment in which schools function. (2001, p. 93) Coming full circle, Heneveld and Craig repeatedly argue for the need for incorporating such qualitative measures more fully in World Bank analysis. They note two conclusions to be reached in analyzing World Bank education projects: First, the project designs analyzed addressed an array of inputs that are known to affect educational outcomes: community support; supervision; teacher development; textbooks; and, facilities. In this respect, the influence of research on design is encouraging. However, the focus is on these factors as inputs – textbook supply, residential teacher training courses, national curriculum reform, national examination systems – not on their integration within schools. Second, the project designs tend to ignore the process factors that characterize effective education within schools – school-level autonomy, school climate, the teaching/learning process, and pupil evaluation feedback by teachers. The project designs also tend to treat inputs as discrete quantifiable instruments (numbers of textbooks and teacher’s guides, weeks of in-service training) without taking into account how they will interact with other inputs, especially at the school level. (1996, p. xiv) We offer the following lengthy quote for its full description of the circumstances in which measures of analysis often hide realities. We have highlighted certain text in italics: [T]he first grade classroom was housed in the only one of the three rooms in the old school compound that still had its roof intact. This dilapidated mud-floor room had no desks and no door; there were over ninety pupils ranging from preschool siblings to teenagers sitting on raised mud ridges across the room; and there were no textbooks in sight. Queries to the teacher elicited that a few of the [12 copies of the] new books for a few subjects were in a book bag in the corner. The rest were in the teacher’s house because the [school class] room had no door and there was no cupboard which would force him to cart them back and forth each day. Also, he told the visitors that his orientation to the new books had been a one-day (including travel) seminar at the district headquarters, and there had been no follow-up to help him figure out how to use twelve copies of a textbook with ninety students. In the project’s terms, the textbook component had been successful: the books were in the school. In the teacher’s and the children’s terms, the books were not yet available. (1996, p. 2) It is only by focusing on how fully inputs are actually integrated into school, classroom, and teacher practice that solid ideas on school reform will find footing. In order for this to be realized, however, prior study must be made of the ways in which the school operates, before planning sessions decide how budgets are to be spent, resources distributed, and inputs utilized. The conditions under which the school operates must be clearly defined. Unfortunately, as Heneveld and Craig point out, these operational definitions are infrequently revealed before planning has been completed.23
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Language and the World Bank While data collection and analysis is a basic issue in regard to World Bank influence on education in Africa, there exist other issues which are fundamental in different ways. One particular issue in which the World Bank has long been implicated in its efforts in Africa is the role of vernacular and colonial languages in schools. Many writers are engaged in defining the issues involved in decisions as to what languages are to be used in primary schools (and beyond), and for what reasons. The published perspectives on such issues range from the epistemological to the political, the local to the national and international. For the purposes of this section of the chapter, we will focus on those perspectives that connect to the issue of language in classrooms as described by the authors whose work is collected in this volume. Walter Bgoya, a publisher from Tanzania, implicates colonial practice, imperialism, and neo-colonialism as forces that frequently leave African languages untaught, and thus at risk of dying out. While Bgoya is concerned with the impact of colonial and post-colonial decisions on which languages are used as media of instruction in schools, he focuses on the publishing industry, and notes that opportunities to utilize texts written in indigenous languages are rare in most schools. This only furthers a (false) belief that indigenous languages fail to meet modern needs in multilingual African nations: All languages which, for one reason or another, are denied the potential for their fullest development are threatened. One of the threats comes from the phenomenon of rural to urban migration. Many young unemployed people perennially leave rural communities in search of employment in urban areas where either a foreign language or one indigenous language dominates the other languages. And becomes ipso facto a “national language.” Over time, the “smaller languages” will lose out. (2001, p. 285) Adebowale (2001) writes about an “umbilical attachment to Western scholarship” within African scholarship. He points out that African scholars are expected to know (and cite) Western-based research theories as well as Africa-focused theories, yet this is not frequently reciprocated. These perspectives note that at the “economically viable” end of the educational arc, after having successfully negotiated school and engaging professional employment, African scholars and publishers remain linked to a perceived demand that they ought to cede to others, decisions about which languages they employ in their work. This perceived demand is an outright result of the nature of state education systems, and a result, in part of the policies of those who fund such systems, including the World Bank. Nyamnjoh notes: Only a few African countries have bothered to adopt policies that encourage education in African languages, and even this limited number have tended to confine the importance of local languages to primary and secondary school education. Thereby accentuating the remoteness and irrelevance of universities to the bulk of
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the population. With perhaps the exception of Tanzania, there is hardly a single sub-Saharan African university that “offers a full diploma programme with an African language as principal medium of instruction.” (2004, p. 172) What is implemented at various levels of education does not cease manifesting in a multitude of social and cultural forms. An irony of the globalization process is that as the trend towards the homogenization of production systems proceeds apace, and we see the rapid movements of capital and labor, the English language begins to predominate thus making its adoption in African schools and commerce not just a practical thing, but an absolute necessity for success. Alamin Mazrui (1997) posits a pair of rationales to begin explaining the reality that most post-colonial governments in Africa inherited educational systems in which colonial languages constituted the medium of instruction. The first is described as a functionalist response wherein the colonial languages (most often English and French) are defined as being useful in global ways that indigenous languages are not. This constitutes a rationale for maintaining the influence of the colonial language into future generations. The second is seen as a nationalist response that would re-center African languages in African education. Pushed along with some support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),24 this response has been implemented in many countries for primary education. Mazrui goes on to discuss World Bank public remarks that seem to align the Bank with the nationalist perspective on language, especially as regards primary education. However, he notes that the Bank’s own policies and subsequent research shows that colonial languages are actually spreading in influence, even at lower levels of schooling. Mazrui notes: [E]stablishing the necessary conditions for sustainable instruction in the local languages – which, in the World Bank’s opinions quoted above, is crucial to the uninterrupted educational progress of a child – requires substantial government investments in generating educational resources. Yet, the World Bank’s prescriptions continue to place heavy emphasis on the reduction of government subsidies in education, though such subsidies are indispensable to the promotion of instruction in the local languages. … [U]nder World Bank – IMF structural adjustment programs, the only path open to African nations is the adoption of the imperial languages from the very outset of a child’s education. (1997, p. 38) Thus, he sees the trend in education in Africa moving away from vernacular-based education, even at earlier levels. The implications for survival of African languages, as well as the impact on Africa’s children of understanding themselves to be Kenyan (not to say Swahili, or Kikuyu, or …) is hardly to be underestimated. For Mazrui, the World Bank (and its affiliated partners in the multilateral funding of education in Africa) seeks to play the game both ways. He offers the following anecdote:
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[A] World Bank loan to the Central African Republic, supposedly intended to improve the quality and accessibility of elementary education, came with a package of conditions that required the nation to import its textbooks (and even use French textbooks) directly from France and Canada. This stringency was justified on the grounds that printing in these Western countries is cheaper than in the Central African Republic, making their publications more affordable to the average African child. It has been estimated that, due to similar World Bank projects and linkages, over 80 percent of school books in “Francophone” Africa are now produced directly in France. In the process, the World Bank has not only empowered the West to control further the intellectual destiny of African children, but has also continued to weaken and destroy infrastructural facilities, primarily publishing houses, for the technical production of knowledge locally. In terms of sheer cost effectiveness, French and Canadian publishers would have found it far more difficult to participate in this World Bank agenda had language of instruction in the Central African Republic been one of the local languages instead of French. (p. 42) The World Bank wishes to state a preference for vernacular education at early ages, inasmuch as this boosts best chances to successfully use second (and subsequent) languages fully competently. Simultaneously, it wishes to note an advantage to learning English, as this familiarizes different ethnic groups (language speakers) within a country, and permits greater national cohesion, and greater political unity. Mazrui criticizes the Bank for this, especially around the Bank’s pronouncements that it “cannot impose an educational language policy on an African country,” since “each country … has the freedom to determine language policy that is commensurate with its own unique political, economic, cultural and linguistic peculiarities.” (1997, p. 37) Mazrui notes a disjuncture between this and Bank policy in general, inasmuch as the Bank (and its Bretton Woods sibling institutions) frequently imposes conditions on borrowing. Mazrui offers the specific example of such imposition in his depiction of early 1980s Tanzania, where President Nyerere’s attempts to institutionalize Kiswahili as the medium of instruction beyond primary school ran smack into difficulties when the country faced drought, and needed to realign state outlays across the spectrum. This led to a decision to seek help from the IMF. Tanzania eventually had to capitulate to IMF conditionalities so as to be able to feed its people. One conditionality dealt with educational planning and policy, and crippled efforts to Kiswahili-ize the curriculum. Mazrui notes: The World Bank … does not seem comfortable with the Tanzanian model. In its comparative analysis of high school students’ performance between Kenya and Tanzania, for example, it casts doubt on the prudence of Tanzania’s educational language policy. It suggests that Tanzania’s high school education is qualitatively inferior to that of Kenya, and that this educational inferiority is attributable, in part, to the exclusive emphasis on Kiswahili as a medium of instruction at the primary level. (p. 39)
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In short, World Bank policy, in practice, not rhetoric, is designed to meet the needs, in African countries, of foreign capital. It is not about what is directly best for the mass of young African children as they learn.
Conclusion The children who attend schools in Africa that are the focus of this volume, are impacted by policies and practices of players at both national and international levels. These practices and policies help determine what kinds of school buildings are available to the students, what languages are spoken there for what purposes, what resources are provided for schools and students in what circumstances, and what, in the end, is left over for local communities and individual families and students to provide for themselves. In order to understand this range of relevant policies and practices, it is important to know as much about the actors involved – including the students and families – as possible. Gonzales, regarding, specifically, his own research in Namibia, offers a perspective that might resonate throughout Africa. Writing about the World Bank and similar institutions, he argues for the incorporation of qualitative approaches to analysis that permits the lived experience of the children impacted by lending practices and policies to be noted. Gonzales states that: [T]he presence of inputs indicates their utilization can only be assumed through the monitoring of projects throughout their lives. Such monitoring must not be limited to consultations with officials in the posh offices of government ministers in the capital cities … . only classroom visits and meetings with teachers and school officials showed the author the dialectic between documented claims and state realities. As such, extended site visits throughout the countries must be included in the monitoring or project implementation. (p. 132) Gonzales further argues that increased support from abroad, in the form of additional funding, technical support, lower rates of interest, longer maturities on loans, more favorable loan terms, or greater sharing of analysis on program success for the use of national governments be incorporated into the dialogue about education funding. As Heneveld and Craig write: [T]o design effective interventions for improving school quality, preparations must be done by the local people, with their choices of outcomes and means to achieve those outcomes informed, but not determined, by the experiences from elsewhere. A planning process that is based on local experience – and controlled locally – requires that certain operating principles of World Bank project preparation be revised: local commitment and capacity, not a target date for presentation to the World bank Board of Directors, should determine the timetable of preparations. (p. 48)
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The Bank is only one of the multitude of players in Africa’s education. Yet its influence is overwhelming. Combined with the legacies of the colonial system, widespread state incapacity and incompetence, and high poverty levels, education in Africa is at a crossroads. A positive movement forward may need a concerted effort by the real consumers of education, that is, the students and their parents to demand performance from both their own governments and from the international financial institutions, in order to make education more relevant to their lives. This is a tall order, but not an impossible dream to reach.
Notes 1. Relating back to Adebowale (2001), we deliberately sought to incorporate African authors, those working in Africa, as well as those currently working in the diaspora. In this effort, we were largely successful, as the chart below shows: Africans in Africa
Africans outside Africa
non-Africa/non-African
South Africa South Africa Senegal Malawi
Ghana Cameroon Zimbabwe Kenya Kenya Section co-editor
Kenya co-author Section co-editor
2.
3. 4.
5.
6.
7.
non-African in Africa
It is fair to say that, as satisfied as we are with the mix of submissions included here, this chart may have tilted further to its leftmost column had we found it easier to communicate more fully with other potential authors throughout the continent, with whom initial communication had been established. Future edition of this Handbook, or, indeed, editions of a similar Handbook that focuses on Africa would do better in this regard. In this instance, “schools” operates as a synonym for “education,” a well as a gloss for Western-style formal education. See Sefa Dei (2000); Kebede (2004); Nyamnjoh (2004); Quist (2001); Tikly (1999, 2001); and many others addressing epistemological issues regarding education in Africa. See Karlsson on school architecture in South Africa, Ofori-Attah on the history of formal schooling in Ghana, as well as MacJessie and Nampota on schools in Malawi. Many African countries continue to face this issue, which impacts education in a variety of ways. See, for example, Bgoya (2001) on limited publishing opportunities in African languages; Desai (2001) on multilingualism in South Africa; Sefa Dei (2002) on language and culture, and educational change in Ghana; etc. World Bank policy regarding language of instruction issues in African education is discussed later in this chapter. See Masemann (in Arnove & Torres, 1999) on problematizing conceptions of culture. Following on Mpondi, would Zimbabweanization, in practice, have the same effect for Mashona and MaNdebele, not to mention Zimbabweans from smaller ethnic groups? Also see the writings on social justice, education, and human development by Fanta Cheru. From Harber (2002): “In recent years Zimbabwe has witnessed a steady retreat from democracy with government sponsored harassment and violence against political opponents and increasing media restrictions. Schools and classrooms in Zimbabwe have traditionally been organized on an authoritarian basis. Not surprisingly, a school-base understanding of human rights in Zimbabwe noted the problem of the mismatch between ideals and reality in planning any course on human rights.” (p. 273) Samoff (in Arnove & Torres, 1999) offers a take on the ideas of equity, fairness, and justice, and contrasts these to equality, noting that to effectively change these aspects of school access and participation,
20
8. 9. 10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Brennan and Nyang’oro society must change, and that achieving equity may mandate, at least temporarily, unequal treatment, something that rarely goes unopposed by the kind of people (the wealthy) for whom the unequal seems to work well. See Heneveld and Craig (1996) for more detail on the rationale for the World Bank’s move in this direction. As with school climate, these measures have only recently begun to make their way into World Bank planning. More will be said about these issues later in the chapter. Assie-Lumumba (2000), for example, notes the post-colonial efforts of Sekou Toure (1961); Julius Nyerere (1968); Zimbabwe (1980); Namibia (1990); and South Africa (1994), and describes educational reform as akin to a new flag, a new national anthem (p. 92). Assie-Lumumba (2000), “Despite their nominal political independence, most African countries have designed their domestic policies under the guidance or influence of external powers … . Lending agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF, governments of industrial countries within bilateral or multilateral frameworks, and foundations have played a central role in defining priorities and designing policies of education in Africa. These agencies’ perceived importance of particular levels or types of education have had implications in domestic public resource allocation.” (p. 92) For additional material on the full scope of issues in education in Africa, two places to start would be the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) which maintains a website with valuable research and resource material at: www.adeanet.org, and the Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA), which can be found at www.ernwaca.org If we take this as given, one meaning to be ascribed to it is that from 1972 to 1996 (when this report was published), the World Bank loaned to Africa $26 million per year, or roughly one-half million dollars per country. A second way to think about it is that for the currently 800million residents of Africa, the World Bank has loaned the equivalent of 80 U.S. cents per person for school construction over 25 years. Not 80 U.S. cents per year, but 3 U.S. cents per year per person. We focus here on expenditure for primary school for the reasons outlined by Gonzales (1999), “With regard to the issue of equity in social expenditure, investment in primary education reaches a much broader cross section of society than does funding to higher education as, especially in Africa, higher levels of education are usually accessible to the wealthier strata of societies.” (p. 120) That is, as per statistics available from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision (available at http://esa.un.org/unpp), urban population in Africa is estimated to be growing by more than one full percentage point per year more, on average, than the general population. One necessary interpretation of this is that rural population growth must be lagging behind general population growth, and thus significantly behind urban population growth. Policies that do not take this into account are set up for problems. Assie-Lumumba (2000) notes, “The optimistic African outlook of the 1960s and 1970s’ economic development coincided with a renewed and unprecedented popularity of the human capital theory in industrial countries of the West. This contributed to create a general atmosphere characterized by a euphoria, faith, and confidence in education as the ‘great equalizer,’ a means for individual development and upward mobility, and an effective instrument for achieving national economic development.” (p. 90) Joel Samoff (1999) criticizes this, and subsequent World Bank approaches for being overly optimistic about planning skills. “This approach commonly underestimates the extent and rapidity of career changes. Since it understands education primarily in terms of its skills training consequences, it tends to disregard intellectual growth, the development of critical and problem-solving ability, the encouragement of creativity and expression, and many other dimensions of education that have no immediate and direct vocational outcome.” (p. 411) Gonzales (1999) writes that in terms of primary education in Africa, as much as 90% of recurrent expenses are teacher salary related. This leaves 10% to pay for materials, supplies, textbooks, etc., even as research shows a clear connection between increased access to such materials, and student success. The short education policy menu is described by Heyneman as being reliant on rate of return analysis, and adhering to three recommendations from late 1980s: first, that governments shift public expenditures away from vocational and higher education toward academic and basic education; second, that they increase private cost for higher education for attending university; and, finally, that they install loan schemes to set off financial burden onto individuals for paying for higher education. This set of
Urban Education in Africa
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
21
recommendations evokes the conditions on public expenditure common to structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and 1990s. There seems significant counter-posed pressures at this time from within the Bretton Woods and multilateral donor community. Mazrui (1997) addresses this point, with a specific focus on language issues. Harber (2002) joins the point around the issues of governance and democratization. Samoff (1999) notes the fall off in primary school enrollments seen in many countries during this time. He also notes that spending on education, while it did not fall in absolute terms during this time, did decline more than 5% per capita during this period. More generally, as Buchmann and Hannum (2001) point out, even as broader issues of educational quality were being brought into World Bank decision-making practices, “These policies, which facilitate debt servicing through fiscal austerity and reduced government intervention in indebted nations, have been traced to declines in educational spending, teacher quality, and educational demand (Reimers, 1991). Other evidence indicates that SAPs disproportionately affect female participation in education, likely through their detrimental impact on survival strategies in poor households (Buchmann, 1996). Finally, the pressures from the IMF and donor agencies on indebted governments to privatize and decentralize their educational systems may lead to greater inequities and declining educational participation (Arnove, 1997). In sum, research on macro-structural determinants of education and shaping stratification patterns is highly variable over time and place and is enhanced or constrained by global institutions and forces.” (p. 81) For example, adult education, pre-school education, graduate education, educational research, educational technology, education for the handicapped, professional education (medical, engineering, law, public administration, etc.). Bredie and Beeharry (2002) support this, making the further point that both the direct costs and the opportunity cost of education are thus higher than would be otherwise presumed in a circumstance in which, for example, a Kenyan student were to go through the eight standards of primary education in eight calendar years. For more on this set of issues, see Richard Maclure’s article in Harvard Educational Review (2006), essentially an overview of endogenous research across a full range of education issues in Africa, as seen in the efforts of two groups: (1) ERNWACA – the Educational Research Network of West and Central Africa; and (2) ADEA – the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, which began in 1988 as an offshoot of World Bank efforts, but evolved into an association of officials from ministries of education throughout Africa. Mazrui describes UNESCO as having “campaigned for a shift to local languages in the earlier years of a child’s education, and it has also recommended, on educational grounds, that the use of the mothertongue be extended to as late a stage in education as possible.” (p. 37)
References Adebowale, S. A. (2001). The scholarly journal in the production and dissemination of knowledge on Africa: Exploring some issues for the future. African Sociological Review, 5(1), 1–16. Arnove, R. F. (1997). Neoliberal education policies in Latin America: Arguments in favor and against. In C. A. Orres, & A. Puigros (Eds.), Latin American education: Comparative perspectives (pp. 79–100). Boulder, CO: Westview. Assie-Lumumba, N’Dri T. (2000). Educational and economic reforms, gender equity, and access to schooling in Africa. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 61(1), 89–120. Association for the Development of Education in Africa. (2003). The quest for quality: Learning from the African experience. Paris: Association for Development of Education in Africa. Bgoya, W. (2001). The effect of globalisation in Africa and the choice of language in publishing. International Review of Education, 47(3–4), 283–292. Bredie, J. W. B., & Girindre K. B. (1998). School enrollment decline in sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the supply constraint. World Bank discussion paper no. 395. Washington: World Bank. Buchmann, C. (1996). Family decisions and social constraints: The determinants of educational inequality in contemporary Kenya. Ph.D. Thesis, Indiana University, U.S.A.
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Buchmann, C., & Hannum, E. (2001). Education and stratification in developing countries: A review of theories and research. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 77–102. Desai, Z. (2001). Multilingualism in South Africa with particular reference to the role of African languages in education. International Review of Education, 47(3–4), 323–339. Foster, P. J. (1965). Education and social change in Ghana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gonzales, M. C. (1999). The World Bank and African primary education: Policies, practices and recommendations. Africa Today, 46(1), 119–134. Harber, C. (2002). Education, democracy and poverty reduction in Africa. Comparative Education, 38(3), 267–276. Heneveld, W., & Craig, H. (1996). Schools count: World Bank project designs and the quality of primary education on sub-Saharan Africa. (World Bank Technical paper no. 303). Washington: World Bank. Heyneman, S. P. (2003). The history and problems in the making of education policy at the World Bank 1960–2000. International Journal of Educational Development, 23, 315–337. Jansen, J. D. (1999). Globalization, curriculum and the Third World state: In dialogue with Michael Apple. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 1(2), 42–47. Kanyongo, G. Y. (2005). Zimbabwe’s public education system reforms: Successes and challenges. International Education Journal, 6(1), 65–74. Karlsson, J. (2002). The role of democratic governing bodies in South African schools. Comparative Education, 38(2), 327–336. Kebede, M. (2004). African development and the primacy of mental decolonization. African Development, 29(1), 107–129. Lloyd, C., & Blanc, A. K. (1996). Children’s schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of fathers, mothers, and others. Population and Development Review, 22(2), 265–298. Maclure, R. (2006). No longer overlooked and undervalued? The evolving dynamics of endogenous educational research in sub-Saharan Africa. Harvard Educational Review, 76(1), 80–109. Masemann, V. L. (1999). Culture and education. In R. F. Arnove, & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Mazrui, A. (1997). The world bank, the language question and the future of African education. Race and Class, 38(3), 35–48. Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2004). A relevant education for African development – Some epistemological considerations. Africa Development, 29(1), 161–184. Nyerere, J. (1968). Education for self reliance. Dar es Salaam (Tanzania): Government of Tanzania Ministry of Information and Tourism. Quist, H. O. (2001). Cultural issues in secondary education development in West Africa: Away from colonial survivals, towards neocolonial influences? Comparative Education, 37(3), 297–314. Reimers, F. (1991). The impact of economic stabilization and adjustment on education in Latin America. Comparative Education Review, 35(2), 319–353. Sack, R. (2003). Explorations on the applicability for Africa of the OECD peer reviews of national policies for education. Paris: Association for the Development of Education in Africa. Samoff, J. (1993). The reconstruction of schooling in Africa. Comparative Education Review, 37(2), 181–222. Samoff, J. (1999). No teacher guide, no textbooks, no chairs: Contending with the crisis in African education. In F. A. Robert, & A. T. Carlos (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (pp. 393–431). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Sefa Dei, G. J. (2000). African development: The relevance and implications of “indigenousness”. In G. J. Sefa Dei, B. Hall, & D. G. Rosenberg (Eds.), Indigenous knowledges in global contexts: Multiple readings of our world. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tikly, L. (1999). Postcolonialism and comparative education. International Review of Education, 45(5–6), 603–621. Tikly, L. (2001). Globalisation and education in the postcolonial world: Towards a conceptual framework. Comparative Education, 37(2), 151–171. Toure, S. (1961). Le development de la reforme de l’enseignement. Conakry: Republic of Guinea. World Bank. (1993). World development report: Investing in health. New York: Oxford University Press. World Bank. (1995). World development report: Workers in an integrating world. New York: Oxford University Press.
2 URBANIZATION AND SCHOOLING IN AFRICA: TRENDS, ISSUES, AND CHALLENGES FROM GHANA DURING THE COLONIAL ERA Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.
Introduction Urbanization as a social process started in Africa long before the arrival of the Arabs or Europeans on the continent (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991; Peel, 1980). Around 320 B.C., northeast Africa witnessed the growth of urban centers when Upper and Lower Egypt merged to promote the development “of a brilliant urban civilization” (Davidson, 1991b, p. 14). Jenné-Jeno, near present day Jenne, was established by the very fertile river banks of the Bani and Niger rivers around the year 250 B.C. It is the first known city in sub-Saharan Africa and among the oldest known in the world. As Haskins and Benson (1998) have pointed out: Established – probably by herders and fishermen – as a small group of round mud huts around 250 B.C., by A.D. 800 Jenne-Jeno was a cosmopolitan center of some ten thousand people, surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall of some ten feet wide and thirteen or more feet in height. (p. 16) What triggered the urbanization process at such an early period in the history of Africa is not very clear. However, historians believe that the process of urbanization started on the continent of Africa as a result of gradual natural increase in the population, the need for security, trade, commercial and political reasons. As people developed agriculture and got frequent supply of food, and led settled life, life expectancy naturally improved. Some of the major urban centers developed through trade. Cities like Abeokuta, Ibadan, Kano, Walata, Kumbi Saleh, and Kumasi all rose to prominence before the arrival of Europeans on the African continent largely as a result of trade. Some of the items traded included salt, gold, kola nuts, ostrich feathers, ivory, pepper, and cloth. (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991; Davidson, 1991a). 23 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 23–48. © 2007 Springer.
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Another factor that led to growth of cities in Africa before the arrival of the Europeans was the desire for many people to acquire new knowledge. At this time, Timbuktu was a primary center for learning in Africa. It had three universities, and over 100 other educational institutions. These educational institutions were run by Muslims, who taught subjects including mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics, medicine, history, and geography. Arabic was the medium of instruction. There is no evidence that English was taught in these schools (Chandler, 1994). These urban areas had none of the utilities or facilities that we see in modern urban areas today. There was, for instance, no piped or running water, no electricity, no roads or railway system, no hospitals or schools as we know them today, no vehicles, airplanes or trains. The primary non-walking mode of transportation within urban areas was riding on the back of domesticated animals such as a horse, camel, or donkey. The urban centers were simply a concentration of people engaged in commercial, social, and political activities. The houses were essentially built of mud, stones, or clay and covered with thatched leaves or bamboo or bark of large trees (Haskins & Benson, 1998) (See Table 1). The urban areas offered security that more isolated individuals could not afford. These urban areas were often under the control of local leaders who were generally chiefs or kings. These local leaders imposed taxes on the people to generate revenue to maintain security, law and order. Cities like Timbuktu relied on strategic locations as a trading centers and raised huge revenues to maintain the city through trading activities. The predominant occupation at this time was agriculture. A few people engaged in local industries such as cloth making, iron works, pottery, wood carving, basket weaving, and cattle rearing. In some of the urban centers, As Hull (1976) has pointed out: Kumasi was famous for its goldsmiths, who turned out fine jewelry, and for it weavers of Kente cloth … Kumasi and surrounding Ashanti towns were also famous for the manufacture of brass weights, used for measuring gold dust, a major currency. It was also in Kumasi that the famous wooden state stools were
Table 1.
Large cities in Africa: 1100–1600 A.D.
City
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
Marrakesh Cairo Fez Tunis Bougie Qus Rabat Kano Oyo Gao Zaria
150,000 150,000 125,000 – 50,000 50,000 – – – – –
150,000 200,000 155,000 – – 50,000 50,000 – – – –
75,000 400,000 200,000 – – – – – – – –
– 360,000 150,000 – – – – – 50,000 – –
– – – 65,000 – – – 50,000 60,000 60,000 –
125,000 – – – – – – – – – 60,000
Source: Chandler, 1994, p. 18.
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carved and decorated with silver or gold sheeting … . In addition, there was fine ceramic pottery, clay animal figurines, and a wide variety iron implements of excellent workmanship. Craftsmen also fashioned gold and copper wire into bracelets for writs, forearms, and anklets and calves. (pp. 107–109) As more and more people moved to urban areas to find a better way of life, to share in the security and trade opportunities offered in these areas, populations began to soar. By the sixteenth century, the population of Jenne-Jeno had increased from a few thousands around 250 B.C. to over 10,000 inhabitants. Other areas such as Kumasi, Ilorin, Ibadan, Kano, Tamale, Bamako or Timbuktu saw similar increases in population growth. Education in these urban areas often took the form of face-to-face interaction. As Hull (1976) put it: Most urbanites acquired learning through face-to-face contacts. Youths learned from family members in their compounds or from firsthand experience in the streets, marketplace, or at work. Public information was diffused troubadors, street-singers, dancers, actors, or story-tellers … . For the masses, the major centers of education were the marketplace, community wells, and the ceremonial or parade ground in front of the palace. Education for the aristocrats took place within the compounds of kings and paramount chiefs … . Within a local chief’s compound, youths were instructed in proper ways of addressing the king and other members of the hierarchy and nobility. (p. 109) There were no formal schools as we know them today (Haskins & Benson, 1998). However, in some of the urban centers such as Timbuktu, Djenné, and Gao Arabs had established open schools and were teaching youths how to write, read, and compute figures. Instruction was conducted in Arabic. Such was the “state of formal schooling” until the arrival of the Europeans on the continent.
Objectives of the Study The main purpose of this paper is to discuss trends and issues in schooling in urban Africa with special reference to Ghana during the colonial era. The discussion will begin with the early attempts made by Christian missionaries and colonial government to open schools in the urban areas of what is today called Ghana. One primary objective of the paper is to examine the relationships between urbanization and schooling. A second objective is to examine the organization of urban schools in the Gold Coast during the colonial period. Additionally, the paper will examine the financing of urban education during the early days of formal schooling in Ghana. Finally, the paper will assess the dysfunctional aspects of urban education in the Gold Coast during the same era. The early attempts made by the Europeans to establish schools in the Gold Coast did not take firm roots until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Often the educational efforts were hampered by diseases and inter-European conflicts or
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conflicts between Europeans and local people (Lystad, 1958; Martin, 1924). For instance the conflict between the British and Ashanti delayed the development of education in Ashanti for over 100 years. Until the British colonial administration took over the entire country after 1902, schooling activities were confined to the urban areas in the southern sector of the Gold Coast. From that point forward, the British colonial government became the main administrator of education in the Gold Coast until independence in 1957 although other missionaries from different European countries such as Germany, Sweden, Scotland, and Switzerland also played a role (Hilliard, 1957).
Europeans and the Foundations of Urban Education in the Gold Coast In Ghana, an urban area is defined as a city or town with a population with 5,000 or more inhabitants (Owusu, 2005). This is an arbitrary definition of urbanization (Gibbs, 1966). However, it is the standard that this paper will use in discussing the relationship between educational development and urbanization. The paper is built on the proposition that “population distribution may have a controlling influence over a country’s education system” (Anderson, 1965, p. 148). In Ghana as in many other African countries, schooling began in urban areas upon the arrival of early European merchants and missionaries. These included the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danes, the British, and the Germans. The Portuguese are believed to be the first European nation to establish a school in the Gold Coast in the early fifteenth century (Hilliard, 1957). They established their schools in the forts along the coastal areas of the Gold Coast. The most important one was established at Elmina, where the children were taught reading and writing in Portuguese. Because of lack of schooling facilities in the Gold Coast, the Portuguese sent outstanding students abroad for further education. The educational experiments of the Portuguese came to an abrupt end when they lost their forts and trading rights in the Gold Coast to the Dutch during the early seventeenth century (See Figure 1). The Dutch revived formal schooling in Elmina when they established a strong foothold over the city in 1614. As a major port, Elmina grew into an important trading center during this period. It controlled trading routes to the interior of the Gold Coast and also served as the main trading routes along the coastal areas of the Gold Coast. During the latter part of the seventeenth century, a Dutch visitor to the city put the population around 8,000 (Feinberg, 1989). Like their predecessors, Dutch school curricula focused on reading, writing, and religious education. The medium of instruction was Dutch. In order to provide their students the best education possible, the Dutch, like the Portuguese, sent outstanding students abroad for further studies. One of the famous sent abroad was a Fanti student who was named Jacobus Capitein by the Dutch. While in The Hague, Holland, Capitein studied several courses including, Dutch, painting, reading, writing, cyphering and arithmetic, catechism, manners, and customary prayers. All these were courses that the Dutch sought to include in the
Urbanization and Schooling in Africa
27
Figure 1. Map of Elmina under the Dutch Source: Feinberg, 1989, p. 78.
curriculum of their schools in the Gold Coast. After his studies in Holland, Jacobus Capitein returned to the Gold Coast where he became a teacher and a chaplain in the service of the Dutch Company at Elmina. Although schooling was not very popular in Elmina and vicinity at the time, he was able to educate several local boys and girls. His impressive scholarly work attracted the attention of the Ashanti King who lived over 200 miles inland from Elmina. This Ashanti King sent 14 children, 12 boys, and 2 girls to Jacobus Capitein to be sent to Holland for similar training but the Dutch Company offered to send only one boy to Holland for schooling. The rest were all enrolled in the school in Elmina in the schools run by Jacobus Capitein. According to Wise (1956): The influence of this small school was considerable. Besides introducing Christianity to a few, it established a lasting tradition of education among the Fanti people and showed that not all the Europeans who came to the West Coast were greedy and cruel adventurers. (p. 2) The Danes were another European group that left indelible marks on education in the Gold Coast. They promoted their brand of education in the Gold Coast through the Basel Mission in 1722. The Danes first established their schools in the forts in Accra, east of Elmina. In this urban school, the pupils were initially taught by a soldier who was “chosen for his aptitude and sober habits, and he was paid a little extra
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for his work” (Wise, 1956, p. 2). At first, the pupils were all boys who it was hoped would become soldiers and form a literate mulatto guard. However, as more and more parents showed interest in the work of the educators, parents decided to enroll their daughters in the school. Unfortunately, the climate at this location did not favor the health of Europeans and many of the Basel Missionaries died. The Basel Missionaries relocated inland, settling at Akropong, which served as the capital amongst seventeen nearby towns. Akropong’s high altitude was attractive to the Missionaries and so they were able to their missionary work there, as well as establish schools. The local people initially resisted any attempt to embrace the values inherent in the new religion and the schools they promoted. The Basel Missionaries had to invite some Black families from Jamaica to assist them in convincing the local people to accept the new Christian religion and the schools the missionaries established. In addition to English grammar, reading, comprehension and composition, rapid arithmetic, history, geography, civics, and nature study, religious education, hygiene, the Basel missionaries made significant attempts to replace the non-vocational aim of the education promoted by the Portuguese and the Dutch. As Martin (1976) put it “The Basel Mission, for many years, included technical education. Courses for joiners, wheelrights, carpenters, lock-smiths, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and book-binders were provided in Christianborg” (p. 49). In other words, the missionaries placed emphasis on activities that were essential for managing a home or a family (Agyemang, 1967). At Cape Coast, which in 1812 had an estimated population of 8,000, the British became active in promoting education and the Christian religion. A school was started there by Revered Thomas Thompson of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G), who was eventually joined by British merchants who showed interest in the school effort (Wise, 1956). The curriculum for this school was similar to previous ones, one difference being that English was the medium of instruction. The British and missionaries provided only elementary education at Cape Coast and like the Portuguese and the Dutch before them, they sent some students abroad to continue their education. Of all the students sent to England by the English, the most famous was called Phillip Quaque, who would spend over 11 years in England studying principles of Christianity. On his return to the Gold Coast, Philip Quaque was appointed Schoolmaster for a local school in Cape Coast. The curriculum for the school included reading, writing, arithmetic, religious education, and penmanship. He worked very hard to enroll many local boys and girls in his school but he met fierce resistance from parents who did not see the need for schooling. Over the years of colonial endeavor, progress in the development of urban education continued to be slow, poor, and uncertain. Missionaries and the trading companies continued to provide funds to support education. When the British took over the affairs of the Gold Coast during the later part of the nineteenth century, they had the task of extending schools throughout the Gold Coast (See Figure 2).
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Figure 2. Map of the Gold Coast under the British Colonial Administration, 1907–1957 Source: Bening, 1984, p. 82.
The British and Urban Education in the Gold Coast By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the British had established Cape Coast as their main educational center. Many of the schools were under the control of the missionaries. From Cape Coast, the missionaries, ably supported by the British administration, extended schools to the urban areas in the interior of the Gold Coast, beginning in Kumasi, where a previous Asantehene1 had expressed interest in Dutch schools at Elmina. In 1842, when the Rev. T. Picot approached the then current Asantehene for land on which to establish schools and churches, the Asantehene appeared not to be interested in any form of foreign cultural practices, preferring to warn the missionaries that their type of education was likely to make the people rebellious. As Kimble (1963) has pointed out, in a letter sent by the Asantehene to the Rev. Picot, the Asantehene clearly pointed out “We will not select children for education; for the Ashanti children
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Ofori-Attah
have better work to do than to sit down all day idly to learn hoy! hoy! hoy! They have to fan their parents, to do other work, which is much better” (p. 75). Many of the parents agreed with their king and so for several years, the missionaries were unable to make any meaningful progress in their educational pursuit inland (Busia, 1964). When the British conquered the Ashanti early in the twentieth century, the Ashanti had no choice but to yield to British request for establishing schools within Kumasi and other cities controlled by the Asantehene. In other to win the affection of the Ashanti, the British encouraged the Ashanti to send royal children to school because they figured out if they won the hearts and minds of the royals it would be easier for them to establish a stronger foothold in Ashanti. The Ashanti people were, on the other hand, willing to send only domestic servants or slaves to school because they thought schooling had no place in the life of royals. Resistance to schooling was common in the country as previously pointed out. In northern Gold Coast, similar ideas were expressed by local chiefs and “elites” when the missionaries attempted to enroll local children in school. Thomas (1974) has provided a vivid account of a local scenario on the eve of the departure of students from a rural area to study in the urban area: When Timu was Kpembewura, he was asked to provide a child to be sent to school. He called on Chinakuli, the son of his slave, but he was rejected. None of his wives would allow their son to be taken away to Gua (Cape Coast). Timu was embarrassed and did not know what to do. Atchulo volunteered, and amid tears, Timu gave him up. He went with one Seidu, the son of a slave of Kpembewura Nyinchubore. On the day of their leaving Kpembe, all the people in the house wept, saying that they would never see Atchulo again, for he was going to be sacrificed to the Yeji river. (Braimah & Goody, 1967, p. 86., quoted in Thomas, 1974, p. 430) Schooling was offered on a limited basis for several years chiefly because of the cost involved and the problem of training teachers. Early educators continued to offer elementary education in Africa and then send promising students abroad, as had the Dutch and the Portuguese. When these students returned to Gold Coast they had acquired new social status. Some worked for the missionaries and others worked for the colonial governments as clerks, teachers, administrators with special privileges at their disposal. Many parents became aware of the new forms of employment that required an ability to read, write, and speak English. They also became aware of the characteristics of the new economy that was gradually unfolding upon their society. As Kimble (1963) has argued, “Education thus offered the prospect of a regular salary, increased authority and prestige, possibly a trip to Europe, and certainly a means of avoiding manual labour which was … demanded by the white man of any illiterate African” (p. 620). Above all, colonial administrators and missionaries lived in better homes, had domestic servants, security personnel, and often had the final say in all local matters. It was only through education that any African could enjoy some of these privileges, privileges that were once reserved for royals, kings, and other traditional elites. And so gradually, many parents changed their view about sending their children to school. This gradual
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change in attitude of parents and others toward schooling increased the demand for education in the country especially in the urban centers where people often came face to face with modernity. As Rado (1972) has argued: Through education children learn to read and write, to perform calculations of increasing complexity, and to communicate in English or some other international language; most important of all, they may learn something about using evidence intelligently to evaluate the validity of arguments and assumptions. They will also acquire some knowledge about the society in which they live, and the world around them … . the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be unemployed; and that, if employed, the more educated you are the more you are likely to earn. (pp. 463–464) The foregoing discussion has made it abundantly clear that the missionaries and the British colonial government met resistance from the local people when they attempted to establish schools in the urban areas in the Gold Coast. The resistance put up the local people did not in any way dampen the spirits of the missionaries and the British administrators. They persisted until the Africans saw the need to embrace Christianity and Western style education. The factors that accounted for this is the subject for the next section of the paper.
Trends in School Enrollments Although many parents in the country initially resisted schooling, by the end of the nineteenth century, many local communities were clamoring for schools for their children. The newly established mining, rubber, shipping, banking, and trading firms all needed the services of clerks, typists, copyists or book-keepers. All these companies were based in the urban areas. Cities like Accra, which the British made the capital of the Gold Coast colony in 1877, Cape Coast, Salt Pond, Ada, Kumasi, Aburi, and Keta saw gradual increases in the number of missionary as well as public schools. By 1881, the colonial educators had established 139 schools, mostly located in the urban centers such as Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Sekondi, Tamale, Winneba and Koforidua. (See Table 2.) Of these schools, only three were under the control and management of the colonial government, with Cape Coast hosting one, and Accra the other two. The remaining schools were all under the management of the missionaries. The Table 2.
Population of the main towns, 1891–1931
Census
Accra
Kumasi
Cape Coast
Sekondi
Tamale
Winneba
Koforidua
1891 1901 1911 1921 1931
16,267 14,842 19,582 38,049 60,726
3,000 6,280 18,853 20,268 35,829
11,614 28,948 11,269 14,921 17,685
1,276 4,095 9,122 9,500 16,953
–
4,283 5,578 5,842 6,980 10,926
– 1,406 3,891 5,364 10,529
Source: Kimble, 1963, p. 144.
432 2,138 3,901 12,941
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Basel Mission had 47 schools, the Wesleyans 84 schools, the Bremen Mission 4 schools, and the Roman Catholic Church 1 school (Foster, 1965). Although the demand for western education in the Gold Coast increased after 1880, in the rural areas, many parents still needed the hands of their children on their farms and so were very reluctant to enroll them in schools. Some could not bear the thought of leaving their children under the care of strangers in the urban areas. When the Rev. Reindorf opened a school 17 miles northwest of Accra in 1872, he did not find enough students to enroll in the school. He had to recruit students from Accra, one of the main urban centers in the Gold Coast. In order to attract more local students to attend the school he had to bear the cost of the initial pupils’ clothing, boarding and lodging fees. In some cases, school authorities had to order clothes and other essential items for the students at their own expense. This was particularly the case for students whose parents were not financially able to meet the cost of the education for their children. This was not the case in all instances. In many rural areas where there were no schools, parents had to enroll their children in nearby urban centers where they commuted daily to attended schools. Many students commuted long distances daily to attend schools, some covered more than four miles each day. Where the students could not commute, their parents had to find a close relative in the urban areas whose responsibility was to house and take care of the student while studying in the urban area. In most cases, the parents relied upon a wide network of relatives for financial contributions to help such students make the trip to the urban area to attend school (Lloyd, 1968). Many of these students returned to the rural areas during the weekend and brought food and money to support themselves while they attended classes in the urban areas.
Urbanization, Schooling, and Social Mobility in the Gold Coast As Foster (1965, p. 51) has pointed out, “The urban areas with their development of an indigenous merchant class, with their heterogeneous populations predominantly dependent on an exchange economy, and with a nucleus of literate inhabitants …” served as a fertile ground for investments in schools. Some of the companies based in the urban engaged in rubber production, including companies such as the African Rubber Company, African Plantations Limited, West African Rubber Plantations, African Product Development Company (Munro, 1981). Other companies represented in the urban areas included the African Gold Coast Company, Messrs Swanzy and Company, the Effuenta Gold Mining Company, and the Gold Coast Mining Company (Silver, 1981). Here, the colonial government introduced modern amenities such as electricity, piped water, hospitals, banking, administrative offices and promoted trade and industries and modern transportation systems. The urban areas thus became focal points for economic development (Reynolds, 1975). As Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu (2003) have pointed out: Considering the important role of transportation in economic development, those areas that were located either directly on or close to the transportation network
Urbanization and Schooling in Africa
also became the focus of production. By linking the ports at Takoradi in the west and Accra in the east to the resources in the resource-rich interior centered on Kumasi, the railway network created what became known as the “Golden Triangle …” The areas encompassed by the triangle and immediate hinterland became the location of 90 percent of all education institutions, health facilities, manufacturing industries, formal-sector jobs … even though the area covered less than one-third of the country and contained approximately 61 percent of the population. (p. 517) (See Figure 3)
Figure 3. Map of Ghana showing colonial urban centers Source: Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu, 2003, p. 518.
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People are generally attracted to urban centers to find better way of life, job security, and modern ways of doing things. It was therefore no accident that the urban areas saw rapid increase in population growth and consequently a rise in the number of educational institutions during this era. The British in an effort to improve overseas trade started work on a harbor at twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi. The construction of the harbor attracted a large number of people to the area. Once parents got good paying jobs, they were able to invest some money in the education of their children. One interesting observation is that in the urban areas, people who had been to school as well as those who had not, sought good education for their children, both boys and girls. The effect was that, more girls in the urban areas were able to attend school more than those in the rural areas. The new economy brought about two main types of jobs: manual labor and clerical jobs (Reynolds, 1975). Manual labor for those who could not read, write, or speak English and clerical jobs for those who could read, write or speak English. And even manual labor required the use of enough English so as to be able to communicate with a European supervisor. Those who had not been to school or had a poor education had to resort to a type of “English” that later became known as “pidgin English” or “business English.” Rodger, (1909) has provided a few expressions in Pidgin English: When a man tells you that he “lib for die”; which means he is on the point of death. “I no chop snakes” means that he does not eat them. “I look ‘em and no see ‘em means” “I look for something and do not find it.” “Massa no lib,” means “Master is not at home.” “I lib for bush one time” means “I ran away at once.” (p. 5) Often administrative or clerical jobs paid more money than the manual labor. Again, the prestige attached to clerical jobs was so high that it became the cardinal principle of every young man or woman to go to school so as to be able to land a clerical position. The only route to become literate was to attend school and the urban areas were places where these schools were usually located (Kimble, 1963). The new urban areas were the administrative centers of the Gold Coast. Here were found all senior administrators who made decisions concerning economic and social development. These senior officers embraced education and so were prepared to make significant personal contributions to the development of urban education. The natural consequence was that a higher percentage of the people in the urban areas were able to attend schools than those in the rural areas. This trend has persisted over the years. Today in Ghana, the urban areas that set up more schools during the colonial times continue to lead in the provision of educational facilities. Thus, the Greater Accra, Central, Ashanti, Western, and Volta regions have fewer people without schooling experience. In 1993 for instance, 26.2% of all males in the country had no schooling experience, 38.3% of all females in the country had no schooling experience (See Table 3). Other amenities, beyond schools, in the urban areas also attracted people from rural areas. Cinemas, theaters, modern recreational facilities, trading opportunities, and housing all served as magnets to pull young men and women from the rural areas to the urban areas. The increase in urban population naturally led to the expansion in educational institutions in these areas (Grindal, 1972).
Urbanization and Schooling in Africa Table 3.
35
Rural–urban distributional of educational opportunities in Ghana Formal-sector employment Percentage of population living in urban areas
Public
Private Male with no schooling (%)
Female with no schooling (%)
Residence
1948
1960
1970
1984
2000
2000
2000
1993
1993
All Regions Western Central Greater Accra Volta Eastern Ashanti Brong-Ahafo Northern Upper West Upper East
12.8 21.2 19 62.2 4.6 9.7 14 2.2 7.6 – –
23.1 24.7 28.5 78.8 13.1 20.2 25 15.6 13 – –
28.9 27.6 29.1 85.3 16 24.6 29.7 22.1 21.2 6.7 5.8
31.3 22.8 26.5 83.5 20.7 26.7 32.1 26.6 24.7 10.8 8.5
43.8 36.3 37.5 87.7 27 34.6 51.3 37.4 26.6 15.7 17.5
5.9 9.3 6.7 29.2 7.8 9.9 19.5 7.1 5.1 2.9 2.6
7.8 9.9 6.7 34.8 5 8.2 21.1 6.1 4.8 2.1 1.5
26.2 17.8 18.5 9.6 20.8 16.9 17.4 21.7 62 56.9 50.9
38.3 34.1 35.6 19.4 34.3 27.1 33 30.8 75.9 67.9 66.5
Source: Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu, 2003, p. 523.
Largely as a result of these social amenities, the educated people in the Gold Coast tended to remain in urban areas, where the influence of local traditional practices such as disregard for the schooling of girls was diminished. This led to a rise in the urban student population for both boys and girls. The rapid increase in urban student populations led to a number of problems in the organization and administration of urban schools, ranging from lack of textbooks to inadequate furniture, buildings, and teachers. Some of the schools were operated in one-room houses. Often some of these “served as Sunday school as well as day-school, and in some cases the chapel” (Bartels, 1949, p. 302). Under such conditions, students had very little spaces in the classroom to move around to complete projects and other assignments. Teachers, too, had to work with two or more grade levels at the same time within the same building. In many instances, students irrespective of their grade level learned the same things under the same teacher at the same time. This is was very common with respect to classes such as music, story telling, art, and drawing.
The Curriculum of Early Urban Schools in Ghana The curriculum of early urban schools consisted essentially of religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic (See Table 4). Christian religion served as the bedrock of instruction. Students were taught religious lessons that were often in contrast to what they had been brought to believe. Traditionally, children were taught to respect local gods since it was believed that these gods were the
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Table 4.
Early school curriculum in the Gold Coast Syllabus for the 3 Rs. (1870)*
Subject
Class Standard 1
Standard 2
Standard 3
Reading
Narrative in Monosyllables
A short paragraph from an elementary reading book used in the school
Writing
Form on blackboard or slate, from dictation, letters, capital and small manuscript Form on blackboard or slate, from dictation, figures up to 20: add, subtract figures up to 10 orally, from examples on blackboard A short paragraph from a more advanced reading used in the school
One of the narratives next in order after monosyllables in an elementary reading book in the school Copy in manuscript a line of print
Arithmetic
Reading
Writing
Arithmetic
A sentence slowly dictated once by a few words at a time, from the same book but not from the paragraph read A sum in Compound Rules (money)
A sum in simple addition or subtraction, and the multiplication table
A few lines of poetry from a reading book used in the first class of the school A sentence slowly dictated once by a few words at a time, from a reading book used in the first class of the school A sum in Compound Rules (Common Weights and Measures)
A sentence from the same paragraph, and slowly read once, and then dictated in single words A sum in any simple rule as far as short division (inclusive)
A short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative, slowly dictated once by a few words at a time Another short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative
A sum in practice or bills of parcels
* From Birchenough, History of elementary education, pp. 292–297. See also J. S. Maclure, Educational documents (1816–1963), p. 80. Every scholar for whom grants were claimed must be examined according to the above standards. Source: Graham, 1971, p. 189.
custodians of the whole society. Any infraction on what the gods prescribed was sufficient to invoke the anger and possible destruction of the entire society. At school, however, the children learnt that local gods and their teachings were false, that local gods represented evil ideas and had no place in the kingdom of God. To many parents, there was no doubt the gods were very much in control of local affairs. Any attack on the status and role of local gods was an attack on the belief and value system of the people. Therefore, such teachings in most cases did not sit well with some parents and so they withdrew their children from school because “the teachers were teaching their children to disrespect their elders” (Grindal, 1972, p. 98).
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When the British took over the entire country by the close of the nineteenth century, English became the language of instruction on all schools throughout Gold Coast. The fact of the matter was that there was no one particular local language that was recognized as a national language for development. The use of foreign language was not peculiar to British colonies, or even new to Britain itself. In England, outstanding scholars produced works in Latin even though English was the official language. Sir Isaac Newton produced his work Philosophiœ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in Latin, rather than in his native English. John Locke, a British scholar used the Latin expression, Tabula Rasa (blank slate) to explain his concept of human learning (Karier, 1986). It might thus be seen that colonial authorities, with their own history of using non-native languages in their own schools, would shrink from imposing English (as well as Latin) on the students of Gold Coast. History was another of the subjects on the school curriculum. However, it would be the history of the British Commonwealth, and Great Britain, and Europe that was taught, in part because it was then commonly thought, by colonial authorities, that there were no written historical records of the Gold Coast. As a result, missionaries and the colonial administrators felt free to immerse the African students in the traditions and values of Europe. Other subjects such as geography and English literature were taught but with examples from Europe. As if there were no large lakes or rivers in the Gold Coast, all the major geographic landforms, climatic conditions, rivers, seasons, rock formation, vegetation, animal life, and farming methods mentioned in class were essentially based upon European examples (Kimble, 1963) (See Table 5). The influence of British culture and values on education in the Gold Coast can be seen in a program for a school concert in 1922 at Tamale, one of the major urban centers in the Northern region. Below is part of the program as presented by Kimble, 1963, p. 118: Opening song Song Recitation Song Dialogue
“You Gentlemen of England” “Hurrah! Hurrah for England” “Doctor Quack” by Kwaku Dagomba “Our Home is the Ocean Blue” “The Wolf and the Lamb,” by Iddrusu
Tamale is a city which is over 400 miles from the coast. While there may be nothing wrong with the students singing about England and the ocean, what is discouraging was the absence of a performance based upon local events. Such practice was common in all educational activities during the colonial period. Colonial educators, especially the missionaries, saw the need to permit space in curriculum for local languages. However, beyond this, they wasted little time in eliminating local influences and practices they considered unacceptable to Christian beliefs and ethics. As Martin (1976, p. 50) has pointed out: The missionaries realized that African religion, art, music and other social activities were very closely connected with each other. They incorrectly thought that they could not replace existing beliefs with Christianity unless they expelled all other beliefs. African dancing and music were banned from the curriculum.
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Table 5.
Typical colonial school syllabus in the Gold Coast Typical Syllabus in Geography, History, and English Literature*
Class
Geography
History
Class
English Literature (as a Specific Subject)
Standard II
Definitions, points of compass, form and motion of the earth, the meaning of a map Outlines of Geography of Great Britain with special knowledge of the country in which the school is situated
Not taken below Std. IV
1st year
Standard IV
Outlines of Geography of Great Britain, Ireland and the Colonies
Outlines of History of England to Norman Conquest
100 lines of poetry, got by heart, with knowledge of meaning and allusions. Writing a letter on a single subject. 200 lines of poetry not before brought up, repeated; with knowledge of meaning and allusions. Writing a paraphrase of a passage of early prose 300 lines of poetry, not before brought up, repeated, with knowledge of meaning and allusions. Writing a letter or statement, the heads of the topics to be given by Inspectors
Standard V
Outlines of Geography of Europe–physical and political
Standard VI
Outlines of Geography of the world
Outlines of History of England from Norman Conquest to accession of Henry VII Outlines of History of England from Henry VII to death of George III
Standard III
2nd year
3rd year
* From Birchenough, History of elemantary education, pp. 292–299 Source: Graham, 1971, pp. 190–191.
Although the colonial educators and the missionaries made several attempts to introduce other courses such as agriculture, carpentry, masonry, and other trade subjects into the school curriculum, these efforts were often resisted by the parents on the grounds that only academic subjects were essential to equip the African with skills to merit employment in the new economy thrust upon the people as a result of their contacts with the Europeans. In 1925, the colonial Committee of Privy Council made a number of recommendations for improving and expanding the curriculum of the local schools so as to map them to local needs and interests. The Committee recommended among other things, as follows: (1) To inculcate the principles and promote the influence of Christianity by such instruction as can be given in elementary schools. (2) To accustom the children of these races to habits of self-control and moral discipline.
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(3) To diffuse a grammatical knowledge of the English language as the most important agent of civilization. (4) To make the school the means of improving the condition of the peasantry by teaching them ho health may be preserved by a proper diet, cleanliness, ventilation and clothing, and by the structure of their dwellings. (5) To give practical training in household economy and in the cultivation of cottage garden as well as in those common handicrafts by which a labourer may improve his domestic comfort. (6) Improved agriculture is required to replace the system of exhausting the virgin soils, and then leaving to natural influences alone the work of reparation. The education of coloured races would, therefore, not be complete for the children of small farmer, unless it included this object. (7) Lesson books should teach the mutual interests of mother country, and her dependencies, the natural basis of this connection and domestic and social duties of the coloured races. (8) Lesson books should also set forth simply the relation of wages, capital, and labour, and the influence of local and general government on personal security independence, and order (Foster, 1965, p. 55). These changes did not materialize in any sense because the local people had a different set of needs for going to school. Agriculture, trade subjects, and vernacular were not part of the reason they flocked to the schools; they flocked to the schools purely for prestige or economic reasons and knowledge in local ideas did not measure up to any of the skills they hoped to acquire by going to school (Blakemore, 1975; Williams, 1964).
Financing Urban Education The initial financial burden for schools in the urban centers rested with the missionaries. In many cases parents did not have to pay anything toward the schooling expenditure of their children. Some missionaries took care of all the needs of the students. The idea of the missionaries was to train a few local students to help them propagate the gospel. Another source of funding for urban schools was from fines imposed on colonial personnel who did not attend church on Sundays and other important days (Graham, 1971). Today, few if any people would pay such fines, but at the time the influence of Christianity in the schools was so great that no one questioned the morality of the fines. Although little money was raised from this to support schools, the imposition of fines on people who did not attend church on important Christian days encouraged church attendance and consequently the propagation of the gospel. There were a few social clubs in the urban centers that provided some funds to support schools. One of this was a Dining Club called the Torridzonian Society. This club was made up of the new urban elite that were gradually emerging in the Gold Coast (Reynolds, 1975). The original aim of the society was to maintain friendship among the educated elite in the Gold Coast. However, as later events showed, members abandoned this original goal and made education it principal objective (Martin, 1976). Apart from providing financial assistance, the Torridzonian Society provided “primers, spelling books, Testaments and Bibles” to the schools (Martin, 1976, p. 297).
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People in business found it to their advantage to provide financial assistance to colonial urban schools. The Colonial Merchant Society that operated in the Gold Coast at that time was made up of business people who were eager to train local people to help them promote their business. This society needed clerks and other people who could help them carry out their business activities in the Gold Coast and so gave financial incentives to students to attend schools. In some cases, they provided direct financial assistance to the missionaries. Since these people were engaged in trade and industry, they were able to provide substantial amounts of money to support urban education (Kimble, 1963). The “home” governments for the various competing missionaries also provided financial assistance to promote urban education in the Gold Coast. The Basel, Wesleyan, Catholic, Bremen, Church of England, AME Zion, et al., missionaries all brought in substantial sums money of money abroad to support urban education. In 1900, the Methodist church for instance had 100 schools. These schools were essentially in the urban centers and were financed as follows: Government Grants £1,612 Fees £475 Church sources £1,567 Total £3,654 Source: Kimble, 1963, p. 75. Although the missionaries initially bore a large share of financing urban education, when the colonial government became actively involved in the development and promotion of education in the country, the government played a leading role in the financing of education in the country as a whole, rural as well as urban. Finally, the British colonial administration provided grants to support urban education. Although the British colonial office was reluctant to provide grants to support mission schools, in order to promote education in the country, given the overwhelming percentage of schools run by missionary effort, it had no choice but to provide financial assistance to the mission schools. However, the mission schools had to meet certain conditions in order to quality for these grants. The grants paid to schools in were based on student achievement which was measured by test results (Kimble, 1963). As Graham (1971) had pointed out: The grants were to be based mainly on such subjects as Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and girls were to be examined in needlework. Grants could also be got for such “optional” subjects as History and Geography. The local Boards were to assist in the administration of the grants-in-aid system whenever these were considered necessary. (p. 111)
Urban School Organization: The Boarding School System The missionaries and early colonial educators found it necessary to institute boarding schools in the urban areas so as to be able to provide education for children in an
Urbanization and Schooling in Africa
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environment that was devoid of local influences. The boarding schools in particular offered “homes” for students whose parents lived in the rural areas. Some of the boarding schools were set up solely for girls; others were exclusively for boys, with few offering space to both girls and boys. In these urban boarding schools, more attention was paid to the academic work than subjects such as gardening (Graham, 1971). Fees and other important items were also clearly spelled out on the prospectus (See Figure 4). The boarding houses were designed to help the school authorities weaken or destroy the bonds of local tradition the students were familiar with. In advocating for the establishment of more boarding schools, Guggisberg (1922) argued that boarding schools are essential for the education of the African especially in terms of character training. Guggisberg saw the absence of more boarding schools in the Gold Coast as one of the main defects of the educational system. As he put it: … there is a … far more serious defect, (of our educational system) namely, the absence of efficient character training. This is chiefly due to the lack of Boarding
PROSPECTUS OF THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL (19th March, 1876)
WESLEYAN HIGH SCHOOL—CAPE COAST PRINCIPAL: James Picot, Esquire. The Boarding Department of the above school will open on Monday, 3rd July. TERMS: Three Guineas per Quarter The following subjects are taught in the school, viz: I ENGLISH: In all its branches. A thorough instruction will be imparted at a charge of one guinea per quarter. II EXTRA STUDIES: for each of which an extra charge will be made of seven shillings and sixpence per quarter as numbered. Classics: Mathematics: Sciences: Modern Languages:
(1) (1) (1) (1)
Latin; (2) Greek. Geometry and Mensuration; (2) Algebra; (3) Trigonometry. Chemistry; (2) Animal Physiology; (3) Natural Philosophy. French.
N.B.––1st: All applications and payments must be made to the Superintendent, the latter to be Quarterly, in advance. No child will be admitted by the Principal who cannot produce her Quarterly receipt for the payment of all fees. 2nd: The academical year consists of two sessions, with a vacation of two weeks at the end of the first in June, and of four weeks at the close of the second. No Boarders will be allowed to remain on the premises during the vacation. 3rd: Parents desiring their children to belong to the Boarding Department must first correspond with the Superintendent on the subject. Cape Coast, 19th March, 1876. By 1891 the scope of the syllabus had widened to include subjects such as Fanti and Bookkeeping (The Gold Coast People––Supplement, p. 1. 26/10/1891).
Figure 4. Prospectus for girls in a Boarding School in Cape Cost, 1876 Source: Graham, 1971, p. 192.
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Schools, where such qualities as sense of responsibility, initiative, leadership and discipline can be gradually, and unconsciously to himself, imbued in the boy; for, however earnest and painstaking the Master may be, it practically impossible to imbue the scholars with those qualities which go to form character if the boys are for less than one-third of the day under their control and influence. (p. 84) Once in the boarding house, the students had little contact with the outside world. They also had very little to do with local practices; they were not permitted to do certain things such using vernacular to communicate with others, eating local dish, singing local songs, or observing any local event such as the death of a relative. Nearly everything students did in the boarding schools had to be approved by school authorities. The interests of the schools authorities were not the same as those of the students and so there was often mistrust between the school authorities and the student body. Students lived according to strict code of ethics. They had to sleep and wake up, eat, study, or go to classes at specific times. They cleaned their dormitories and classrooms and swept and looked after the compound every morning. It was considered an offense for a student to attend class or go to town in a uniform not approved by the school authorities. Students needed a special permit called “exeats” to leave the premises of the boarding house. A student could be given severe punishment such as expulsion for violating the dress code or leaving the boarding house without permission. In the colonial urban schools, both boys and girls had similar education. Both studied courses like English, history, geography, reading and writing. While in the boarding house, all students were required to have own items such as the Holy Bible, cutlass, pressing iron, hymn book, bucket, sponges, bed sheets, a pillow and pillow slips, drinking cups, spoons, knife, fork, and plates. In addition to the above, girls in the boarding house were expected to have the following items. 12 pairs of scissors 1 lb. cotton in Ball 1 lb. cotton in Hanks 1 lb. of cotton in Darning 800 Queen’s needles 200 Darning needles 12 Silver Thimbles Source: Graham, 1971, p. 72. The girls needed the above items for their housecraft course. In such classes, the girls learned how to cut and sew European dresses, how to knight sweaters. In the cookery class, they learned how to bake English cakes, biscuits, bread. Later, the school authorities expanded the cookery lessons to include local dishes such as peanut-butter or palm nut soup (Masemann, 1974). While the girls usually studied their courses in a separate building on the compound, the boys busied themselves with courses like carpentry, masonry, iron works, agriculture or other courses that were considered appropriate for a male student.
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From the above illustrations, it is clear that one of the chief objectives for educating girls was to provide them training that would make them suitable wives or partners for the new elites in the society. On the other hand the curriculum for the boys, as noted above, prepared them for various positions in missionary and mercantile jobs. They learned reading and writing like the girls but were more frequently sent overseas to study other technical and commercial subjects that eventually qualified them to occupy top positions in government and missionary work.
Dysfunctional Consequences of Urban Education on Traditional and Social Practices The oft-presumed primary goal of schooling is to train people to be responsible and competent citizens who will see the role they play in society as vital to the overall development of their nation. However, this has always not been the case. Often we hear of people developing negative sentiments in society as a result of the training they received at school. This was what happened in the Gold Coast during the colonial days. The nature of education provided in the Gold Coast by the missionaries and the colonial government brought about several social problems. These problems included dislike and distrust of manual work, local items such as dress, and local languages and names. Perhaps, these problems emerged because the missionaries and the colonial government had different aim in mind when they opened schools in the Gold Coast. As already pointed out, their main goal was to train clerks and missionaries to manage the affairs of the Gold Coast. This view would come to be shared by parents and others who enrolled their children in the various schools that later appeared all over the Gold Coast. In order words, the educational system was initially set up to produce people who would not do manual work. So when the new economy could not absorb the labor of all those who had completed school, these people did not want to accept any job that required manual labor. At best, manual work was fit for only people who could not read or write and not for those who could speak, write or read English. In 1909, in address to the African Society in London, Rodger (1909), observed: All the main problems of the Gold Coast … are connected directly or indirectly, with Education, Sanitation, or Transport … . We found that the training in our schools was too exclusively literary, with the result that hundreds of boys were turned out every year who expected to obtain posts in the Government Service or as clerks in mercantile offices. When unable to obtain such appointments, of which the number is quite insufficient for the very numerous candidates, they become restless and discontented, and agitate against the well-being of the Colony … . (p. 9) Another dysfunctional consequence of early urban education system was the impact on local languages. In boarding schools (and perhaps in all schools), students were not permitted to use vernacular and so they saw this as a sign of “enlightenment” because
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whatever they learned at school was presumed to promote excellent human behavior. Some of the students would not speak it at any place. This was particularly the case where both parents had been to school. At home, they encouraged their children to speak English because they saw their children, as Plato put it, as “Children of Gold” and not “Children of Bronze.” In Takoradi, the local Fanti women who had been to school formed an association called The Ladies Mutual Club. One of their “rules of engagement” was that no one was permitted to speak Fanti, a local language, during their meetings. Local dress also suffered. Educated Africans often refused to any longer “adopt all the trappings of traditional life” (Graham, 1971, p. 8). They did not like to dress like those who had not been to school. For the educated man, or “Krakye” (literate man), the prescribed clothes were those of European origin – suit, tie, shirt, hat, pointed shoes. The educated woman, “lady,” or “Awuraba” (literate woman) was expected to show her mark of social distinction by wearing Victorian style frocks, hats, straw bonnets, coats, and shoes. One of the rules of the Ladies Club in Takoradi referred to earlier was that “members who went out in native dress should be fined” (Kimble, 1963, p. 134). Other local customs, values and traditional practices suffered. Those educated in colonial schools were taught to believe that local practices were all outmoded or uncivilized practices or fetish observances. In Ashanti, for instance, a converted Christian urged his followers not to serve their King in any way because a service to the King was tantamount to “fetish worship” (Tordoff, 1965, p. 198). In another instance, a Christian who was rebuked by a local pastor for disobeying a chief, the Christian argued by saying “What is meant then by being a Christian” (Tordoff, 1965, p. 197). While at school, each student was given a Christian name. This was seen by the “converts” as indication of enlightenment and the acceptance of the Christian religion as a new way of life. This implied that local rules or customary laws were not applicable to such people. In a sense, Christians were “above” traditional laws and customs, customs that the elders had lived with for centuries. In the urban areas where most of the students acquired their literary skills, respect for local authority diminished and became, in some cases, non-existent. Although as the century wore on, some educated people made attempts to reverse these tendencies, the harm had already been done. The urban (as well as the few rural) school curriculum was designed in such a way that students in the Gold Coast continued to embrace European way of life and preferred anything European to African.
Conclusion This paper has traced the historical developments of urbanization and education in the Gold Coast. It has clearly demonstrated that there is a direct link between urbanization and formal schooling. As in many other countries, formal schooling started in the Gold Coast in the urban areas. These urban areas were the administrative centers for the colonial administrators and the early missionaries who sowed the seed for modern
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education the Gold Coast, the present-day Ghana. Generally, the distribution of population determined the distribution of education opportunities in that country (Graham, 1971; Kimble, 1963). Initially, the beneficiaries of formal schooling were the children of missionaries, colonial administrators, local elites, and rich merchants. As the centuries wore on, the base for selection of children for schooling expanded to include rural as well as urban children (Bibby, 1973). However, for a variety of reasons, students in the urban areas enjoyed better facilities at school than those at the rural areas. The early missionaries and the colonial government worked hand-in-hand to lay the foundations for formal education in the Gold Coast. These two bodies collaborated in many areas concerning school organization, finance, administration and curriculum development although each had a different goal in promoting formal schooling in the country. In order to have significant control over what the students learned or did, the early colonial administrators and the missionaries set up the boarding school system, where students were expected to pay no heed to local customs and traditions. European patterns of thinking and social behavior were rigidly enforced at the boarding houses by the school administrators. This in part accounted for the reason why urban students rapidly lost respect and love for any custom, tradition, or social practice that had African roots. Although the educational system the missionaries and colonial administrators set up had defects in terms of curriculum alignment and mapping, the system served as the bedrock of modern educational system in the country. One factor that emerged from this study is that the demand for schooling had economic as well as social need (Rado, 1972). The new economy, which the colonial administration brought into the country, required the services of people who could read, write and speak English. As Kimble, (1963) put it: English became the language of government, of overseas trade, and, in particular, of the schools. Education, to many people, came to mean simply the ability to speak and write English. It was both the gateway to opportunity and the main medium of communication between educated Africans of different tribes. (p. 510) It did not require a skill to use any of the local languages or farming skills to land a job in the new economy. In point of fact, their main objective of going to school was purely materialistic. These students saw schooling as a means of attaining better incomes and a higher standard of living. Hence, students did not pay attention to the acquisition of any skill that had no immediate bearing on what they wanted to accomplish after spending a number of years in school. In other words, their objective for attending school was not significantly different than any other students, whether in Europe, Asia, North or South America (Anderson, 1965; Briones & Waisanen, 1976).
Note 1. Ashanti king.
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References Agyemang, F. M. (1967). A century with boys. Accra: Waterville Publishing House. Anderson, D. (1965). Geographic and economic factors and the development of educational systems in Western Europe. Comparative Education Review, 9(2), 147–154. Bartels, F. L. (1949). Education in the Gold Coast. African Affairs, 48(193), 300–311. Bening, R. B. (1984). Internal colonial boundary problems of the Gold Coast, 1907–1957. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 17(1), 81–99. Bibby, J. (1973). The social base of Ghanaian education: It is still broadening? The British Journal of Sociology, 24(3), 365–374. Birchenough, C. (1927). History of elementary education in England and Wales from 1800 to present day. London: W. B. Clive. Blakemore, K. P. (June 1975). Resistance to formal education in Ghana: Its implication for the status of school leavers. Comparative Education Review, 19, 237–251. Braimah, J. A., & Goody, J. R. (1967). Salaga: The struggle for power. London: Longmans. Briones, G. B., & Waisanen, F. B. (1976). Educational aspirations, modernization and urban integration. In P. Meadows, & E. H. Mizruchi (Eds.), Urbanism, urbanization, and change: Comparative perspectives (pp. 263–275). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Busia, K. A. (1964). The challenge of Africa. New York: Praeger Paperbacks. Chandler, T. (1994). Urbanization in ancient Africa. In J. D. Tarver (Ed.), Urbanization in Africa: A handbook (pp. 3–14). London: Greenwood Press. Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. (1991). The process of urbanization in Africa (from the origins to the beginning of independence). African Studies Review, 34(1), 1–98. Davidson, B. (1991a). African civilization revisited. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Davidson, B. (1991b). Africa in history. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Feinberg, H. M. (1989). Africans and Europeans in West Africa: Elminans and Dutchmen on the Gold Coast during the eighteenth century. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 79(7), 1–186. Foster, P. (1965). Education and social change in Ghana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gibbs, J. P. (1966). Measures of urbanization. Social Forces, 45(2), 170–177. Graham, C. K. (1971). The history of education in Ghana: From the earliest times to the declaration of independence. London: Frank Cass. Grindal, B. (1972). Growing up in two worlds. New York: Holt. Guggisberg, F. G. (1922). The Goal of the Gold Coast. Journal of the Royal African Society, 21(82), 81–91. Haskins, J., & Benson, K. (1998). African beginnings. New York: Lothrop and Shepard Books. Hilliard F. H. (1957). A short history of education in British West Africa. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. Hull, R. W. (1976). African cities and towns before the European conquest. New York: Norton. Karier, C. J. (1986). The individual, society and education. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kimble, D. (1963). A political history of Ghana. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Konadu-Agyemang, K., & Adanu, S. (2003). The changing geography of export trade in Ghana under structural adjustment programs: Some socioeconomic and spatial implications. The Professional Geographer, 55(4), 513–527. Lloyd, P. C. (1968). Africa in social change. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Lystad, R. (1958). The Ashanti: A proud people. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Maclure, J. S. (1965). Educational documents, England and Wales. London: Chapman and Hall. Martin, C. A. (1976). Significant trends in Ghanaian education. The Journal of Negro Education, 45, 46–60. Martin, E. C. (1924). Early educational experiments in the Gold Coast. Journal of the Royal African Society, 23(92), 294–298. Masemann, V. (1974). The “hidden curriculum” of a West African girls’ boarding school. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 8(3), 479–494. Munro, J. F. (1981). Monopolists and speculators: British Investments in West African Rubber, 1905–1914. Journal of African History, 22, 263–278. Owusu, G. (2005). Small towns in Ghana: Justification for their promotion under Ghana’s decentralization programme. African Studies Quarterly, 8(2), 48–69.
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Peel, J. D. Y. (1980). Urbanization and urban history in West Africa. The Journal of African History, 21(21), 269–277. Rado, E. R. (1972). The relevance of education for employment. The Journal of Modern African Studies 10(3), 459–475. Reynolds, E. (1975). Economic imperialism: The case of the Gold Coast. The Journal of Economic History, 35(1), 94–116. Rodger, J. P. (1909). The Gold Coast of to-day. Journal of Royal African Society, 9(33), 1–19. Silver, J. (1981). The failure of European mining companies in the nineteenth-century Gold Coast. The Journal of African History, 22(4), 511–529. Thomas, R. G. (1974). Education in Northern Ghana, 1906–1940: A study in colonial paradox. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 7(3), 427–467. Tordoff, W. (1965). Ashanti under the Prempehs: 1888–1935. London: Oxford University Press. Williams, D. T. (1964). Sir Gordon Guggisberg and educational reform in the Gold Coast. Comparative Education Review, 8(3), 290–306. Wise, C. (1956). A history of education in British West Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Company.
3 LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CAMEROON: FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO THE 21ST CENTURY Funwi F. Ayuninjam Winston-Salem State University, U.S.A.
Introduction Preliminary Language multiplicity is an easily perceptible trait among African countries. With the exception of a dozen countries with two primary languages,1 and another seven countries with three primary languages,2 the remaining two-thirds of Africa’s nations are awash with languages, including colonial and contact ones. However, the choice of which language to use for formal education was never that of the speakers, but of colonial administrators, based on economic and political interests, or cultural or religious/ ethnocentric biases. For similar reasons, colonial languages were introduced either to supplant indigenous ones, or indigenous languages were introduced to supplant their indigenous counterparts, or some languages were suppressed altogether.3 In sum, the language situation in sub-Saharan Africa has had a checkered history and has not properly served the peoples due to many factors, including European imperialism, colonialism, and a myopic vision by post-colonial leaders. Okrah imputes the responsibility for failed educational reforms in Africa partially on poor pedagogical leadership, fiscal strain, and lack of parental cooperation (2003, p. 13). A UNESCO study has established that investing beyond primary education to secondary and tertiary education is economically rewarding over the long haul, and, inversely, countries whose budgetary allocations for education have been only a pittance have been left at the bottom of the pile. This correlation under girds Makulu’s (1971) position that “African education needs not the luxury of unproductive, philosophically oriented education but education that will produce men and women that will help in the exploitation of the technical coming of age of Africa in the task of nation building” (Okrah, 2003, p. 18). A people’s social, economic, or political advancement is a function of its educational advancement. That symbiotic relationship (investment in education and 49 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 49–74. © 2007 Springer.
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national development) explains why the most developed nations of the world have placed a high premium on education – in particular, research and development (R&D). In the data that follow, the parenthetical information shows public expenditure on education, followed by budgetary allocations for R&D – each as a percentage of gross domestic product: Denmark (8.5%; 2.5%), Sweden (7.7%; 4.27%), Switzerland (5.8%; 2.63%), USA (5.7%; 2.67%), France (5.6%; 2.27%), the United Kingdom (5.3%; 1.88%), and Canada (5.2%; 2.0%). All these countries have primary-to-secondary-school transition rates of 99 or 100%. Cameroon, for its part, spends 3.8% of its GDP on education – the highest in Central Africa, but has the second lowest primary-to-secondary-school transition rate (43%).4 (No data were available on R&D spending). Based on the same source, sub-Saharan Africa invests the least among the developing regions of the world, at 2.6%, compared to 4.2% in Latin America. It is evident from the preceding data that educational policy is, ought to be, an intentional, considered choice, and a choice that has meaning for the intended beneficiaries; that is, education should be relevant, valuable, and applicable to the educated. The educational policy must be malleable and must evolve with the nation’s character. A crucial aspect of education is language, because it constitutes an essential pillar of cognitive development and a prime vector of the people’s culture and philosophy. Yet, as Urch (1992) points out, the African language curriculum has remained a problem without a solution: nowhere is the dilemma of traditionalism versus modernism more evident than in the language policy found in educational systems throughout Africa. The policy and ensuing practice remain an explosive issue in many countries today. While demands exist for a “National Language,” it is apparent that the ethnic tongues used in the 19th century are not sufficient to prepare the youths for the 21st century. Policies vary throughout the continent between the need to promote social and political cohesiveness through an African vernacular and the need for a European language to assist in the modernization process. (Okrah, p. 21) The rest of this chapter examines closely language considerations for Cameroon from the imperial period through the wake of the second millennium. The chapter seeks to answer these questions: What factors – pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial – shaped language education policies in Cameroon; and how effectively have the policies served the nation?
The Language Situation in Colonial Cameroon: The Pre-War Era Cameroon, with a population of 15,731,000 people, is a linguistic and racial crossroads in Africa, with over 250 different ethnic groups and 279 indigenous languages – making it the sixth most linguistically diverse nation in the world, after Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, and Mexico (Spolsky, 2004, p. 174). There are five major regional-cultural groups: western highlanders (or grass fielders – 38%); coastal tropical forest peoples (18%); southern tropical forest peoples (18%); predominantly
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Islamic peoples of the northern semi-arid regions (14%); and, the Kirdi-non-Islamic or recently Islamic peoples of the northern desert and central highlands (18%). Five main language groups are also identifiable: Bantu Southerners (who speak Duala, Fang, and Bulu); Bantu Northwesterners (who speak Ngemba); Semi-Bantu Highlanders (who speak Bamileke and Bamum); Sudanic Northerners (who speak Hausa, Margi, Kapsigi, and Fulani); and Easterners (who speak Beti). In addition to these are English and French – official languages used in government. Also worth noting are trade languages: Hausa, Fulani, Duala, and Pidgin-English. Community education in Cameroon, as with most of colonial Africa, has its roots in the Mission. Language education dates back to the mid-1880s with a translation of the Bible into Duala, which, as Cameroon’s first codified language, quickly became both a tool for learning and a basis for excluding the other languages.5 Evangelization was initiated by the British Baptist Missionary Society in 1845 under the leadership of Joseph Merrick and Alfred Saker, but was quickly replaced by the German-controlled Basler Missionary (also called Basel Mission) due to political maneuvering that involved Dr. Nachtigal (von Bismarck’s representative in Cameroon), the Douala chiefs, King Akwa, King Bell, King Hickory, and Kum’a Mbape (Tabi-Manga, 2000, pp. 16–20). The departure of the British ushered in a new phase for Cameroon’s educational system; missionary schools were necessarily tied to evangelization: … les Bˆalois f uˆ rent convaincus de la nécessité de construire et d’avoir des écoles pour faire avancer la cause de l’évagélisation. Car la lecture de la Bible ne peut s’apprendre efficacement sans l’école. Par ailleurs, la formation des catéchistes et pasteurs indig`enes nécessitait un apprentissage de la lecture et de l’écriture. (Tabi-Manga, p. 21) Due to the multiplicity of languages in Cameroon and due to the fact that Duala was codified and had already been chosen as a state language by von Soden, Duala easily became a language of instruction in school. This choice might have set in motion Cameroon’s linguistic conflict, as the citizens of Victoria (now Limbe), for instance, already schooled in English and German and for whom Duala is non-native, would not accept the latter, citing professional advancement or employment prospects (p. 22). German Catholic missionaries arrived in Cameroon in 1890 and quickly gained ground over the Protestant Basel Mission thanks to their political and linguistic liberalism and savvy. They taught German as well as several native languages – and translated the Bible into several of these languages (pp. 24–25). However, while the Catholics adopted a bilingual model of education – beginning schooling in vernacular languages, and then progressively introducing German in later primary years, the Catholics mainstreamed their pupils in German – both as a subject and as the medium of instruction (p. 27). However, in 1910, Governor Seitz decreed that German would be the lone language of instruction in all of Cameroon. The missionaries could not contravene this decree, on pain of losing school funding. Amidst the growing tension among the missionaries, a conference was organized on April 7, 1914 in Berlin to address the language question in Cameroon. Governor
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Karl Ebermaier proposed Swahili as a regional language from coast to coast; the proposal failed in part because of strong objections from Britain, a colonial power in Uganda. Fr. Nekes proposed Ewondo for the entire Cameroonian territory, citing its use in the military, in the police, and by aides – a proposal which, today, would have made sense in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Lingala is the sole language of the military. The conference ended with no set language policy other than consideration to divide Cameroon into linguistic zones. However, with Germany’s defeat in World War I, all of its colonies were given to the vanquishers as mandates. West Cameroon (Northern Cameroon and Southern Cameroon) went to Britain, and East Cameroon to France. Because Britain and France had markedly different colonial ideologies, reflected in their respective “civilizing missions,” the assignment of Cameroon to these powers would irreversibly alter the country’s landscape both politically and culturally; and the most significant and indelible aspect of the cultural transformation pertains to the educational systems. Language education has remained the most identifying landmark of those systems, and to it we now turn briefly.
Language Education in Cameroon: The French and British Mandates France exercised “direct rule” in Cameroon, as in all its other colonial territories (Khapoya, 1997, pp. 128–130). By this system of administration, France had direct control of every facet of life in Cameroon, including its educational system. The school system under French mandate had three tiers: village schools, in which basic French relating to rural life, hygiene, and agriculture was taught; regional schools, where systematic French language programs were taught; and adult schools, which provided basic literacy (reading and writing) in French (Tabi-Manga, p. 35). France’s educational policy ran up against a rapidly spreading Pidgin-English influence, which had been permitted and encouraged by the Germans – an influence the French authorities meant to stop decisively. Tabi-Manga explains this influence in terms of its linguistic relationship to Bantu languages as well as ideology thus: La simplicité de ses structures phonologiques, morpho-syntaxiques, et lexicales le faisait s’apparenter étroitement aux langues camerounaises. Ces rapprochements structurels potentiels n’étaient pas de nature a` apaiser l’administration coloniale française. Car les populations noires pouvaient, sur cette base, assimiler plus facilement le pidgin a` la place du français. Alors, œuvrer a` l’expansion de la langue française par l’éducation, la scolarisation, revenait a` accomplir un devoir patriotique! (p. 36) The Cameroonian school system under the British mandate followed these guiding principles: caution with theoretical models of education, acceptance of diversity, free choice of value system, and school autonomy. The British elementary school system, thus, sought to develop individual character through boarding schools, while boarding schools inculcated in students a good work ethic, honesty, humanism, and discipline – spiritual and physical (Tabi-Manga, p. 55). The British policy was overtly racist, and included strict guidelines differentiating social institutions like schools, recreational
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facilities, and hospitals; there were, as a consequence, European schools, Africans schools, Arab schools, and Asian schools (Khapoya, p. 119). This policy was very much in line with Britain’s colonial policy of “indirect rule” and ultimately made for minimal development, as is evident in other countries that Britain colonized. A May 1926 “School Ordinance,” published by the Department of Education, allowed the British administration to intervene directly in the administration of mission schools and required schools to, among other things, admit pupils without regard for their philosophical or religious convictions. As if this were insufficient ire for the Basel Mission, the British authorities added an English-only requirement for the diploma-granting schools, ostensibly targeting the missionaries, who favored Duala and Bali. The Basel Mission response – complete cessation of the use of English in their schools – in turn triggered a ban on native languages or PidginEnglish in all the schools, with one proviso: “Unless two thirds of the pupils in class speak a proposed vernacular.”6 This policy, eventually upheld by the nascent Cameroonian government on September 27, 1958, was quite evident on many secondary school campuses over the following decades, and the present writer experienced that linguistic tension as a secondary school student in the 1970s. Then, school prefects and upperclassmen were empowered (and they gladly obliged) to punish their lower classmates who were caught speaking either Pidgin-English or a Cameroonian language anywhere on campus.
Language and (Urban) Education First-Language Education in Cameroon7 The National Language Education Program was born in 1967 under the aegis of the Ministry of National Education, and in 1974 the project Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) was launched by Professor H. M. Bot ba Njock of the University of Yaounde I, and then buoyed up by French linguists Paul Renaud and Michel Dieu. In 1976, the French Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACCT) adopted this framework as a basis for cataloguing languages in all of Central Africa – the entire work is titled Atlas Linguistique de l’Afrique Centrale (ALAC). ALCAM sought, inter alia, to identify all linguistic varieties in Cameroon, locate the varieties geographically, compare and classify them by distinct languages, describe these languages systematically, and record all previous works relating to these languages (Tabi-Manga, pp. 71–72). The Operational Research Project for Language Education in Cameroon (better known by its French acronym PROPELCA) was launched in 1978 by the Department of African Languages and Linguistics of the University of Yaounde I. In 1981, PROPELCA and the National Language Education Program merged their curricula and have since pursued experimental research on first-language instruction at all levels of formal education in Cameroon. Actual classroom instruction has come a long way – beginning in 1967 (at Coll e` ge Libermann) with one language and one classroom, and reaching 34 languages and as many as 23 classrooms per language by 1995, for a total of 56 classrooms (Ayuninjam, 1999, p. 23).
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Tadadjeu et al. (1988) explain how the introduction of Cameroonian languages into the regular academic curricula has been slow in coming, especially as compared to similar initiatives in other African countries. While the undoing of the assimilationist legacy of the colonial administrations on Africa’s systems of education was largely a matter of time, Cameroon – simultaneously colonized by the English and French – was about to embark on a campaign to justify the need for a departure from the colonial philosophy of education. That is why since 1960 – when Cameroon became independent – its educational system, particularly as it pertained to languages and literature, was practically alien and in large measure a disservice to its intended beneficiaries. Post-independence leaders either lacked the courage to introduce educational reform or were plain uneducated as to how to bring it about, if at all they valued it. Prior to, and for some time following, the colonial administrations’ trusteeships of the Anglophone and Francophone territories, German, English, and French missionaries set up programs of first-language instruction, although their major commitment was “to transpose the Christian message through translations into African languages” (Fabian, 1986, p. 76). These programs were all conveniently abandoned by the colonialists for different but complementary reasons: the French because such programs would only hinder their mission to bring up Cameroonians as French citizens, and the English because, knowing from the start of their trusteeship of Anglophone Cameroon that they would one day leave, they had no interest in undertaking any project that would be of long-lasting benefit to the subjects (Tadadjeu et al., 1988, pp. 10–11). Njeuma arrives at a similar conclusion in an attempt to account for the failure of Cameroonian historians to present a broad-based history inclusive of German, French, British and Cameroonian indigenous literature. He writes, “Even those [historians] who have studied at the University of Yaounde [Cameroon] have followed programs which were tailored to fit the systems in the former metropolitan countries” (Njeuma, 1989, p. xi). The consequence to the Cameroonian at large is incredible ignorance of the most basic historical or economic facts about his or her country. Ironically, Professor Njeuma was from 1979 to 1982 Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (which included the History Department) of the University of Yaounde I. This mental preconditioning by which Cameroonians for 25 years had sought to run away from their own shadows is what Tadadjeu and others find the most destructive consequence of that country’s colonial heritage, as they state: En tout état de cause il faut retenir que le plus grand mal que l’école coloniale ait fait chez nous c’est exactement cette extraversion socio-psychologique par laquelle nous méprisons collectivement nos propres valeurs et nous tournons, aussi collectivement, vers qui nous sont extérieures, étrang`eres, et a` la longue nuisibles. (2000, p. 14) Given the foregoing, it has sometimes been considered unusual, even insulting, to justify the teaching of Cameroon’s indigenous languages to her citizens. But if one were to justify this endeavor, any such effort must prove that by virtue both of content and methodology, there is a perceptible departure from the traditional Eurocentric
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approach, and that the learning experience for the young Cameroonian is authentically and uncompromisingly Cameroonian. Since culture is the prime distinguishing characteristic of a people, language should be used as the prime vector of the corresponding culture. Kluckhohn and Kelly (1945) define culture as “all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men” (p. 97). Hence, the study of a language inevitably entails a study of the culture of the language community. For instance, the French terms salut, bonjour, and bonsoir may each mean a variety of things:
salut: “hi”; “good bye” bonjour: “hello”; “good morning”; “good afternoon”; “good day”; “good evening”; “How d’ you do?” bonsoir: “hello”; “good evening”; “good night”; “too bad!”; “not a chance!” In the above examples, while the French and English languages have some way of verbalizing the conceptual difference between informal usage, as with greeting an acquaintance (salut/hi) and formal usage, as with greeting a non-acquaintance (bonjour/ hello), Bantu languages, for instance, do not have the same type of social distinction. Because the concept of deference to an individual owing to unfamiliarity exists in all African cultures as it does in France and England (as demonstrated by bonjour and hello), this particular linguistic distinction may constitute a lexical gap in Bantu languages. On the other hand, the terms hello and good evening may each be verbalized in French either by saying bonsoir or bonjour, depending on the speech situation. The concept of kissing is alien to African cultures, which explains the absence of a lexical equivalent in African languages for the term kiss. There is no way of reasonably talking about the four seasons in any African language; by the same token, no Western farmer ordinarily talks in terms of a wet or dry season, certainly not in the same sense as the tropical African does. Such lexical gaps are illustrations of Pike’s belief that language is the key to culture. In the same vein, any genuine endeavor to learn a language must entail the use of the language’s culture, not a foreign culture. The rest of this section demonstrates how Cameroon’s National Language Education Program is a reflection of the people’s cultural heritage – as seen in the program’s underlying motives, its objectives and actual projects, and the pedagogical methods that under gird it.
Language Education as a Reflection of Cameroon’s Cultural Heritage The motivation behind Cameroon’s first-language education program is fourfold: historical, cultural, pedagogical, and scientific. Historically, the program sought to join ranks with other English-speaking African nations that had much earlier realized the need for, and were already vigorously pursuing, similar programs, resulting in a redefinition of their identity in terms of their own human experience, culture, and history. These countries included Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda (Bamgbose, 1991; Dalle, 1981). However, Bamgbose notes that some of the countries that had instituted firstlanguage education programs eventually reverted to foreign official languages as the
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exclusive medium of instruction. They include Zaire (back to French), Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, and Nigeria (back to English) (Bamgbose, p. 71). In Cameroon, the PROPELCA project on Lamnso’ (the language spoken in Nso) and Mungaka (the language spoken in Bali) – both in the Anglophone zone – did not start from scratch as for virtually every other language, since preliminary studies had been done in these languages. Lamso’ and Mungaka had been committed to writing before the advent of the national campaign. From a cultural perspective, a people without an indigenous language are also a people without an indigenous culture or a cultural identity. One sure way of securing Cameroon’s varied cultures is by stopping the linguistic flight, thus, bridging the ever-widening cultural and communication gap for the younger speakers for whom the folklore stands the risk of becoming extinct along with its aging population that has traditionally handed it down through generations. Hence, preserving indigenous languages is an imperative to maintaining the generational link between the living and their descendants. This oral tradition is also part of the African diasporic heritage, and as the world is growing increasingly smaller, these languages and cultures will serve as some of the many needed links between the African peoples and the African Diaspora. Here the linguist has an undeniable responsibility. The third and perhaps most practical reason behind Cameroon’s language program is scientific. Generations of Cameroonians are being born into a world of ever-changing scientific and technological development, but again a science- and technology-driven world in which they and their parents are passive consumers of foreign technology. The hope, therefore, is to instill in children as early as possible (using a practical tool – the language they already speak) a creative spirit and a thirst for invention based on observation and experimentation. The claim that African languages are either unsuitable for or unamenable to scientific study is only an excuse given the economic and technological advances of Asian countries, some of which achieved their independence after most African countries. China is on a path to surpassing the United States as an economic power; with that prospect, the Chinese language is fast gaining popularity in schools around the world, including Zimbabwe, where it has by a recent presidential decree been imposed on all university students.8 Cameroon’s national language program also has a pedagogical incentive – one which emanates from local research conducted on primary school children. Results of immersion studies in Canada also served as encouragement to Cameroonian authorities as they weighed their options. In both cases, there was substantial evidence in support of potential benefits of beginning formal education in a Cameroonian language before either English or French on the one hand and, on the other, early bilingual education in English and French. The research in Cameroon proved that subjects not only began the study of their first official language (OL1) with a more positive attitude, but were able to quickly transfer learned language-processing skills (primarily reading and writing) and problem-solving skills (the basic arithmetical operations) from the mother tongue to the first official language. If learning the mother tongue had as its sole benefit a measurable reduction in children’s anxiety about confronting a new and totally alien linguistic code, such learning would still be very worthwhile.
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The language problem in Cameroon is compounded by the presence and widespread use of Pidgin-English among urban Anglophone pre-school children – a problem which their Francophone counterparts do not face, since there exists no comparable French-based lingua franca. Pidgin-English constitutes a “problem” in that when the Anglophone children begin school, they have to contend with three languages, instead of two. The recommendation that Pidgin-English be used by teachers as an intermediary between the Cameroonian language being taught and English – once the latter is introduced (Tadadjeu et al., p. 20) may be effective in the short term, but over time language planners must still come to grips with the Pidgin-English polemic. Thus, while the behaviorist-based Watsonian theory of speech production may appear extreme, if not simplistic according to cognitive psychologists (cf. Bruner, 1966; Osgood, 1953; Slobin, 1987), it does provide some insight into the relationship between language and cognitive growth: language can mirror thought – a difference in thought being related to a difference in language. Based on a UNESCO classification, Pidgin-English (designated as a “Creole”) is a community language in Cameroon,9 and will be treated as such here. Corresponding to the reasons cited above for undertaking this language research are objectives, which differ between primary education and secondary education. PROPELCA’s objectives, submitted at the National Forum on Education in May 1995 are in two stages: At the primary school level PROPELCA seeks to accomplish these goals: (1) Integrate the child into the written communication system in the mother tongue within his or her community. Thus, the mother tongue will be the necessary bridge between the school and the local community. (2) Integrate the child into his or her socio-cultural and educational milieu by means of an initial teaching in his or her mother tongue. (3) Awaken, at an early stage, the scientific and the technological spirit of the child by teaching him or her arithmetic and basic technological principles in his or her mother tongue. (4) Establish a balanced bilingualism between mother tongue and first official language within the first 3 years of primary school. (5) In the urban centers, place particular emphasis on the teaching of the lingua(e) franca(e) of the area, since most pupils in urban centers (especially in the Francophone provinces) start school with a good knowledge of the first official language. At the secondary school level PROPELCA seeks to accomplish these goals: (1) Enable the student to learn to read and write his or her mother tongue or second indigenous language so as to deepen the literature and the cultural heritage associated to that language. (2) Expose the student to another indigenous language different from his or her own so that he or she can appreciate the culture associated to this second language, while at the same time becoming integrated into a wider communication network.
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Among the cultural aspects of the specific objectives submitted to the National Forum are the following: a blooming of the child’s personality and deepening of his or her traditional culture, as well as an initiation into activities concerned with traditional craftsmanship, environment, and morals (PROPELCA proposal, 4–6). There is, clearly, an indication here that Cameroon’s language program is intended to immerse the children in their own culture (what PROPELCA refers to in its proposal as “inculturation”) – reversing a century of assimilation to European cultures (acculturation). To achieve these objectives, PROPELCA carried out many projects and organized many workshops and seminars. It produced didactic materials (pre-primers, primers, and post-primers) – all of which “take into account the culture and the immediate environment of that language” (PROPELCA proposal, 11); it also produced a teachers’ manual on national literatures and cultures. However, the methodology in all the books is the same, irrespective of the indigenous language. Workshops were organized around the country, primarily to get each language researched off the ground. Grassroots information campaigns helped raise community awareness of the relevance of the project. In this vein, PROPELCA encouraged communities whose languages were not on the national agenda to use the research models to kick off their own language programs, but equally remained at their disposal for any further direction or advice. The difficulties were mostly material, such as manpower (training/further training of linguists and consultants), finances, printing and distribution of primers, and access to computer technology. Table 1 is a classification of community languages (CLs) in Cameroon according to two sets of criteria: UNESCO’s and Cameroon’s. Because Cameroon’s criteria are far more generous than UNESCO’s, the country’s classification divulges a correspondingly greater number of CLs than does UNESCO’s (Table 2).
Table 1.
Topology of community languages (CLs) in Cameroon
Province
Population
Capital
CLs according to UNESCO
CLs according to Cameroon (PROPELCA)
Adamawa Center East Far North
723,626 2,501,229 755,088 2,721,463
Ngaoundere 189,800 Yaounde 1,248,200 Bertoua 173,000 Maroua 271,700
Fulfulde – – Fulfulde
Littoral North North-West South South-West
2,202,340 1,227,018 1,840,527 534,854 1,42,749
Douala 1,494,400 Garoua 356,900 Bamenda 316,00 Ebolowa 125,000 Buea 250,000
– Fulfulde CPE – CPE
West
1,982,106
Bafoussam 242,000
–
Fulfulde Bëti-Fang Bëti-Fang Fulfulde, Arabic, Kanuri, Chadic family Basaa Fulfulde – Bëti-Fang Duala, Oroko, AkBBse, Nsose Bamileke, Fe’efe’e, Tikari
TOTAL
15,731,000
4,667,000
Language Education in Cameroon Table 2.
59
First-language instruction at secondary level
School
City
Language(s)
Coll`ege Libermann Coll`ege de la Retraite Coll`ege de Sion Séminaire Sainte-Thér e` se Coll`ege Saint-Paul Coll`ege d’Enseignement Technique Sainte-Marie Coll`ege Maya Coll`ege Saint-Pierre Coll`ege Saint-Jean
Douala Yaounde Yaounde Yaounde Bafang Bafang
Duala, Basaa Ewondo (Discontinued) (Discontinued) Duala or Fe’efe’e Duala or Fe’efe’e
Kekem Loum Mbanga
Duala or Fe’efe’e Duala or Fe’efe’e Duala and Fe’efe’e
To further promote and popularize the native languages, they were from 1970 to 1977 used over national public radio – each language representing a corresponding geo-linguistic area and province: Center and South: Bëti-Fang; Littoral: Duala; West: Fe’efe’e, Banjun; and North: Fulfulde. Today the picture has changed drastically, as the dearth of radio stations and programming in decades past has yielded to a multiplicity of provincial public and private radio stations. Currently, there are twenty-seven FM stations and one AM station, with many more scheduled to go operational.10 This process was catapulted by the ushering in the early 1990s of FM stations as well as an easing of restrictions on private ownership of radio stations in Cameroon. Each provincial station, responding to the tastes of its audience, produces ethnic programs which entail use of the “community” language(s) and other dialectal variants on a fixed schedule. As a result, Pidgin-English broadcasts are common over Radio Bamenda and Radio Buea (the two Anglophone provincial headquarters). The national and recent urban stations use only the official languages – English and French – in broadcasts, but English and French override the provincial ones for national news. Table 3 shows is a language breakdown of radio air time for Cameroonian broadcasts by province. As this table shows, even though the Anglophone provinces (South-West and NorthWest) have the least language air time, they maximize it and are the most linguistically inclusive provinces in the nation. Use of the first language in the written press is much more limited than it is over radio. Table 4 identifies a number of newspapers that promote first languages in Cameroon.
Second-Language and Official-Language Education Cameroon’s official languages (OLs) are English and French, and every Cameroonian Anglophone secondary school student is required to learn English as a first official language (OL1) and French as a second official language (OL2), while his or her Francophone counterpart learns French as a first official language (OL1) and English as a second official language (OL2).12 English to the three million Anglophones is a second language, and French to the over 15.5 million Francophones is a second language – in each case with wide-ranging degrees of first-language-level command. For all practical purposes, however, English, French, and Pidgin-English are supplanting
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Table 3.
Weekly language broadcasts over radio Cameroon
Radio station
Province
Community languages
Total time allocation
L1* Air time
% ~Eng & Fre
Radio Bafoussam Radio Bamenda
West North-West
113 hours
23 hours
20.36%
Radio Bertoua
East
Radio Buea
South-West
Radio Center Radio Douala
Center Littoral
Radio Ebolowa Radio Garoua Radio Maroua
South North Far North
Radio Ngaoundere
Adamawa
Mamileke, Fe’efe’e, Tikari Aghem, Fulfulde, Hausa, Kedjun, Kom, LamsB’, Linbum, Mbembe, Mbili, Mendankwe, Menka, Metta, Mubako, Mungaka, Ngemba, Ngie, Nkwen, Nsai, Oku, Oshie, Pinyin, Yemba Gbaya, Kaka, Maka, Mpopong Bafaw, Bakossi, Bakweri, Ejagham, Fulfulde, Kenyang, Mbo, Metta, Mungaka, Ngumba, Mundani, Olit, Oroko, Wimbam Bafia, Basaa, Bëti Bakaka, Bakoko, Basaa, Duala, Yabasi Bulu, Ewondo, Ngumba Arabic, Fulfulde, Tupuri Arabic, Fulfulde, Giziga, Mafa, Masa, Mofu North, Mundang, Mousgoum, Tupuri, Wandala Dii, Hausa, Mbum
*
115
5
4.34
110
17
15.45
120 155
9 34
7.5 21.94
147 90 120
13 10 34
8.85 11.11 20
106 114
29 19
27.35 16.67
L1 First Language.
Table 4.
Newspapers in Cameroonian Languages11
Orientation
Language
Title
Catholic
Bëti
Protestant
Bëti Duala
Lay (cultural)
Bamileke Bëti
Lay (political)
Basaa Bulu Ewondo
Nkul Zambe (God’s Drum) Nleb Bekristen (Christian Counselor) Bulu Mefoe (News) Dikolo (Information) Mulee Ngea (The Guide) Mwendi ma Baptist (The Baptist Message) Ngenteti (The Star) Nifi (Something New) Radio-Nam (People’s Voice) Nkul Béti (Beti Voice) Essamndzigi (The Educator) Mongo Bëti (Beti Child) Njel Lon (The People’s Voice) Sosso Efia (True Talk) Bebela Ebug (The Truth)
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most indigenous languages, especially the unwritten ones, whose use and function are limited to the school setting. The presence of European languages has relegated the use of indigenous languages largely to the so-called “uneducated” population, as these languages are steadily losing their place of dominance. The “official” use in Cameroon of two foreign languages is the basis of the nation’s bilingual education policy. The term “bilingualism” has taken copious shades of meaning, many writers tending to approach the concept from their respective vantage points. “Bilingualism” is generally understood to mean the ability to use two languages, often with equal proficiency. According to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (IACI), true bilinguals are “people who have lived in two different countries as children, pursued their secondary and higher education in both countries and have […] consciously striven to keep their languages separate” (Selescovitch, 1978, p. 74). By this orthodox definition, there might, then, be no bilingual Cameroonian. Alternatively, in Cameroon, as opposed to the IACI meaning, the term “bilingual” is largely understood to mean someone who has pursued bilingual studies in the two official languages at a higher institution of learning (and has obtained a degree or diploma). The term also generally refers to translators and conference interpreters. Bilingualism in Cameroon is, therefore, quite relative. Besides referring to individuals, the term is also commonly used to designate institutions; for example, “bilingual high school,” even when not everyone is expected (let alone required) to be linguistically proficient. Cameroon’s post-secondary education system is known to be bilingual in the sense that, in addition to one’s first official language, one also needs a knowledge of the alternate official language to succeed, even if one did not pursue the bilingual track at the secondary level. Cameroon’s bilingualism aims both to make available to each citizen the two official languages (English and French) and to enable the State to communicate with its citizens using both official languages. To attain these goals, Cameroon has relied on its educational system (formal and informal) and its civil service (Tabi-Manga, p. 112–113). Bilingual education at the primary school level rests solely on bilingual primary schools, which exist in major urban centers – evidently to meet the language needs of Cameroonian families who have relocated to these towns and are outside of their cultural and linguistic zone – Francophone or Anglophone. This relocation began after reunification of the two Cameroons – East and West, which (as in virtually all other post-independence African nations) triggered a centralization of the government. The threshold of bilingualism in Cameroon was the country’s attainment of independence in 1960. The so-called urgent need for linguistic revolution was for political and administrative purposes. Early language institutions were created for rapid language learning by the administrative personnel as there was sudden, increased mobility between the two linguistic zones. The Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center (FLCC), opened in 1968 and based in Yaounde, was the first such institution. Prior to it, and as an independent program, English-speaking administrators were sent to France for 6 months of basic French language education. This remains an ongoing process, albeit on a reduced scale today. A major drawback of Cameroon’s primary-level bilingual programs is quality, as Gis`ele Tchoungui notes Francophone parents’ discontent with their children picking up Pidgin-English from their Anglophone peers within the school setting.13 If this is
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more a pedagogic than a social solecism, it might be addressed by “Operation Bilingualism,” launched by the French and British to prop up language education in Cameroon’s primary schools. Through this effort, the French reinforced Frenchlanguage education in bilingual schools in the Anglophone zone, while the British complement English-language education in bilingual schools in the Francophone zone. This Anglo-French program tackles the problem from three complementary angles: reconsideration of pedagogy, infusion of didactic materials, and teacher training (TabiManga, p. 115). Bilingual education at the secondary level has yielded far more palpable and positive results than at the primary level. The Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center was followed in 1963 by the Federal Bilingual Grammar School in Buea, and in 1965 by the Bilingual Practicing College in Yaounde, both of which are seven-year institutions (also called lycées) that prepare students for the university. Until now, they are Cameroon’s only bilingual grammar schools. Admission into either school is open only to pupils who earn “A” grades on the Common Entrance Examination, administered at the end of primary school. The curriculum includes literary studies, with emphasis on language. The mode of teaching in these institutions complies with the definition of bilingualism as discussed earlier. In the grammar schools, the Anglophone and Francophone students are kept apart for the first 2 years, during which their education is geared strictly towards the rapid acquisition of the second official language while they also improve on the first one. From year three, the two groups come together and follow the same courses in both languages alternately until they graduate. This method has thus far proven successful, albeit time consuming. Bilingual education at other secondary schools has produced less glowing results, especially in verbal production. Tabi-Manga imputes this gaffe to an inappropriate pedagogy: La solution a` ce probl`eme pourrait eˆ tre de nature didactique par le développement de structures pédagogiques communicationnelles. On s’apperçoit aujourd’hui que la mise en place de la politique du biliguisme n’a pas été précédée d’une réflexion méthodologique d’enseignement des deux langues officielles dans un contexte nouveau. Le probl`eme devrait eˆ tre traité dans une perspective globale en prenant en compte les rapports entre les langues officielles et les langues nationales. (2000, p. 117) Bilingual education at the tertiary level assumes yet another dimension. Cameroon’s public universities and advanced professional schools are officially bilingual, and each student must adapt to the instructor’s choice of instructional medium – French or English. To forestall any linguistic hoops, especially for students who enroll in Mathematics or the physical sciences, Bilingual Training was instituted. The program awards academic credit to successful completers, and students have regularly availed themselves of the opportunity. The bilingual degree program, offered through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Yaounde I, is open to all students interested in careers in translation, conference interpretation, terminology, and foreign-language teaching and who meet the language entry requirements. The track offers a high dose of French and English languages, literature, and linguistics, and it
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graduates students who are largely equally competent in both official languages. A parallel program exists for student teachers, enrolled in the Higher Normal School for Teachers, better known by its French acronym ENS (Ecole Normal Supérieure), whose enrollees commit to teaching their respective foreign language at the secondary level upon graduation. ENS has two cycles: an undergraduate campus in Bambili, NorthWest Province for Anglophones; and a graduate/undergraduate campus in Yaounde for Francophones and Anglophones. The Yaounde campus shares the same premises with the Bilingual Practicing College, which serves as a testing ground for the studentteachers. The bilingual program includes a semester or two abroad – the Anglophones in France, the Francophones in Britain. Sometime in the mid-1970s and again in the 1990s, students were sent rather to university towns in the opposing linguistic zones: Francophones to Bambili (on the ENS campus), Anglophones to Douala. Recruitment of lecturers at Cameroon’s public universities pays no regard to working language (save for the language staff), and students are expected to contend with any attendant language difficulties. Students in the bilingual series or students majoring in any of the foreign languages (English, French, Spanish, German) hardly have difficulty with the system. For decades, riotous complaints at the University of Yaounde I (the largest of Cameroon’s public institutions) have emanated from the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Science, where most students are obliged to swap and then “translate” class notes. Bilingualism in Cameroon is, therefore, largely the ability for one to manipulate English and French with relative flexibility and especially for educational and professional ends. The need to maintain and unremittingly refine one’s language skills beyond the realm of academics is, in the main, social and professional. The next section takes up bilingualism as a means of socialization.
Code Switching and Code Mixing One of the consequences of inadequate language preparation is the rapid development of Cameroonian English and Cameroonian French that differ structurally and semantically from the respective standard mother tongues as they are used in Britain/North America and France. These differences are manifested through code switching (deliberate transition from one language to another) and code mixing (unintentional, erroneous transitions between languages). Below are three contexts of code switching on Cameroon Radio-Television (CRTV), Yaounde.
Context 1: “Chit-Chat” – a mid-night to 4 A.M. program hosted by two women This is a phone-in program that addresses issues of the day. People call or send electronic messages on the particular topic. One of the journalists is Francophone, the other is Anglophone, but they each invariably speak in French and English, both out of choice and because they have to. The following exchange occurred on the night of February 22, 2006. The switches are underlined. Anglophone (English-speaking) journalist: That record is by Henri Dikonge. Francophone (French-speaking) journalist: Yes, I like his style. His records in this album are short. Here is an e-mail that just came in: “I like this program. It is a bilingual
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and talks about things of interest to me. Thank you, ladies, for doing a great job.” Maybe we still have some time. Charles, give us one last bar of music. (Music is played.) Anglophone journalist: We have just 5 minutes to the end of our program. Is there anything you want to say before we end the program? [This wordy question form is based on the French Y a-t-il …] Francophone journalist: Before we go, nous voulons, Guy Roger, vous remecier pour votre contribution, pour nous avoir fait confiance. Anglophone journalist: Il y a une grande réunion le 27 Février au centre des handicappés. Vous pouvez nous contacter a` travers notre numéro de téléphone. Ladies and gentlemen, it is 4 A.M. and time for our bilingual news. On this level, Cameroon’s bilingualism may be considered imposed in that the messages come indifferently in English and French, and the journalist has no choice but to read them in the language in which they are written – French or English.
Context 2: A newscast (February 22, 2006) done by two journalists, one Francophone, one Anglophone: Francophone: Good evening Jessie, and welcome to the 7:30 news. Anglophone: Bonsoir Alain, et bienvenue au journal de 19:30. In the headlines: the Head of State today received an august guest, Prince Andrew Betty, Grand Master of the Order of Malta. Francophone: Trois anciens directeurs généraux interpelés, parmis eux l’ancien directeur général du FEICOM. Ils sont soupçonés de corruption et détournement de biens publics. Context 3: Single-host programs At times a single journalist hosts an entire program, but may interview both Anglophones and Francophones, some of whom are monolingual. The journalist then switches from one language to another depending on the language the guest. Context 4: Cameroon’s multilingual setting The average Cameroonian operates in four languages: a first language (L1), pidgin English (PE), French (F), and English (E), and all four languages may be woven into a single communicative event, as the examples below show. In addition to these languages is Mbanga English (ME), a highly informal youth tongue spoken all over the country. It originated in the Littoral Province and is also commonly blended with English, French, and Pidgin-English. Mbanga English has been popularized by Makossa (music) star Lapiro de Mbanga. Here are some lexical items: nyie, n. (cowardice), meng, vi. (die), zone mené, n. (secured area–with police presence), sisia, vt. (scare; frighten), nkollo, n. (one thousand francs). In the following exchange, each linguistic code is marked accordingly.
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Ngu: PEMassa, weti I go do eh? ECan you imagine that that fellow has not come back with my change? I don’t have anymore cash on me. FS’il te plaˆit Jean, tu peux me presser cinq mille francs ? Neba: E Sorry man, Fje n’ai que deux MEnkollos. Ngu: FDonne-les-moi. Je vais me débrouiller. EThis fellow’s attitude is indeed annoying. PEMassa, we go quick quick. Code switching, as illustrated above, is ostensibly spontaneous, pleasant, and mannerly, yet perhaps as linguistically insidious as code mixing, which occurs by error or ignorance. Code mixing is common among Cameroonian students, especially those who live in Yaounde, Douala, Buea, and Dschang, where there are large concentrations of Anglophone and Francophone students (Table 5). In this section, we will examine three types of code mixing: lexical, grammatical, and syntactic. Some of these examples are from Simo Bobda (101 ff). Grammatical code mixing involves, among other things, confusing aspectual and temporal categories in English and French (Table 6). Simo Bobda (1997, pp. 105ff) has catalogued many such cases among university students and professionals: Table 5.
Code mixing in Cameroonian
Form/Usage (Source Language)
Intended Form
Convocation (F) Organigramme (F) Quartier (F) Mini-cité (F) Sense (F) Surveillant général (F) Commissaire (F) Concours (F) Direction (F) Promotion (F)
Summons Organization chart Neighborhood Student hostel Meaning; direction Discipline master Commissioner Competitive examination Department Batch; class (e.g., class of 1977) Policy Address Busy day To mark … To submit … A terrible …/horrible … A wonderful … Compensating Facilitate Community Characteristics Sympathetic Lack of civic responsibility Fanaticism
Politics Discourse Charged day To correct exam scripts To deposit an application A wonderful accident A terrible achievement *Compensing *Facilite *Commuaty *Carataristics *Sympatic *Incivism *Fanatism
Explanation/Influence
F sens (direction; meaning)
French: politique politics; policy French: discours (speech) French: chargé (busy) French: corriger (to correct) French: déposer (to submit)
French: compenser French: faciliter French: communauté French: caratéristiques French: sympathique French: incivisme French: fanatisme
An asterisk (*) beside a non-French form means that the form does not exist in standard English.
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Table 6.
Grammatical code mixing
Form/Usage (Source language)
Intended form
Explanation/Influence
The head of State speaks to you
The head of State is speaking to you
French: Il parle He speaks; He is speaking (no distinction between the simple present and the present continuous)
I am here since 8 o’clock The faithfuls are … The union for the change
I have been here since 8 o’clock. The faithful are … Union for change
Ministry of the Health
Ministry of Health
French: Suis … depuis French adjectives have plural forms. French common nouns take the indefinite determiner: le/la/les. (See above).
Other Language Education Programs and Official Bilingualism Cameroonian linguistic centers were opened in 1960 to train Cameroonians from all walks of life. Successful program completion was recognized with the Diploma of English Studies. In response to the needs of both Cameroonian civil servants and foreign diplomats working in Cameroon, the cultural services of the embassies of France, Britain, and the United States established bilingual training programs in Yaounde and Douala that have remained popular. Other bilingual structures are inherent components of public administration: translation and interpretation services at the Presidency and the National Assembly, translation services in ministerial agencies, bilingual news broadcasts over Cameroon Radio-Television (CRTV), bilingual editions of print media (public and private), and bilingual versions of the nation’s official journal, The Cameroon Official Gazette. By the same token, all legal forms, government stationery, public notices, and names of government offices are written in both languages. As some of the examples above suggest, mistranslation of public documents, such as billboards and forms, is quite common. As many of the examples indicate, the source texts are generally in French, so the victims of mistranslation are, generally speaking, Anglophones and learners of English. There is no excuse for these labels: “The Ministry of the Public Service” (for Ministry of Public Service); “Department of Planification” (for Department of Planning); and “Christian Name” (for Given/First Name). Even the names of some of Cameroon’s provinces are simply wrong: “Extreme North Province” (for Far-North …); and Central Province (for Centre …); and “Western Province” (for West …). The last example appears on a passport application form at Cameroon’s embassy in Washington, DC. These mishaps are inexcusable in a country with well-staffed translation services at the Presidency and the National Assembly and whose ministerial agencies are replete with trained translators. Tabi-Manga imputes Cameroon’s unlikelihood to achieve its goal of full bilingualism to three hurdles: an inadequate promotional strategy; bilingualism not being fully incorporated into the country’s educational system; and, bilingualism not being fully incorporated into the country’s national multilingual plan (2000, p. 121). These pitfalls might have been averted had the implementers heeded Professor Fonlon’s prophetic call in
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1963 for “early bilingualism” in English and French starting from primary school. Rather, Cameroon’s primary bilingual schools, Tabi-Manga regrets, are not the product of strategic, purposeful reflection, either in terms of goals or academic expectations: Cette école a été conceptuellement appréhendée non pas comme une structure éducative particuli`ere ayant une finalité propre, mais comme un établissement ordinaire de formation a` dominante soit francophone, soit anglophone. Par ailleurs, l’absence de réflexion approfondie sur le profil de l’école primaire bilingue a rendu évidente la faiblesse de qualifications des enseignants engagés dans cette tˆache de formation a` laquelle ils n’étaient pas préparés. (2000, p. 123) He adds that, despite the political will, Cameroon’s policy of official bilingualism has been out of tune with its educational system, alluding to Tchoungui’s recommendations for countering the educational disjuncture: establishment of a bilingual education program in the primary schools and introduction of community languages at the same level; training of secondary school bilingual teachers using a pedagogy and curriculum that reflect a revamped bilingual policy; and, research into a pedagogy that is suitable for bilingual education. Tabi-Manga dubs Cameroon’s failed national language policy “linguistic liberalism,” as each ethnic group has assumed responsibility for promoting and keeping alive its own language. The risk, he points out, is that some native languages might die, as would the corresponding cultural heritage of the linguistic community. Potential beneficiaries of such death, he posits, are languages such as Basaa, Beti-Fang, Duala, French, and Fulfulde. Pidgin-English, too, might spread even more widely, albeit at the expense of English. Cameroon’s ostensible linguistic indeterminism today is in sharp contrast to Law No. 96–06 of January 18, 1996 (amending the country’s 1972 constitution). Article 1, Section 3 is clear on the language issue: “The official languages of the Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages having the same status … . It shall endeavor to protect and promote national languages.” Three terms are particularly worth noting here: “same status,” “protect,” and “promote”; nonetheless, during research on this chapter, only the French version of this text was available on the web site of the Presidency. The problem of equal access to official documents in both French and English is quite frustrating to Anglophones, particularly those in the Diaspora. It is also common for English web pages to be unavailable, whereas their French equivalents are. Tadadjeu terms Cameroon’s bilingualism “institutional bilingualism,” because it caters only to English and French. Tabi-Manga captures this inadequacy thus: Le bilinguisme institutionnel, pour M. Tadadjeu, est une composante essentielle de l’identité camerounaise. Cependant, le français et l’anglais ne peuvent exprimer toutes les richesses de l’héritage culturel camerounais dans toute sa diversité. Aussi, les langues officielles cohabitent-elles nécessairement avec les langues nationales. Le bilinguisme ne saurait constituer le seul élément de la politique linguistique du Cameroun. Ce bilinguisme doit évoluer vers un trilinguisme. (2000, p. 77)
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A possible solution to this drawback is “extensive trilingualism,” by which each Cameroonian can communicate in three languages, including the two official languages, and, by extension, in a Cameroonian native language as well.14 Tabi-Manga proposes four national languages as community languages for adoption if Tadadjeu’s model were to be implemented: Fulfulde (spoken in the North, Adamawa, and Far-North provinces), BëtiFang (spoken in the Center, South, and East provinces), Basaa (spoken in the Center and Littoral), and Duala (spoken in the Littoral and South-West). A crucial consideration in language planning is a sense of identity in the chosen language(s). Tabi-Manga is aware of this fact when he identifies guiding principles of a functional language policy, as adopted by the National Education Forum of 1995: multilingualism, national unity, and regional (or sub-regional) integration (L. I. Tambo, 260). However, none of the languages native to either of the Anglophone provinces (North-West and South-West) make the short list; also absent are languages of the West Province, which, as Grassfields languages, share many features with the other Grassfields languages of the North-West Province. Robinson (1990, p. 13) posits the following questions for consideration in crafting a language policy: (1) Which language(s) should be used for communication with the largest number of citizens? (2) Which language(s) might best promote national unity? (3) Which language(s) could best symbolize the identity of the country? (4) Which language(s) can be most easily and efficiently used in specialized sectors such as higher education and technology? (5) Which language(s) can be used with the least economic burden? Sadembouo and Watters (1987), on their part, posit a “Language Development Threshold” based on these criteria: existence/number of scientific studies of the language; popularizing publications in the language; trained personnel; written institutional language use; and, oral institutional language use. Below is a matrix that combines the three above-mentioned criteria by Robinson, Sadembouo/Watters, and the National Education Forum. Included among the languages is Pidgin-English (Table 7). Table 7.
Combined language planning matrix
Population National unity National identity Regional Integration Adaptability for higher education & technology Cost-effectiveness Existence of scientific studies Existence of publications Existence of trained personnel Institutional use: Written Institutional use: Oral Total
Fulfulde
Bëti-Fang
Basaa
Duala
Pidgin-E
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 7
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 7
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 7
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 7
1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9
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Pidgin-English, Cameroon’s only lingua franca, scores highest on this matrix. This language has its roots in Anglophone Cameroon, and is also widely spoken in the Littoral and West – provinces that are contiguous to South-West and North-West provinces, respectively. It should be pointed out that several languages from the three unrepresented provinces are included in a second tier of eight national languages, to wit, Arabic, Fe’efe’fe, Hausa, Mungaka, and Yemba. Yet 12 languages would be far too many for a nation of less than 16 million people as each linguistic zone would average only 1.3 million speakers. Even with the four national languages that TabiManga proposes, each language would average 4 million speakers – well below the UNESCO threshold of 20 million speakers per national language. The question then is can Cameroon achieve lasting national unity linguistically while its only two Anglophone provinces are not linguistically represented? The only reason TabiManga advances for not counting Pidgin-English among the proposed community languages is that it is not a Cameroonian language. That justification deserves another look, to which we now turn.
The Place of Pidgin-English in Cameroon Pidgin-English has carried a rather unfair share of stigma in Cameroon as a language which lacks the prestige assumed to accompany European languages, and the prestige that now showers native languages. Until Vatican II (1962–1965), Latin was the official language with which to communicate with God in Catholic churches around the world, including Cameroon; and Cameroonians were punished for speaking their native languages or Pidgin-English on school grounds. While the British colonists did not find Africans worthy of knowing and using the Queen’s language with near-mother-tonguelevel command, the French banned the use of native languages in all its territories in 1933 in order to promote or ensure French self-identification. Whose language is PidginEnglish after all? Whence and how did it originate? How does it differ from Fulfulde, Fulani, or Hausa – all considered Cameroonian languages? But just how Cameroonian are these languages anyway? It is worth noting that the Afro-Asiatic languages Fulani, Fulfulde, and Hausa are no more native to Cameroon than Pidgin-English as these languages have become part of Cameroon’s (and indeed much of West Africa’s) linguistic heritage thanks to trade, pastoral agriculture, and Islam (Bohannan & Curtin, 1995, 206–214). The term “pidgin” itself derives from a Chinese term designating “business” and simply refers to a mixed language. What language has ever survived the influence of other languages? Otherwise, why has the Académie Française declared war on Americanisms? Would French be complete without English? And how would present-day English be were it not for the Norman Conquest? Today’s Romance languages began as dialects of Latin, and were treated with comparable derision by the Roman conquerors. Pidgin-English is an admixture of Cameroonian Bantu languages – Bantu contributing primarily the underlying structural base, and English primarily the surface lexical forms. In the early 1990s, an argument raged in southern Africa about the propriety of elevating Swahili to the status of a regional language on a par with foreign ones like English, French, and Portuguese. Some detractors contended that Swahili was not
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“African” enough by virtue of the preponderance of Arabic and English loan-words in it; yet Swahili is a lingua franca and community language in nine eastern and southern African nations,15 is an official language in Kenya and Tanzania, and was nearly imposed on Cameroon by the Germans. For millions of speakers of Swahili and an ever-growing number of speakers of Pidgin-English, these languages are creoles (or first languages). Tabi-Manga begins to make the case for Pidgin when he states that the simplicity of the phonological, morpho-syntactic, and lexical structures of Pidgin-English make it slightly resemble Cameroonian languages (36). Many persons have branded it variously: “uncivilized English,” “bad English,” “bastardized English,” “broken English,” “Bush English,” “incapable of civilized discourse.” In an electronic forum of the on-line version of Cameroon Post newspaper of June 15, 2005, a contributor wrote: “Ideas have space on this forum not Pidgin-English. Shame to whomever writes in Pidgin-English, more to that we the chattering classes are instituting a war against Pidgin-English on this forum.” The contributor would be much disheartened to learn that his short text is egregiously blighted in one respect and that there are several other minor violations of formal English (which he presumably meant to use). On the campus of the University of Buea, in the South-West province, here are some of the official signs posted on the beautiful campus lawns: “Speak a language well to write a language well”; “Pidgin is taking a heavy toll on your English. Shun it”; and “Be my friend. Speak English.” If one were to adopt the Saussurean perspective about language and appraise PidginEnglish primarily from its communicative endowment and as, fundamentally and not by pity, by accident, or through privation, a means of communication, one would concur with Saussure that “[s]peech sounds are only the instrument of thought, and have no independent existence” (1983, p. 9). This mind set stems from Saussure’s conviction that language is a collective social gift to the linguistic community and has no proprietary essence, as he explains: In practice, the study of language is in some degree or other the concern of everyone. But a paradoxical consequence of this interest is that no other subject has fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illusions, or more fantasies. From a psychological point of view, these errors are of interest in themselves. But it is the primary task of the linguist to denounce them, and to eradicate them as completely as possible. (Saussure, p. 7) Assuming Saussure’s position that speech (and by extension language) has no independent existence, we are also to assume that the thoughts that Cameroonians verbalize using Pidgin-English are formed a priori, while the actual enunciations occur a posteriori. Consequently, an inclusive, unifying language policy in Cameroon must take into account the most widely spoken, easiest-to-learn language in the land – Pidgin-English, and without being either bashful or apologetic about its ancestry. This position joins both the Saussurean perspective and the one posited much earlier about language as the prime vector of and the key to culture.
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Conclusion It has been established here and elsewhere that colonial language and education policies that were implemented in Cameroon were driven not by Cameroon’s needs but rather by the colonial governments’ geo-political, economic, and cultural ambitions. The multiplicity of languages in Cameroon was seen and used as a tool of political control when the nation was under the yoke of Western powers. Today, the 279 indigenous languages are a symbol of cultural diversity, richness, and pride. Navigating the linguistic waters is the idyllic life of the average Cameroonian farmer, teacher, folk artist, trader, and health professional. That anyone venturing into any of the population centers (such as Bamenda, Bafoussam, Dschang, Buea, Yaounde, and Douala) should be prepared to hear English, French, or Pidgin-English testifies to the country’s cultural growth and to Cameroonians as a linguistically and culturally tolerant people. As with most advantages, Cameroon’s linguistic endowment could be a real threat to its advancement in an increasingly competitive age. Colonial administrations used language to create a two-class society comprising the educated and the uneducated, the powerful and the powerless, leaders and followers; modern-day political elite have sought to maintain or widen the schism. The economic argument against aggressively protecting and promoting Cameroon’s indigenous languages is persuasive, but the failure on the national level to craft a cohesive, harmonious language policy for all levels of education could wreak havoc over the long haul on an already fragile school system. Cameroon (as other African nations) has survived colonialism and can chart a course for itself. Any coherent language policy must give careful consideration to Pidgin-English for the following reasons: it is Cameroon’s only lingua franca; it is spoken widely throughout the territory and especially in four provinces (the North-West, South-West, Littoral, and West) – both by the schooled and the unschooled; more Cameroonians speak it fluently than they do even English or French; it has a literature; it is easy to learn because it has a Bantu underlying structure (grammar) and an English surface structure (lexicon); and it is used in and would continue to be promoted through popular music. In addition to Pidgin-English, French and English ought to be the two other pillars of a cogent, pragmatic, and potentially enduring trilingual policy. English and French that children learn in Cameroonian schools will and should always reflect the Cameroonian socio-cultural milieu; yet Cameroonian students (from elementary through graduate school) ought to be held to appropriate minimum universal standards of oral and written proficiency to secure the nation’s future on all levels. No physics, chemistry, economics, law, philosophy, or for that matter French or English books are likely ever to be written in any of the 279 native languages; therefore, scarce material resources should be deployed accordingly. Native languages should remain a matter for the respective communities, which should be provided professional guidance by the State in matters such as preparing phonetic alphabets and basic phonetic transcription. A trilingual policy as advocated here is likely to meet the guiding principles set forth by the National Education Forum of 1995: multilingualism, national unity, and regional (or sub-regional) integration.
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Notes 1. Botswana, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Comoros, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, São Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, Swaziland, and Tanzania. 2. Burundi, Malawi, Mauritius, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Togo, and Zimbabwe. 3. Johannes Fabian (1986) cites from an 1885 letter from John B. Latrobe, President of the US Colonization Society and King Leopold backer, to H. S. Sanford, the US intermediary on the État Indépendent du Congo (EIC) as saying, “What, en passant, is to be the language of the Free State? Has this been thought of ? It seems to me worthy of a good thought … . Of course, my preference would be English, not because I speak English, but for reasons connected with commerce alone. What are the natives to be taught? I mean what language, or is there to be a ‘Pidgin-English’ or ‘pidgin French’? In the history of the world, there have never been such opportunities as are now presented to mould the people of future ages in a vast continent,” p. 165. 4. From the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, June 2005. The figures for research and development are based on budget years varying from 2000 to 2003, because recent data were unavailable. 5. Duala is the language spoken in Douala (Cameroon’s economic capital) as well as many contiguous coastal towns. 6. Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun: Essai d’aménagement linguistique [Translation: Language policy in Cameroon: Essay on language planning]. Karthala, 2000, p. 65. 7. This section is based partly on a revision and update of a 1999 article by this writer, titled “First language instruction in Cameroon: A lesson learned or new wine in an old calabash?” The Literary Griot: International Journal of Black Expressive Cultural Studies, 11(1), 17–34. 8. It should be noted that President Robert Mugabe’s decision to make Chinese mandatory in the college curriculum may have had more to do with an ideological shift toward communism (and away from U.S.- and British-led capitalism) than an appreciation of the role of language as a market force. 9. UNESCO map: “African Community Languages and their Use in Education,” 2005. 10. From TvRadioWorld, 1996–2004: http://www.tvradioworld.com/region3/cme/Radio.asp 11. Based on Tabi-Manga’s Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, pp. 107–108. 12. In Anglophone Cameroon a first official language, therefore, corresponds to ESL, while in the Francophone region English constitutes EFL – English as a Foreign Language. 13. Referenced in Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, p. 114. 14. Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, p. 178. 15. Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Namibia.
References Ayuninjam, F. (1999). First language instruction in Cameroon: A lesson learned or new wine in an old calabash? The Literary Griot: International Journal of Black Expressive Cultural Studies, 11(1), 17–34. Bamgbose, A. (1991). Language and the nation: The language question in sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. Bohannan, P., & Curtin, P. (1995). Africa and Africans. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Bruner, J. S. (1966). Studies in cognitive growth. New York: Wiley. Dalle, E. L. (1981). Les probl e` mes de l’enseignement des langues au Cameroun [Problems of language instruction in Cameroon]. Yaounde: Centre National d’Education, Cameroon. de Saussure, F. (1983). Course in general linguistics. Illinois: Open Court Classics. Department of Linguistics, University of Yaounde. (1995). National language education programme in Cameroon. Ms. Yaounde: PROPELCA. Fabian, J. (1986). Language and colonial power. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Khapoya, V. (1997). The African experience (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Kluckhohn, C., & Kelly, W. (1945). The concept of culture. In R. Linton (Ed.), The science of man in the world crisis. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Makulu, H. F. (1971). Education, development and nation-building in independent Africa: A study of the new trends and recent philosophy of education. London: S. C. M. Press. Njeuma, M. (Ed.). (1989). Introduction to the history of Cameroon. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Okrah, K. A. (2003). Nyansapo (the wisdom knot): Toward an African philosophy of education. New York: Routledge. Osgood, C. E. (1953). Method and theory in experimental psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP. Robinson, C. D. W. (1990). The place of local-language literacy in rural development in Cameroon: Presentation of an experimental program. African Studies Review, 33(3), 53–64. Sadembouo, E., & Watters, J. R. (1987). Proposition pour l’évaluation des niveaux de développement d’une langue écrite. Journal of West African Languages, 17(1), 35–59. Selescovitch, D. (1978). Interpreting for international conferences. Washington, DC: Pen and Booth. Simo Bobda, A. (1997). Sociocultural constraints in EFL teaching in Cameroon. In M. Pütz (Ed.), The cultural context in foreign language teaching. Berne: Peter Lang. Slobin, D. I. (1987). Psycholinguistics. Glenview, IL: Scott & Foresman. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy: Key topics in socio-linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. Tabi-Manga, J. (2000). Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun: Essai d’aménagement linguistique. Paris: Karthala. Tadadjeu, M., Gfeller, E., & Mba, G. (Ed.). (1988). Manuel de formation pour l’enseignement des langues nationales dans les écoles primaires [Training manual for national language instruction in primary schools]. Yaounde: PROPELCA. Urch, G. E. F. (1992). Education in sub-Saharan Africa: A source book. New York: Garland.
4 THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL CULTURE AND URBAN EDUCATION REFORMS IN POST-INDEPENDENT ZIMBABWE Douglas Mpondi University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, U.S.A.
Introduction This chapter discusses urban education reforms in post-independent Zimbabwe in the context of the government’s project of national cultural policy and national identityformation. Zimbabwe is an emerging post-independent society in Africa in that it gained its independence at a later stage than many African countries. It thus provides a raw field of study on issues of identity, educational reform and cultural struggles. The study of urban educational reforms provides an important lens through which to understand the politics of transition in post-independent Zimbabwe. In underscoring how the Zimbabwean cultural struggles over educational meanings and representations are deeply entangled with the government’s definition of culture, the study furthers the theoretical reflection on the political dimensions of culture. Cultural contestations are constitutive of the efforts of the Zimbabwe people to redefine the meaning and limits of the political system itself. This paper paves the way for understanding on a broad theoretical and practical basis, the trajectories of education, culture, politics, and identity-formation in post-colonial transformations like Zimbabwe. An analysis of the Zimbabwean educational system and national culture allows one to scrutinize the contradictions within official discourse on education and culture and to assess the gap that exists between the real urgency of preserving, valorizing, and reinvigorating collective spiritual heritage and identity. The moribund and critical state of the contemporary Zimbabwean nation calls for a more subtle and nuanced historical analysis of the relationship among national politics, culture, and education. Cheru (2002, p. 72) argues that independent African governments responded to the inherited educational disparities in two ways: (1) Africanizing school enrolments, and (2) rapidly expanding the educational system from primary school to university. The advent of Zimbabwean national independence in 1980 ushered in far-reaching reforms in education and training based on the development needs and goals of the new dispensation, which included democratization and expansion of the provision of education and 75 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 75–90. © 2007 Springer.
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training. In this equation of community development enacted largely from above, the partisan, monopolized “institutionalization” of civil society, the state and its agencies, stood as the primary organizing instrument in the hands of the ruling party. Mungazi (1993, p. 50) states that “the victory that the Africans eventually scored in their struggle for political independence then set the stage for a more challenging struggle for national development through education.” The main aspect of the educational reforms in Zimbabwe was to increase the number of students enrolled in schools and colleges as a means of trying to give access to the black majority that had been denied the opportunity during the colonial period. This led to the “massification” of the education system. The other aspect was to “localize” the syllabi and the examinations system to reflect the aspirations of a new national identity. Local languages were to be elevated and recognized both as official languages and as media for instruction, for languages symbolize cultures and identities. This was in line with the Zimbabwean leadership’s socialist project of using the educational system to create a single and unitary Zimbabwean identity. Carnoy and Samoff (1991) argue that there is a reciprocal relationship between education and social change in transition societies. In such societies, education becomes a center for social conflict and contestation among competing political interests. In this perspective, educational reforms become a challenge and a threat to long-established social values and institutional interests. In postcolonial Zimbabwe, as in other countries, the government controls the institutions which produce and legitimate culture – this includes the realms of education, media, arts, popular culture, and other agencies of cultural formation. According to Radcliffe and Westwood (1996, p. 14): in order for the nation to become hegemonic in the identities of subjects, elite/ official versions of nationalism containing certain histories, images and representations must be shared across class or ethnic lines, in order for an imagined community to be created with “shared self-awareness.” According to Raftopolous (1996), the immediate post-independence period in Zimbabwe was characterized by a government which, though it had a fairly broad basis of legitimacy founded on both the legacy of the liberation struggle and a general developmentalist program, still faced the task of establishing its domination both in national governance and over those parts of the country where its support was weak. Thus the form of its rule was characterized by both a popular level of consent, however conditional and uneven, and a distinctive coercive strain that sought to enforce unity and compliance where this was not immediately forthcoming. In political terms this has meant the introduction of political structures, which have marginalized dissenting voices and counternarratives. The participation of parents in the massive building program was motivated by their belief that education would bring about better employment and socioeconomic advantages for their children. The disparities that existed throughout the colonial era were largely attributed to the fact that most Africans had been denied access to education. The independent Zimbabwean government considered education to be one of the key ways to redress colonial injustices and establish a democratic and egalitarian
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society. The new education policies were based on the following goals: the expansion of educational facilities and school places; the abolition of racial segregation; a new emphasis on scientific and technical education, particularly at secondary school level; localization of the O-level and A-level examinations and revision of syllabi, to make them more relevant to local conditions and requirements (Nherera, 2000, pp. 5–6)
Objectives This chapter was inspired by the problems that have affected postcolonial Zimbabwe, mainly the declining standards of education, the authoritarian political regime, lack of democracy and a reversal of the promises that were made at independence by the ruling party especially in education and health sectors. The specific aims of this study are: (1) To examine the role of urban education reforms in identity-formation in postindependent Zimbabwe; (2) To explore the interplay of education, politics and culture in identity-formation and social transformation.
Research Questions The approach used to conceptualize the research question was informed by actual public discourses and struggles for culture and education in post-independent Zimbabwe and existing perspectives on the relationship among education, culture, and politics in Zimbabwe. The research attempts to answer the following questions: How have urban versus rural educational reforms helped in forming a national cultural identity in postindependent Zimbabwe? What does the process of educational reconstruction in Zimbabwe tell us about the politics of transition?
Urban Education Reforms vs. Rural Education Reforms in Zimbabwe At independence in 1980, the government set to increase enrolment of students in both urban and rural areas so as to achieve universal primary education (UPE) for those who had been denied access during the colonial period. Even adults attended literacy classes in the evening. Primary education was free and secondary education was subsidized for those who wanted to attended post-primary education in both urban areas and rural areas. Urban areas in Zimbabwe include the capital Harare, Bulawayo, Bindura, Gweru, Mutare, Kwe Kwe, Chitungwiza, Chegutu, Marondera, Masvingo, Kadoma, Chinhoyi, and other smaller locations. There were, however, discrepancies and inequalities in terms of reforms in poor urban and rural areas as compared to rich urban areas and rich semi-urban areas. In rural areas, where schools were built to expedite increased enrolment, there was a shortage of books, many of the teachers were untrained, and some students had to walk
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long distances to the schools they attended. Living conditions for teachers were also poor and unattractive. Secondary schooling in the rural areas became a conduit for youths to migrate to urban areas. In poor urban areas, the schools were over-enrolled and had to use the hot-seating system (double shifts) to accommodate the increasing numbers of students. Books were in short supply and because of the shifting system, students did not have adequate time to use the poorly equipped libraries. The education system in Zimbabwe was hailed as being among the best in Africa by 1990. The national literacy rate was over 85%. Zimbabwe appeared to be a nation of teachers and learners. However, this expansion in access to education was not matched with expansion of the economy. As a result, many graduates from secondary schools were not absorbed by industry. Rural pupils migrated to towns and cities to look for jobs. By 1991, the government had introduced the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) to recover costs of the free education and health that the government had subsidized since independence. With the various crises in Zimbabwe since the year 2000, there have been considerable numbers of graduates leaving the country because they could not find productive employment and there is seen to be a lack of commitment by the government to maintain the standards in education. Wealthier schools in both rural and urban areas are better kept and able to pay professional bookkeepers and keep track of revenues and expenditures. Poorer schools, conversely, with fewer well-educated parents, experience high levels of fraud and corruption in the running of their schools. Overall, however, the formally colonial, exclusive and selective system has been transformed into a somewhat more open system in which quantitative expansion is the main goal. There have also been attempts at integration of formerly white schools to accommodate all races in the country. However, many of these schools remain expensive for the majority of Africans and only a few African parents can afford the fees. These schools maintain their elitist values and interests by charging prohibitive fees and levies that are out of reach for poor African parents. The main difference between urban schools and rural schools is seen to be that urban schools received more attention from the national government in terms of funding, while issues such as curriculum and examinations remain the same throughout the country. Thus, urban areas are no more Zimbabwean in terms of national identity, but tend to be the loci of developments in the country. One possible result of this neglect is that some urban schools have “rebelled” against the government by supporting (and where possible) voting for the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In rural areas, where the government has imposed controls over newspapers and other primary media, people have little access to information outside the propaganda of the ruling party. Government militias have at various times banned the independent newspapers that have long been sold in rural areas. The ruling party has turned rural Zimbabwe into “no go” territory for the political opposition. Teachers in rural areas have been blamed for teaching opposition “politics” to students, and been victimized by the militias. This has contributed to an exodus to nearby towns, while some rural Zimbabweans have even left for opportunities in neighboring countries, and within the broader Zimbabwean diaspora.
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Education and Development in Zimbabwe According to Moyo, Makumbe, and Raftopolous (2000, p. xiii): after Zimbabwean independence, there was the search for a common national identity for indigenous development policy frameworks and the perceived need to mobilize the Zimbabwean society for the development of the new and emerging nation. Cheru (2002, p. 64) argues that: Education is the cornerstone of human development in every society. A sound development strategy aimed at promoting economic development, democracy and social justice must be fully cognizant of human resource development … … . Development is about people: their physical health, moral integrity and intellectual awareness. Through education, people become aware of their environment and of the social and economic options available to them The idea of the nation, according to Bhabha (1990) is the epithet commonly used to express the “authenticity” of cultural location. National identities are expected to arise from ceremonies and practices that draw citizens into the national sphere. Individuals acquire consciousness at the same time as they acquire the national language, an education and other cultural resources. The most significant proposals for change in postindependent Zimbabwe focused on the massification and nationalization of the educational system. The post-independent government of Zimbabwe centered issues of nation-building and reconstruction within the institution of education. It was felt that that the education system was a convenient institution to build a new national culture and identity to suit the new political environment. An essay entitled “Education and African Modernities,” published by the African Studies Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2002, p. 2), summarizes how central education was to the issue of nation-building in the immediate post-independent Africa: At the center of it all was education, seen as a vehicle for intellectual enlightenment, social engineering, cultural production, and political participation. Thus, education as a process and project through which social and cultural capital is acquired and reproduced, and the nation and the world are productively imagined, has dominated African discourses about development, nationalism, and globalization for a long time. At independence, virtually all African governments put great stock in education as one of the engines of social transformation, economic development, and nation-building. (http://www.afrst.uiuc.edu/Postdoc/postdoc 03-04.htm) In Zimbabwe, the government saw education as one of the most useful means of restoring the lost connections with the past, along with the purpose and civic possibility
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which had not been possible in the colonial system. Education reform meant transforming the colonial curriculum and replacing it with one that had a Zimbabwean cultural content and orientation. In the mid 1980s to late 1990s, Zimbabwe was hailed as having better access to schools and a higher literacy rate than most African countries. In independent Zimbabwe, anti-colonial nationalism eventually resulted in the replacement of a Western, colonial ruling class with a Western-educated, “indigenous” ruling class who claim to speak on behalf of the people but seem to function in ways that disempower the people. Representations of nationalist struggle in Zimbabwe tend to celebrate the inspirational activities of individual members of the elite and not recognize the role played by less privileged individuals or groups in resisting colonial rule. Historical, particularly divisive criteria have been used as a means of manufacturing national consent and “unity,” criteria based upon ideas of ethnic, racial and geographical exclusivity. While this has rewarded some people with trappings of power, others have found themselves restricted from positions of authority and condemned as second-class citizens. Regions that show little support for President Robert Mugabe’s party receive little in terms of development and access to the national fiscal policy. Education had been seen by the colonial government in Zimbabwe as a dangerous tool in the hands of Africans. The colonial system of education limited the amount, content, and quality of education that the local population could obtain to fit into the needs of the colonial administration. At independence, the new government of Zimbabwe put a lot of effort into educational reform and innovation. It attempted to create a “Zimbabwean identity” by reforming the education system to meet local needs and the Zimbabwean cultural context. Schools and streets that bore colonial names were changed and named after African “heroes.” External examinations1 in most schools were eventually replaced with locally created examinations, because, according to the authorities, the external examinations did not reflect a Zimbabwean context and identity. Indigenous languages were elevated to the level of national languages, even as English remains the official language. Thus, the contest of what it means to be Zimbabwean has become a matter of cultural politics. In this context, cultural politics is not only about what counts as official knowledge but also about the resources that are employed to challenge existing relations, to defend any counter-hegemonic forms that may exist, or to bring new such forms into existence. In their continuous struggles against the dominant projects of nation building, development, and repression, people in urban post-colonial Zimbabwe have mobilized collectively on the grounds of very different sets of meanings and stakes against a dominant and oppressive system. Parents in urban areas have resisted the government’s intention to control the school fees that should be paid in both private and government-run. Urban areas in Zimbabwe have become sites and terrains of struggle and contestation against the excesses of the government and leadership over how the public sphere should operate (Raftopolous & Yoshikuni, 1999). In rural areas, there have been resistance to the government’s control over education but this has been very minimal and limited as a result of the ruling party’s grip in those areas.
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Politics and Educational Reforms Paulo Freire, in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) and The Politics of Education (1985) sees learning as a political act and describes people struggling for learning and learning from struggles in many places around the world. For Freire, politics is about power, it is about taking sides, and making decisions which often favor one’s constituency, class, or group. Freire saw powerless people being excluded from and made invisible in mainstream educational histories. Socially dominant groups create situations, in which even where there are compromises and accords to include the less powerful, they are the beneficiaries of any such concessions. To Freire, viewing education as a neutral entity is a contradiction in terms: First, education is a political act, whether at the university, high school, primary school, or adult literacy classroom. Why? Because the very nature of education has the inherent qualities to be political, as indeed politics has educational aspects. In other words, an educational act has a political nature and a political act has an educational nature. If this is generally so, it would be incorrect to say that Latin American education alone has a political nature. Education worldwide is political by nature. (Freire in Segarra & Dobles, 1999, p. iv) Freire’s argument is that education and politics feed on each other. The way curricula are designed is political in the sense that certain material is selected that has to be taught to preserve the values and interests of certain groups. The construction of knowledge is never neutral and the circulation of knowledge is part of the social distribution of power in society (Fiske in Apple, 2000, p. 42). Limage (2001) argues that education is neither neutral nor separate from the polity because schools are non-neutral and political. According to Sylvester (1991), for most of the 1980s, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANUPF) provided the most important broad framework for political and social organization in Zimbabwe. Educational reform in a ZANU-PF controlled, post-independence Zimbabwe must be interpreted against the social, political and educational policies of the former Rhodesia. Segregation between whites and Africans formed the basis of the economy, social order and consequently of providing education. Moyana (1989, p. 8) posits that the value system of African education in colonial Rhodesia was designed to complement the socio-economic imperatives of white domination. Its emphasis on Christian values and devotion to manual labor, on habits of discipline, neatness and punctuality and insistence on things British and alien to the indigenous child’s experience were all intended to process, out of an African, a docile set of loyal laborers as well as a loyal middle-class. This kind of cultural invasion inevitably leads to an increased cultural “unauthenticity” of those invaded. Thus the education provided for Africans, whether in urban or rural environments, was inferior to that for whites and was aimed at producing a humble and subservient student who could serve the colonial system and entrench the privileged position of whites.
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At the time of its relatively late political independence in 1980, it was thought that Zimbabwe, having seen the post-colonial experiences in the majority of African countries that had achieved their political independence in the period from 1957– 1975, might be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of these other countries’ experiences of educational development. For instance, it was hoped that the quantitative expansion necessary to meet the demands of mass education could be married to the high quality of what had been an elite educational system, particularly in the urban areas. Additionally, some saw the promise of transferring nascent, socialist educational practices from the ZANU-PF and other camps in Mozambique to a new, mass Zimbabwean education system. The successive colonial governments had used restricted access to education as a means to marginalize the majority black population in economic activities. There was a general belief that increasing access to educational facilities would open opportunities that would lead to an improvement in the livelihoods of the majority of the population. The rate of educational expansion that was embarked on by the new Zimbabwean government in the 1980’s was ranked as one of the highest in the world. According to the statistics cited from the Parliamentary debates of August 1983 by Mungazi (1993, p. 173): by 1983, only three years after it had achieved independence, Zimbabwe, had a total school enrolment of 2.4 million students out of a population of 7.1 million, which meant that the government was educating more than 33% of its citizens. A top government official echoed these sentiments in an interview, A lot of Zimbabweans were denied access to education during the colonial period. Only a few were educated to serve the colonial system. Now that Zimbabwe is independent, we are saying, here is your chance. And we proved it. It is not that the government can not provide employment for all those who finish school, but that we produced so many graduates in a short period. (Transcript of Interview, July 18, 2002) The Zimbabwean government was concerned first with offering access to education to those who had been denied in the past rather than matching enrolment and maintaining quality. This shows the ambitious commitment the government had towards educational expansion and access to the Zimbabwean people who were denied education as a result of the segregationist policies of the colonial system. While the excitement that characterized this independence-era euphoria and enthusiasm is understandable, it was sobered by financial limitations and the inadequacy of economic growth. Mungazi (1993) says that the reality of the situation was that in order to expand access to secondary education, the government had to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and to heavily recruit expatriate teachers. This need was exacerbated by the unexpected economic difficulties resulting from an extended drought that impacted Zimbabwe and other countries of Southern Africa for several years starting in 1981.
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The new developments, especially de-linking the colonizer-colonized relationship, helped to explain the correlation between political independence and educational reform in that most educational policies were towing the ruling party agenda of matching Zimbabwean culture with educational innovation. It was a quest to achieve a new national identity through educational innovation in which the recognition of the Zimbabwean national culture in the curricula was sine qua non to the realization of this new dispensation. Mungazi and Walker (1997) argue that the Zimbabwean government also recognized that the diversity of the educational program, the relevance of the educational curriculum to the Zimbabwean context, and the utilization of the best resources possible, all combined to meet the needs of individual learners while giving new meaning and direction to the purpose of a new nation and national identity. Mungazi further states that when an individual is given an opportunity to learn according to his/her interest and talent, there emerges a fulfillment of life, a satisfaction, and a yearning to produce what the country needs thus helping to create a truly liberated society. For Mungazi, this is where literacy becomes important to national purpose and justifies the government’s efforts to eradicate adult illiteracy in the formative years of independence. As a matter of strategy, the government launched the adult literacy campaign in Zimbabwean villages in conjunction with the development of the primary schools and secondary schools with a curricula that emphasized “Education with Production” (Chung & Ngara, 1985). This program would be widely misunderstood and variously interpreted in different schools and colleges, and universally resented by teachers, pupils, parents and administrators. The main focus of educational change in post-independent Zimbabwe was designed to help the individual recognize himself/herself as the most important factor of national development and also as a way of attaining self-actualization and national identity (Mungazi & Walker, 1997). Education was seen as promoting a new cultural enrichment, which is a product of a national pride which surfaces from a deep sense of self-worth that education can bring about. Memmi (1965, p. 129), in his work, The Colonizer and the Colonized, argues that, for the recently colonized “the important thing to do is to rebuild, to reform, to communicate, and to belong” as a fulfillment of themselves. It is this definition and conception of liberation, both political and mental, which gives birth to a new society, a true symbol and a manifestation of the search for a new social system. In the quest for educational reform along cultural lines and as an embodiment of independence, the Zimbabwean government has been attempting to launch a new cultural and social revolution which required the reconstructing of the total society by utilizing the knowledge that Zimbabwean people must cling to their own cultural traditions which make it possible for them to reject the educational practices of their erstwhile colonizer. The rigidity which Zimbabwean politicians cited as the injustice of the colonial educational system did not disappear under the new ZANU-PF government. This became one of the major problems faced by Zimbabwe during the first years of its independence, and one that will likely to remain in place for some time to come. In the thrust for educational innovation, Zimbabwe’s new government had hoped that it was introducing a system of education that would inspire citizens with confidence for the future, a
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system that would seek to resolve the conflict that often existed between the learner and the school during the colonial period. But public examinations, which had become a hot political issue during the colonial period, remained in practice after Zimbabwe became independent. Thus, as during the colonial period, all schools in Zimbabwe took the same examinations regardless of their local value systems and structures. Mungazi (1993) states that, in 1983, the Zimbabwean government announced its intention to redesign a national syllabus that would be in tune with its national development plans. The government felt that the reform was necessary because the entire system of education inherited in 1980 remained a colonial imposition. The mammoth task was meant to eradicate the colonial nature of the education system and rebuild to suit the aspirations of the new Zimbabwean nation. This was the Zimbabwean government’s definition of national liberation. This effort would liberate Zimbabwe from the educational chains of its colonial past, advance the country progressively towards the future, and develop its full human and national potential, such that all citizens would be able to demonstrate an understanding of the benefits and importance of equality of educational opportunity in all its aspects. Ndabaningi Sithole, founding father of African nationalist movement in Zimbabwe, during an interview with Mungazi, said that “Education provides an individual a mechanism of articulation and self-expression. It gives one a wider scope, a depth to one’s thinking, a comprehensive grasp of who one is (identity) and the problems that one faces. Adjustment to a new social and political is impossible without educational innovation.” In this sense, education becomes an act of national culture (Cabral, 1970). The resulting school system in Zimbabwe is centralized, and with the establishment of the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC), all examinations are to be conducted by this board and all foreign examinations have to be abolished. According to a former director of ZIMSEC, the Council was set up to reform the Zimbabwean educational system in terms of localizing the schools examinations which had been done in colonial times by the University of Cambridge Examinations Syndicate. While economic reasons are given in partial explanation of the change, the former director said political decisions were largely behind the change: Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) was set up as an examination authority in order to localize exams in this country. What had happened was that the curriculum which we inherited from the colonial period was gradually changed at independence to reflect local conditions, in other words, more relevant to an independent country like Zimbabwe. Therefore the body to run examinations and curriculum had to be set. So ZIMSEC was set up. Clearly ZIMSEC could not have the skills- examinations skills-so we entered into an arrangement with Cambridge who have been … examining here to train our people in the skills of testing our own curriculum. (Transcript of Interview, Harare, Zimbabwe, July 16, 2002) Since the establishment of ZIMSEC there have been numerous reports about examination leaks and thefts of examination papers which led at one time to the resignation of one Minister of Education when his daughter was found in possession of exam
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questions which were yet to be written. The Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe (1992) emphasized that Zimbabwean schools should teach Zimbabwean content and Zimbabwean history. Zimbabwean history has been made a compulsory subject, with students, interestingly, being made to read books written by the very Minister invoking the changes. Thus we see those in power defining official and legitimate knowledge. Schools remain the site of numerous contests over community and societal values and priorities. The revamped Zimbabwean curricular content’s exclusion of other, non-privileged voices serves to legitimate and sustain a group’s or class’s interests or views by having the schools endorse and transmit them via curriculum policy and practice. The question of what knowledge is most worth is not only an educational issue, but also overtly ideological and political. The curricula in Zimbabwe have never been a neutral collection of knowledge, somehow appearing in the texts and classrooms of a nation. Apple (1996) argues that curriculum was always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, some group’s vision of legitimate knowledge. It was produced out of the cultural, political, and economic conflicts, tensions, and compromises that organize and disorganize a people. The selection and organization of knowledge for schools in Zimbabwe is an ideological process, one that serves the interests of particular classes and social groups. According to Apple (1996), the differential power intrudes into the very heart of curriculum, teaching and evaluation. What counts as knowledge, the ways in which it is organized, who is empowered to teach it, are part and parcel of how dominance and subordination are reproduced and altered in society. Sylvester (1991) aptly sums up the contradictions and dilemmas facing Zimbabwe in its efforts at national transformation: Zimbabweans are experiencing pressures to assert and at times to invent cultural authenticity through ethnic identification, traditional religion, racial politics, and artistic themes. Ironically, this is an aspect of modernity’s engulfment of difference by submerging it in a discourse of integration, unity, and commonality. Yet positions in between and marginal to old and new also struggle for space in Zimbabwe’s inherited matrix of identities, as does a state that is itself multicentered and cross-pressured (160). The legacy of the war for national liberation in Zimbabwe had established an uneven support and “imagined” pattern of support from and control over the African population in post-independence Zimbabwe. The first order of business was therefore not only to “Africanize” the state, in terms of personnel, a task which was largely completed after the first 5 years of independence (Moyo et al., 2000), but also to extend the breadth of its control, not only to confirm existing support but to dominate areas of opposition and uncertainty. The expansion of educational facilities in Zimbabwe combined with the announcement of the establishment of a one-party state was the most concerted attempt to establish and extend control by the state. With the ensuing state control over electronic media, especially radio transmission, space for alternative political perspectives became extremely limited by the late 1980s. To the extent that radio is one means of educating rural people, and since most of the rural population
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receive much of their information through the radio and the issuing of licenses is done by the Department of Information in the President’s Office, ever more control over education powers is held by central government authorities.
Conclusion and Findings The institution of education was used by the government of Zimbabwe as a starting point and site of departure for defining the postcolonial Zimbabwean culture and condition. The idea of a Zimbabwean national culture was a way of legitimizing the political leadership’s continued stay in power. Official discourse in post-colonial Zimbabwe has exalted a virtually mythic “national culture” kept alive by the inflamed rhetoric of politicians and the attendant establishment of national institutions like the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association and the National Service Training Centers where the Zimbabwean youth are taught “nationalism” and “patriotism.” Designed to organize and disseminate national culture through civic education, these “institutions of terror” have actually done nothing more than manage violence and force people to vote for the ruling party. The graduates from the National Service Training Centers have been used by the ruling party as militias and foot soldiers in urban centers to harass people who are seen as supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Teachers have been punished for teaching “politics” to students and not confining themselves to the national curriculum. Zimbabwe has become a political laboratory and battlefield where systematic repression legitimizes a culture of violence and selectively protects or give immunity to those who prop up the ruling regime. The myth of prosperity and the image of Zimbabwe as “a land of milk and honey” fostered after independence contributed to the government’s increasing rigidity and further strengthened its reflex to shut down thought, debate and dialogue on issues of national transformation. The attainment of independence in 1980 has failed to improve the living conditions of Zimbabweans, and the population exhibits a clear loss of confidence in the idea of the state and hence a lack of interest in the official cultural discourse. They however still want to belong to political parties. People distinguish themselves politically by the political discourse, either defending the establishment or supporting the emergent opposition. The education system in Zimbabwe used to be among Africa’s finest and similarly, used to constitute one of President Robert Mugabe’s greatest achievements. Even into the late 1990s, Zimbabwe had a higher percentage of literate people than any other country on the African continent. According to the UN, as recently as 2000, 90% of young Zimbabwean children went to primary school. Again, the highest attendance in Africa. But today, only a few years later, after evermore repressive government practice, schools are in crisis, the economy in collapse, and political interference by centralized government is seen to be having a devastating impact. Separating the politics of education from the politics of the larger society is not all that useful in the Zimbabwean context. The politics of the society spill over into the schools and manifest in the choices made by parents regarding where to send their children. Zimbabwe’s political leadership has taken its hard fought, 1980-era nationalist
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legacy as an ongoing license to privatize the national interest, defining it in terms of the interests of the governing rather than the governed. The government of Zimbabwe has replaced a white autocracy with a black autocracy. The attack on shanty towns and homeless people in June 2005, which was condemned by the United Nations, left many urban children displaced and out of school. In addition, those in the semi-urban areas have been affected by the chaotic land reform programs that also enrich those in power. The Zimbabwean government has developed an almost pathological drive towards cultural conformity in a society that is culturally heterogeneous. Such an obsession with a common culture becomes synonymous with the idea of one people, one nation and with the integrity of national identity itself. The critique of a single definition of culture and single public sphere by residents of Zimbabwean urban areas holds significance as it undermines any rigid notions of what culture is and what the public sphere mean when they speak out. The fragmented, decentered, multiple identities that constitute urban Zimbabwe might well be construed as living proof of the end of the government’s “imagined” single and common culture. The contesting forces, according to Said (1993, p. xxv), “is between advocates of a unitary identity and those who see the whole as a complex but not reductively unified one.” Said further states that as a result of imperial history, all cultures are involved in one another, none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and non-monolithic. Zimbabwe is a post-colonial nation seeking to come to terms with its own identity. It is a country full of ambivalence and dilemmas whose people continue to seek to identify their own culture(s). The need to reclaim and celebrate a culture denigrated by colonialism was at the heart of the nationalism that led to the fight for independence in Zimbabwe. At independence in 1980, this nationalism was used to forge a new Zimbabwean national identity and the nation sought reconstruction not only to survive but also to re-imagine and reconfigure its past. Said (1993, p. 50) notes that, “nationalism is an assertion of belonging to a place, a people, a heritage. It affirms the home created by a community of language, culture, and customs.” Thus nationalism was seen as an important means to attain unity and became a central part of the dictum of a new Zimbabwean national thought which assumed that homogenization of diverse ethnic and racial groups would occur with the nationalization project of nation-building. The educational system had to transmit a homogeneous perception of the cultural, social and political character of a new Zimbabwean nation. For the achievement of such a purpose teachers had to be trained in such a way that they would be capable of evaluating and promoting the sense of nationality, and encouraging the knowledge, the respect and the love for the country and its history, traditions and culture. This, in the end, might help to explain why the Zimbabwean leadership under Robert Mugabe, has been using the state apparatus to coercive hegemony to retain control of public institutions including the schools and discouraging teachers to teach “politics” in the classroom. The nation-state serves as a powerful model for configuring identity through its idioms of political representation and citizenship and through its organs, be they administrative, legal or educational systems. These systems project ground rules for the negotiation of identities and entitlements, of representation and legitimacy. This
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provides an avenue for the expression and appropriation of identities and has constrained the space in which negotiation and evasion of identities took place, with institutional implications for public life and ideas. The nationalized curriculum in Zimbabwe legitimates inequality in that it creates an illusion of a “mythic national culture,” that whatever the massive differences between elite schools and poor urban and rural schools, they all have something in common. They are supposedly all equal culturally, because they have a “common culture and a common curriculum.” This was meant to disguise the differences between the rich elite who had benefited from the “national cake” and the poor, who fought the struggle but were denied the proceeds of the victory in the struggle. Education was and remains a political subject, a matter of access to political power (or closure from that power) at all levels, from the primary school to university. Nationalizing culture through teaching and learning makes education an instrument of assimilation, normalization and class stratification.
Notes 1. In the Zimbabwean case, external examinations were most often created in Britain, and shipped out to Zimbabwe, and other former British colonies in Africa and elsewhere.
References Apple, M. W. (1996). Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press. Bhabha, H. K. (Ed.). (1990). Nation and narration. London, New York: Routledge. Cabral, A. (1970). National liberation and culture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Carnoy, M., & Samoff, J. (1991). Education and social transition in the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cheru, F. (2002). African renaissance: Roadmaps to the challenge of globalization. London, New York: Zed Books. Chung, F., & Ngara, E. (1985). Socialism, education and development: A challenge to Zimbabwe. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House. Education and African Modernities. Retrieved December 23, 2005, from http://www.afrst.uiuc.edu/ postdoc/postdoc03–04.htm Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Limage, L. J. (2001). Democratizing education and educating democratic citizens: International and historical perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer. Moyana, T. (1989). Education, liberation and the creative act. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House. Moyo, S., Makumbe, J., & Raftopolous, B. (2000). NGOs, the state, and politics in Zimbabwe. Belgravia, Harare, Zimbabwe: SAPES Books. Mungazi, D. (1993). Educational policy and national character: Africa, Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Westport, CT: Praeger. Mungazi, D., & Walker, L. K. (1997). Educational reform and the transformation of Southern Africa. Westport, CT: Praeger. Nherera, C. M. (2000). Globalization, qualifications and livelihoods: The case of Zimbabwe. Assessment in Education Principles, Policy and Practice, 7(3), 335–362(28).
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Radcliffe, S., & Westwood, S. (1996). Remaking the nation: Place, identity and politics in Latin America. London & New York: Routledge. Raftopolous, B. (1996). Zimbabwe: Race and nationalism in a post-colonial state. Harare: Sapes Books. Raftopolous, B., & Yoshikuni, T. (1999). Sites of struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe’s urban history. Harare: Weaver Press. Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. Segarra, J. A., & Dobles, R. (1999). Learning as a political act: Struggles for learning and learning from struggles. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review Series No.33. Sylvester, C. (1991). Zimbabwe: The terrain of contradictory development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press; London: Dartmouth. Zimbabwe, Ministry of Education and Culture. (1992). Development of education, 1988–1992: National report of Zimbabwe. Harare: Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Higher Education.
5 REFORMING THE CITY SCHOOL IN SOUTH AFRICA: MAPPING THE HISTORY FROM APARTHEID DURBAN TO POST-APARTHEID eTHEKWINI Jenni Karlsson University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Introduction As schools age, their sites and built environments become palimpsests imprinted and overprinted with traces, shifts, removals, and additions from each subsequent social era. In cities, the story of an urban formation’s waxing and waning is mirrored in the fortunes of its schools and can be read off their collective histories. Even the peculiar racial, cultural, and economic politics of South African cities, from the colonial period to the post-apartheid present, are inscribed in school built environments, with each school’s location still articulating a history of center-periphery advantage, marginality, and discrimination, despite endeavors to ameliorate the inequalities of the past. This understanding underpins my study of schools in South Africa’s second largest city, Durban, or eThekwini, as it is known in the more widely spoken local language of isiZulu.1 The French social theorist, Henri Lefebvre (1991, p. 54) has asserted that “a revolution that does not produce a new space has not realized its full potential.” This implies that the social space of city and school is reworked continually as social relations evolve from what was there before. Lefebvre has also contended that simultaneously urban development constitutes relations of center-periphery tensions that yield social difference and diversity (Lefebvre, 1991, 1996). These propositions about urban formation and social space are the theoretical horizon for this work and frame my exploration of city schools as inseparable from the geo-political history of their locale. Urban schools are nested in areas comprising a heterogeneous population of the poor and middle classes and many cultural and linguistic groups (Massey, Allen, & Pile, 1999). By serving the educational needs of the diverse residents, a city gives its schools defining characteristics that render these schools different from those of other cities. Notwithstanding this influence, schools affect city life through the rhythms of school terms, the start and end of each day’s lessons that show in the patterns of traffic flow, and in the ethos and activities of the school. City schools, too, are a special type of consumer, drawing on the various utilities and specialist services in the city such as museums, libraries, 91 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 91–114. © 2007 Springer.
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recreational areas and public transport. But the relationship of school and city is largely one of supply and demand: the city as an urban center of trade and industry requires schools for the education of citizens’ children and for preparing the next generation of managers and workers, and – at the risk of being overly reductionist – schools meet these (re)productive ends (Apple, 1995; McLaren, 1995; Ranson, 1994; Teese, 1997). In this paper I show how public schools in Durban/eThekwini were harnessed to the evolving political project of the South African city in colonial, segregated and apartheid eras, and that this continues in the political dispensation of democracy. I present an account of how the schools were originally established in a particular area and then developed to respond spatially in subsequent periods as the city changed politically and economically.
The City of Durban/eThekwini Several years into the twenty-first century, the city of Durban/eThekwini is a rapidly expanding polycentric conurbation on the eastern coast of South Africa. It is a distinctive South African city in terms of its population, culture and built environment. Durban’s population is estimated to be more than 3 million comprising roughly 60% blacks, 21% Indians, 11% whites and the remainder being colored and other groups (Corporate Policy Unit, 2004, p. 1).2 Durban is home to most of South Africa’s Indian population, infusing the city with an Asian cultural orientation. The white community differs from many other parts of South Africa by being almost totally English-speaking, a legacy of the city’s British history as part of the former colony of Natal. In the 1990s Durban’s built environment was increasingly defined by a creeping “squatterscape” (Beavon, 1992) that outstripped such trends in all South Africa’s other cities (McCarthy & Bernstein, 1996). Thus, by 2000, almost two thirds of all Durban households lived in informal settlement shacks (Durban Metro Urban Strategy Department, 2000). Vast development of low-cost housing across the expanded area administered by the new eThekwini Municipality has stopped this trend and given thousands of such households access to land tenure, basic utilities, and services such as public schooling (Corporate Policy Unit, 2004). The naming of this place reflects a checkered history. Portuguese and Dutch sailors referred to this area as Port Natal until European settlers named their settlement Durban, after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, in the nineteenth century. However, the black isiZulu-speaking community has always referred to this locale as eThekwini. This latter name derives from itheku, referring to the horns of a bull, as seen in the curvature of the bay (UniCity Committee Durban, 2000, p. 4). The large polycentric local government, established in 2000, now officially is named eThekwini. It encompasses a vast rural periphery with Africa’s busiest port city of Durban at its center.
Methodological Issues In this chapter I use six schools in Durban/eThekwini to illuminate the relational development of the city and school, and to show how schools reflect political trajectories of their locale even when a local government does not administer them. My argument is
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based on an amalgam of data collected in 1999–2000, comprising memory accounts from eight selected adults who attended such schools in their youth, and now teaching at these schools (see Figure 1), photographs taken by learners at each school and during my visits to the school sites, personal communications with significant role players such as a school administrator and an architect, as well as school documents such as yearbooks.3 The six schools (see Table 1) were selected on the basis of the former race-based education authorities that administered them prior to 1994, that is, Natal Education Department – for whites (Heather Primary and Centenary High, the latter being a school for girls only); House of Delegates – for Indians (Maximus Primary and Highway Secondary); and Department of Education and Training – for blacks living in urban areas and outside bantustan/homeland territories (Khayalihle Primary).4 The sixth school, Simunye Secondary, was built and opened after South Africa adopted democracy in 1994. In their geographic location and relation to the harbor and city center, the school case studies lay bare the unfolding history of the city. The colonial era school, Centenary High, stands as a large beacon in a leafy middle class suburb overlooking the harbor. Four other schools (Highway Secondary, Heather Primary, Maximus Primary, and
Figure 1. Map of Durban/eThekwini outer boundaries in 2000, and showing the location of the six selected schools
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Table 1.
Description summary of selected schools
School name
Opened in
Former dept.*
Primary/ Secondary
Residential zoning
Distinguishing features
Heather
1961
NED (white)
Primary
Maximus
1969
HOD (Indian)
Primary
Khayalihle
1981
DET (black)
Primary
Middle class suburb Middle class suburb Working class township with squatters
Centenary
1882
NED (white)
Secondary
Highway
1956
HOD (Indian)
Secondary
Simunye
1999
Not applicable
Secondary
Desegregated; coeducational Desegregated; coeducational Racially homogenous but formally desegregated; coeducational Girls only; desegregated Desegregated; coeducational academic & technical curriculum Racially homogenous but formally desegregated; coeducational
Middle class suburb Semi-industrial/ working class
Working class development area with squatters
* This column refers to the race-based apartheid education authorities i.e. Natal Education Department (NED), House of Delegates (HOD), and the Department of Education and Training (DET).
Khayalihle Primary) that were established during the apartheid era, fall neatly within the apartheid city pattern in that the former white school is close to the city center, the two former Indian schools lie to the south of the city adjacent to industrial areas, and the fifth black school is furthest away from the center in a distant area that is a formal township interspersed with informal settlement homesteads. The sixth post-apartheid school, Simunye Secondary, lies about 2 km from the white schools, and is part of a large postapartheid urban renewal and planning project that serves a community of black working class and urban poor.
The Colonial and Segregated City School Durban’s colonial past iterates the infamous land scramble by European masters and erasure of an earlier history when Zulu kings would come to bathe on the lagoon verges, now the Victoria Embankment so named by colonizers after the Thames riverside in London, United Kingdom. Many place names in Durban speak to this colonial legacy. Following unsuccessful attempts in 1688 and 1705 by Simon van der Stel, the Dutch East India Company representative at the Cape of Good Hope, to acquire title deeds to the bay from Zulu chiefs, Durban was permanently settled by Europeans in 1823 after British lieutenants King and Farewell took refuge in the bay (Morrison, 1987, p. 8). In 1835, the colonial settlement was named Durban, taking its name from Sir Benjamin D’Urban, the British governor of the Cape colony at the time.5 Durban’s future as an important commercial harbor and industrial city, however, was assured
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after a harbor engineer was appointed in 1850 and South Africa’s first railway line was laid in 1898. In the 1880s, a few public schools were established to meet the education aspirations of Durban’s settler residents for their children. Centenary High School was one of these and originally it was located on a site near to the harbor. Settler farmers, land owners and religious organizations also established several private boarding schools at this time in Durban as well as country districts of the colony (Morrell, 2001). Most of those colonial era schools were single-sex (and continue to be so in the twenty-first century), and are sought after for their high quality liberal education. In the 1930s Centenary High relocated to its present position in a middle class, predominantly white neighborhood. It represents approximately 120 years of tradition as a single-sex school for girls. Urban historians and town planners (see Lemon, 1991b) have theorized that Durban’s spatial layout followed the model of the “segregated city” for the post-colony period of 1910 leading up to the 1950s. In the “segregated city” model households lived in organized but unlegislated racially homogeneous clusters. Centenary High’s buildings that date from the 1930s comprise symmetrical threestory wings overlooking the harbor city. The colonnaded verandahs, wide corridors and triangular stairwells follow the Art Deco architectural style seen in other government and residential buildings of Durban from that period and was allegedly “meant to affirm the progressive, ‘modern’ outlook of its inhabitants” (Radford, 2002, pp. 47, 49). The wings housed classrooms, reception and administration offices, a staff room, well-stocked library, and an elevator (exceptional for public and privately funded schools from that era). Behind the wings stands a large school hall, equipped for theatre productions and surrounded by colonnaded verandas, with a fully equipped gymnasium on the floor above. Outdoor sports facilities comprise a swimming pool, several tennis courts and a hockey/athletics field. The generous spaciousness and variety of facilities in this public school indicates the privileged yet classical education ambitions that white English-speaking settlers held for their daughters in the first half of the twentieth century. These spanned both intellectual and scientific endeavors as well as sporting prowess. There is a foundation stone near the main entrance to the building. Despite the tradition of Centenary High being an English language school and the prime school for English-speaking girls of a British colonial city, the foundation stone text is written in two languages: English and Afrikaans.6 It states that: This stone was laid by the honourable H. G[-] W[-] I.S.O. the Administrator of the Province of Natal on 29 September 1937. Hierdie steen is gelˆe deur die edelagbare H. G[-] W[-] I.D.O. Administrateur van die Provinsie Natal op 29 September 1937. The text in English and Afrikaans, being languages spoken among South Africa’s white communities, indicates the exclusive bilingualism that constituted a European linguistic supremacy in the post-colony period and still remains deeply entrenched in South Africa. Bilingualism was enforced later at schools serving all other linguistic
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communities through legislation such as the Bantu Education Act of 1953, until Afrikaans in black township schools became an important organizing point for resistance against the apartheid regime, as occurred on June 16, 1976 (Hyslop, 1999, pp. 158–164). Throughout the period of segregation, that is, until 1948, when the Afrikaner dominated Nationalist Party came to power, daughters from Durban’s white families were educated at Centenary High. The tradition of sending the next generation in the family to Centenary High as Durban’s most prestigious public school for young ladies was encouraged through the formation of an alumni association. The “Old Girls Club” assisted in fund-raising for the development of the school and groomed the school girls to provide charitable community service.
The Apartheid City School The trauma of the Anglo-Boer War (now known as the South African War) and peace agreement that established the Union of South Africa, followed by two crippling World Wars, set massive social restructuring into motion throughout South Africa. A key impetus was the rise to power of the Nationalist Party in 1948. Once elected into government, the Nationalist Party set about introducing legislation and implementing a way of life. This social order became known as “apartheid” because of its provisions that forced racially identified groups to live and, as much as possible, work apart. In the same period, stimulated by hysteria during the World War II, concerning the “penetration” of white Durban by the Indian middle class, the white City Council was a prime mover in a combination of slum clearance and urban racial engineering (Lemon, 1991a). More than other South African municipalities, the Durban City Council was fundamental in this process (Freund, 2000, p. 154). After 1948, legislation was passed that proclaimed racially-constructed residential zones, forbade marriage and sexual relations across the racial divide, and prescribed the racial classification of all citizens, amongst other things (Dubow, 1995; Ebr.-Vally, 2001). These developments required the removal of many groups of people into racially-proclaimed and restricted parts of the city and has led to the theorization of the “apartheid city” (Lemon, 1991a). These removals of people consolidated and gave preference to white residential and commercial districts. Thus, in Durban, white communities lived close to the commercial center, harbor and beaches, as well as on the hilly ridges with ocean views and along the Western highway out of the city, while town planning pushed residential areas and townships for “non-white races” to the periphery where they were out of sight from whites and where land was unsuitable for commercial and industrial use. Township residents provided the steady flow of labor for the adjacent industrial development zones that, in addition to rivers, often acted as buffers between white and black residential areas. In the three decades 1920–1950, Durban had experienced dramatic growth in African urbanization (Lemon, 1991a, p. 4). Durban’s whites, however, were less threatened by blacks than they were by Indian residents of the city who were rising in numbers and achieving success in their commercial ventures (Lemon, 1991a, pp. 3, 13–14). By 1950,
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the majority of Durban’s black residents lived in relatively uncontrolled concentrations such as at Cato Manor near the city center. Rioting between blacks and Indians in 1949 exacerbated anxieties among Durban’s whites (Davies, 1991, p. 82) and left a painful legacy in the collective memory of the Indian community (Thiara, 1999, pp. 161–162). Following the proclamation of the Group Areas Act in 1953, which applied to ownership and occupation of property and fixed certain geographic zones for the use of only one racial group, Durban’s City Council rezoned the city’s residential areas along strictly segregated lines in 1958 (Davies, 1991, p. 79). This necessitated appropriating properties and building vast low-income Council housing estates and a few middle class suburbs for Indians, followed by their forced removal to these areas during the 1960s (Figure 2). The townships of KwaMashu to the north and Umlazi to the south of the city were established in 1958 and 1962, respectively (Davies, 1991, p. 82). These developments concentrated and fixed power at the core of center-periphery relations of the apartheid city and the arrangements were also used to justify the legal imposition of segregated education systems (Davies, 1991, pp. 80–81).
Figure 2. Durban: Metropolitan group areas circa 1958 Source: Davies, 1991, p. 80.
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There is a swampy river delta that enters the harbor precinct. This is now crossed by a busy corridor that runs from the city center, past the harbor and south to the airport. Nearby is a busy terminal that handles over 80,000 ship containers monthly (Local History Museum & Portnet, 2000, p. 15). The river is canalized to drain the land for industrial use and control flooding (Freund, 2000, p. 151). Although initially the domain of early Indian land-owners outside colonial boundaries of Durban, the area was incorporated in 1932 and became a densely populated and thriving Indian enclave that is described by geographer Dianne Scott (1994) as a “communally constructed space,” partly because the facilities and institutions, including schools, were developed through the vision and social cohesion of kinship and relations of local residents. By the end of the 1950s, over 50,000 residents including fishermen, merchants, artisans and market gardeners, were housed here (Scott, 1994, p. 1). In 1956, Highway Secondary was established by this local community to provide an education for their children, which the government of the day was not adequately serving. Now that a motorway has been built nearby, access to Highway Secondary is via an obscure cul de sac that passes a Hindu shrine. Originally there were several schools built together on adjoining sites. Now these form an untidy sprawl of blocks named A, B, C, and so on, referring to previous schools that were amalgamated to form Highway Secondary, an academic and technical high school that was once the largest Indian school in KwaZulu-Natal province.7 The school’s proud history of serving the local Indian community is evident in a carved school crest and Hindi symbols commemorating the school’s jubilee in 1980. In the 1960s Durban’s white City Council was engaged in zoning of the city for different racial groups. This was linked to implementation of the race-based Group Areas Act, as well as a boom in population growth. Thus, 2 km from Centenary High, a new neighborhood zoned exclusively for whites was established, and Heather Primary was opened to serve the local white community. The name of the neighborhood commemorates the deep valleys between the Northwest Highlands and Grampian Mountains of Scotland, beloved by a nineteenth century settler whose farm had once covered the hills surrounding the school site (Fielden, 1887/1973). In the suburb, roads named after settlers from Scotland also recall this colonial past.8 Although the school was opened in 1961, there is no foundation stone to mark that event.9 The school’s crest, displayed on signage at the main entrance, includes two spikes of Scotch Heather that grows in the valleys of Scotland. The white and green of the heather forms the color base for the school uniform, repeated in green cardigans and blazers, check cotton dresses for girls and striped ties and socks for boys. The approach to the school is from a dangerously undulating through-road, and cottages for elderly descendants from English settlers and a municipal cemetery lie across the road from the school. The parallel rows of red brick classrooms joined together by covered corridors, open yet sheltered from the weather, are tropes of countless other public schools throughout Durban. The wing for Grades 1–3 classes was purpose-built with inter-leading toilet and wash areas and special storerooms for the bulky materials and equipment used in teaching younger learners. In the 1960s, there was a large specially equipped room for teaching girls sewing and cooking, while boys had a workshop
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where they went to learn about carpentry. After some years these rooms lost their gendered curriculum ethos when they were transformed into a library and music room and used by all. The school was also extended with the construction of a school hall and addition of a swimming pool. In 2005 the school undertook further extensive additions.10 In the same decade after Heather Primary was established, the city expanded to the south where it proclaimed huge low-income council housing estates. In these areas near the southern industrial belt and oil refinery, working class Indians were relocated to act as a labor pool and buffer against nearby southern townships that central government had established for black workers (Davies, 1991, p. 80). Ironically, the area was named after a wealthy country estate in England and continued the semiotic link of former colony and empire. At the entrance to the vast council housing estate, the Council laid out a suburb with a shell of roads, shops, schools and religious sites, and residential plots. The latter were earmarked for middle class Indians from whom the Council had appropriated property located in white zones near the center of the city. The central government administrators for Indian education established Maximus Primary as a public school to serve this local neighborhood. One participant in this study of Durban/eThekwini schools was a former pupil of Maximus Primary in the 1970s. She recalled that: [the school] was built so that it [could] service the incoming residents, the new young families that were beginning to reside and build homes in the suburb … with the assistance by the [City] Council … . There was a high level of professional people that had moved in, predominantly teachers, and then lawyers and doctors that had moved into the area. So their kids were coming to the school and there were a few odd families like mine where the parents were not professional but the Council had allocated them property – suppose because they could meet the deposit and meet the payment for that kind of property. My dad was a [supervisor] at the factory at the time when we moved in here. But he had received assistance from his family … . In contrast to the monotony of nearby hills covered by rows of identical terrace houses for working class families, each home in this neighborhood was uniquely designed to serve the needs and aesthetics of the owner. Ashwin Desai (2001, p. 23), a sociologist and social commentator, has asserted that the Council’s placement of an affluent area at the entrance to a low-income area served to hide the poor social conditions resulting from the relocation program. Maximus Primary nestles in a valley between these homes, a Hindu temple and a cluster of local shops. The lower road running along the valley’s marsh, acts as a boundary separating the suburb from an adjacent black working class township. The school principal reported that the community had been involved in selecting the name of Maximus Primary. This signals the high aspirations and inspiration of an Indian middle class community to excel educationally and is reminiscent of a classical liberal education that would have been characteristic of white schooling. The choice of name
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may also have signaled the community’s determination to rise above the spatial partition and evictions that were meted out by the white councilors of apartheid-era Durban. Later an administration block was added, comprising a reception foyer and the usual rooms for management and school administration, as well as a staff room, library, music room and tuck shop. Behind this stand the original tiered rows of low red brick classrooms, each row opening onto an open but covered corridor facing away from oncoming southerly weather, with a science laboratory and toilets on the flanks. Washtubs were installed along the terraces adjoining classrooms. The grounds were planted with trees indigenous to the coastal forests that once covered these hills, and the inter-leading corridors were named after these trees. Various outdoor sport facilities with change rooms were laid out for netball, soccer and cricket. By the mid-1970s, the number of white learners increased at Centenary High. This should be understood within the context of political change and independence in Zimbabwe and the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, as whites from those countries moved to South Africa, which still had a white government. The marked increase in enrolment at Centenary High drove the construction of extra classrooms. Two large blocks were built as flanks fronting the 1937-era wings. Built during a period of economic boom and confidence when the political regime consolidated its apartheid system, the late modern minimalist architecture presents to the city a bulkhead of robust resolution and regimen of uniformity. During the 1980s, Durban’s local white politicians and industrialists sought suitable real estate for industrial expansion. As the area of Durban/eThekwini is hilly, land in the vicinity of Highway Secondary became the targeted growth point (Scott, 1994, pp. 2–3). This would have required Highway Secondary’s local residents to be removed – as had happened in the 1960s on a large scale elsewhere in the city. This would have entailed Council appropriation of properties and the relocation of the community, against their will, to another area of Durban. Geographer, Dianne Scott (1994, p. 3), outlines the City Council’s strategy for this southern area at that time: When the racial segregation of space became the purview of the national state with the promulgation of the Group Areas Act [in 1950], the Durban City Council had to rely entirely on planning and technical procedures in order to achieve its goal … [M]any other strategies were implemented to reduce the residential component and character of the area and force residents to relocate either by expropriating their properties or by creating a climate of uncertainty about the future. Also occurring simultaneously with this process was the systematic removal of thousands of Indian families from the shack areas in the surrounding “District” […], by terminating their leases on Council property. This removal process dovetailed with infrastructural developments and the provision of alternative housing in the largescale public housing schemes provided for to accomplish racial segregation via the Group Areas Act. Thus, the resident Indian community around Highway Secondary has the distinction of being among the last to be threatened with forced removal during the apartheid era. With the support of civil society groups the community was successful in resisting
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removal. Though unrelated to those political contests, in the administration wing foyer a commemorative plaque dates from this period, which says: This building was officially opened by the director of Indian education, G[…] K[…] Esq., during the silver jubilee celebration of the [Highway] Secondary School on 30 August 1980. Hierdie gebou is amptelik geopen deur die direkteur van Indieronderwys, Mnr. G[…] K[…], tydens die silwerjubileumherdenking van die [Highway] Sekondere Skool op 30 Augustus 1980. The use of the two official languages of the apartheid era, reference to “Indian education” and name of the officiating white bureaucrat, signal the school’s history of being caught in a contradictory space of segregation and subjugation during the apartheid era. The rapidly expanding apartheid city also located Highway Secondary within an ambiguous transitional and marginal space of the city: at the interstice of industry, commerce, harbor, and neighborhood. The muddle and mayhem of this locale manifests now in Highway Secondary’s amalgamated precinct. The different architectural textures of the classroom blocks, administration wing, and warehouse-like vocational training workshops yield a discordant urban landscape that is either over-exposed to the sun in bare concrete and tarred courtyards, or lost in dimly lit rooms, dark passages and rampant sub-tropical vegetation. Two years after Highway Secondary had celebrated its silver jubilee, Centenary High installed a bell tower overlooking the hockey field. It was to commemorate the school’s centenary in 1982. What is striking is its contrast to the modernity of the 1970s blocks. The bell tower’s stone masonry, matching the original entrance posts at the street, signals the school’s endurance as a significant education institution in the city. Words on the two pillars of the bell tower state that: This bell tower erected by past and present pupils and staff, generously assisted by the Durban City Council, was unveiled by the Mayor of Durban, Councillor Mrs S[…] H[…] on 26th April 1982. “Time lost is never regained.” Erected to commemorate the centenary of [Centenary] Girls High School 1882–1982. Fortiter Fideliter Feliciter. The absence of Afrikaans and the use of English and Latin in this inscription signals a subtle shift in the school’s politics and identity from the era when the 1937 foundation stone was laid. The honorable mention given to a female elected (liberal Jewish) city councilor, rather than a male bureaucrat, such as that from the education authorities in the provincial capital cited in the 1937 foundation stone, suggests that in the intervening years a strong connection had been established between the school and the city’s new liberal politicians. In the 1980s, the city’s liberal politics contrasted with the increasingly ruthless and repressive central government of the apartheid regime. The gender shift, as noted in reading the two plaques, suggests that Centenary High had deepened its gendered identification as a school for girls. The epigram and Latin motto restate the school’s pursuit of a classical liberal education tradition with connections to Europe.
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What school provision was there for black children in the apartheid city? A key component of central government’s apartheid planning was the establishment of rural homeland governments or self-governing territories where black communities could govern themselves. These self-governing territories were also intended to reduce the flow of black people moving from rural areas into towns and cities. Nevertheless, in Durban urbanization was not stemmed. Fleeing the poverty and under-development of rural areas and in hope of employment and an improved quality of life, people continued to seek their fortunes in the city, settling informally on the fringes of townships, such as at Inanda, which lay between the city and the KwaZulu homeland territory.11 In the 1970s, the apartheid government had reconstituted the Trust that had jurisdiction over Inanda, renaming it the South African [ex Native] Development Trust (Hughes, 1996, pp. 305–307). The infrastructure in the area was minimal and conditions were reminiscent of rural areas, with many homes built from wooden poles, a mud or cement mix and corrugated iron sheets, with unhygienic pit latrines nearby. In the aftermath of the 1976 township uprisings, South Africa’s largest corporations, fearing further unrest among a discontented black working class, established the Urban Foundation, a development initiative (Urban Foundation, 1981). Collaborative engagements for “orderly urbanization” brought groups like the Urban Foundation and central and local governments together, for the development of new housing schemes on Durban’s northern fringes (Davies, 1991, p. 86). By the 1980s, Durban had grown as a metropolis, with regional and town planners conceiving of the city, its satellite towns and outlying rural areas as a single economic region that deserved coordinated planning (Davies, 1991, pp. 83–84). Thus, in that decade, the Urban Foundation led and funded the planning and development of a section of Inanda. This new township offered prospective homeowners a house built according to established urban building standards and with basic amenities and access to public services, such as clinics and schools. To serve the densely populated area, a cluster of four schools was established atop a hill, one being Khayalihle Primary. The school’s name, meaning “beautiful home,” and school motto, imfundo isisekelo, which means “education is the foundation,” encapsulate the aspirations of planners and occupants for the new houses and the futures of their children. The ideas of early apartheid era township planners help us to understand the way schools were socially constructed to inflect particular center-periphery relations between the city and school: … sites selected for school and hostel buildings affect not only the educational process and the school environment but also the greater area of the surrounding neighbourhood or town. The school is, in fact, a social centre and is an important and integral part of the locality … The site must therefore meet the requirements of the greater town plan, provide the school with a complementary setting and finally supply the children with a satisfactory environment in which to play and learn. (le Roux, Nel, Hulse, & Calderwood, 1956–1957, p. 3) The late apartheid town planning activities of the Urban Foundation continued this early apartheid framework. In its first years, Khayalihle Primary occupied prefab
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premises adjoining its present site, but once buildings were ready in 1985, the institution moved. This was a government primary school administered by the authorities for black education within the white-dominated urban areas of South Africa. Although these authorities had their own architectural plans for their schools, the palmate layout and locally fired red bricks of parallel rows of classrooms and open corridors, with a discrete administration wing is not dissimilar to other primary schools in the city. The foundation stone inside the administration offices states that a senior manager from the Department of Education and Training, Mr. N[…], officially opened the school at the end of 1985. To identify the school to passers-by, the crest was once painted on a wall facing the street, but by 2000 this had deteriorated and faded in the weather. Though special facilities, such as a library and tuck shop, may have appeared on architect’s plans, no such rooms were built at Khayalihle Primary.12 From the outset there were only the most essential facilities at Khayalihle Primary, unlike schools, such as Maximus and Heather Primary Schools, in the city’s white and Indian zoned areas. The conditions at Khayalihle Primary were consistent with the systemic under-funding of black education at a central government level, though the funding was greater than that for rural schools in the adjacent KwaZulu homeland territory. Thus Khayalihle had a purpose-built administration wing, was electrified, and had on-site water and flush toilets. However, compared to Heather Primary and Maximus Primary, at Khayalihle there was no kitchen and only outside wash tubs, the lesson bell had no timer and was rung manually, and two sets of learner toilets had been built so the septic tanks could be rested.13 In some of these infrastructure conditions we see how the apartheid city arrangements of locating black townships peripheral to the city, and at a disadvantage to access the amenities offered in the city, played out in the everyday practices of Khayalihle Primary. To sum up the period of the apartheid city, 1948–1990, the rapid spread of Durban was linked to its political rupture into clearly demarcated racialized areas and its economic expansion. In addition, the city was pressured by an inflow of people seeking refuge from the poverty and under-development associated with rurality and the political uncertainty of black rule in South Africa’s neighboring states. These social forces and trends are paralleled in the establishment of new urban schools that served those removed and newly settled communities, and minimalist township schools to calm a restive black working class. By the 1980s, Durban’s City Council was led by a liberal female mayor although central government was still in the grip of the apartheid regime. These changes and tensions manifested in the contrasting brave-new-world expansionism of the city’s leading school for girls as it sought to accommodate an influx of learners. So, too, the disheveled reconfiguration of the school for Indian learners epitomizes how many schools serving politically marginalized communities were neglected, stressed and strained by a contradictory and, in the late 1980s, embattled political system.
The Post-Apartheid City School Housing shortages became acute in South African cities at the end of the apartheid era when influx controls, which had restricted black people’s access to the city for employment and residence, were abolished. In the early 1990s, the city also began to relax
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segregated access to beaches (Davies, 1991, p. 86). The strictly segregated school system began to fracture as Indian schools admitted small numbers of black learners. Then, in 1990, new models of school governance and funding were proclaimed for white schools, ushering in the first stage towards formal desegregation of public schooling (Karlsson, McPherson, & Pampallis, 2001, pp. 145–146). Up until South Africa’s democratic elections in 1994 and the start of transitional local governments, white councilors had controlled Durban. However, after 1994 a non-racial City Council was elected and was dominated by South Africa’s post-apartheid ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). In 2001, transitional local government arrangements came to an end and the greater Durban region was re-demarcated and named eThekwini after the original isiZulu name for Durban and surrounding areas. Increasingly the name eThekwini is used in business, the media and conversation, with Durban used to signify the developed harbor city and this name is retained where it is more readily recognized, such as in the international arena. In the 1990s many changes occurred in the built environment at Centenary High that required substantial capital investment and which took the school to new heights as one of the city’s prestigious schools. The original wooden gates that had graced the entrance to the school since the 1930s were replaced in 1997–1998 by automated security gates with an intercom and close circuit camera linked to the reception office.14 Then in 1999, a three-story science and career counseling facility following a post-modern architectural style was opened. The wing adjoins the 1937 building and runs alongside the hall to enclose a paved courtyard with palm trees and a drinking fountain reserved for learners in the final grade. A granite plaque commemorating the opening of the wing bears a brass plate of the wing’s three-story profile overprinted with the words: [Centenary] Girls High School The A[…] M[…] Wing Opened 7 May 1999 The wording on this plaque differs significantly from the 1937 foundation stone and 1982 bell tower commemorative inscription. It drops the classical references and excessive wording in the previous plaques and prefers an economical use of language. As with the 1982 centenary inscription there is continuity in the reference to a female leader, A[…] M[…]. However, in the new inscription, the female is not merely an officiating dignitary; she represents the heart and the head of the school: the incumbent principal. This may have provided the school with some political fence-sitting by avoiding any city dignitary from the local government, which had come under the control of the African National Congress. Rather than progressing to recognition of a post-apartheid female (black) leader, the safe choice of the white principal on this commemorative plaque suggests a withdrawal in 1999 into the continuity of institutional history and culture as a school traditionally for white Englishspeaking girls. Further, while the previous inscriptions merely state the names of two dignitaries present at the event, the 1999 plaque assigns the name of the dignitary to the building, thereby fusing the identification of the subject with the new wing (the
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A[…] M[…] Wing is A[…] M[…]) and ensuring such continuity well into future decades. The new science and counseling wing is named after the principal in tribute to her vision of a state-of-the-art science teaching wing that would fully prepare girls to consider scientific careers in the twenty-first century.15 The wing has a science lecture theatre with data projection facilities, and nearby are a fully equipped laboratory with an industrial extractor fan that also serves an interior design aesthetic, and a wellappointed museum-style display of scientific paraphernalia. Another level of the wing houses a career guidance and counseling suite. It includes a carpeted space for larger casual group sessions, a soundproof room for confidential counseling, an office for counselors and a records storeroom. As Centenary High’s built environment has been elaborated over the years and as the post-apartheid political dispensation has brought a new generation of learners commuting from the periphery of the city, spatial practices have been recalibrated in keeping with technological advances and economic dynamics. Yet the gendered schooling for girls and the middle class encoding of quality education remains constant. When viewed from the street and commercial center of Durban, the wealth and weighty physical presence of Centenary High’s spatiality within its showcase of middle class homes, represents a dramatic contrast with the modest township and flimsy informal settlement homes where most of Durban’s population reside. This gives Centenary High a potentially significant position in city-school power relations. However, the school’s inward retreat since 1994, garrisoning itself behind the façade of its own buildings, security walls and locked gates, indicates that the potential to exercise that power positively in the city has not been exploited. Reasons for this might be related to fears about a post-apartheid political dispensation and the ANC-led government’s funding policy of radically reducing non-personnel funds to schools in middle class areas so that previously under-resourced schools serving poor communities will receive higher levels of funding than in the past (Department of Education, 1998). Within this regulatory framework, schools, such as Centenary High are expected to mobilize local community-based funds through enrolment fees and donations, and these sources of funding have been utilized for much of the development in Centenary High’s built environment since 1994.16 In her foreword to the school’s 1999 yearbook, a representational space in which the school showcases its achievements, the principal signaled a confident yet guarded stance that locates the school in the local position on the multi-tiered global–local stage of world history: Established in 1882 [Centenary] Girls High School has responsibly educated the girls of this city for 118 years. This school will move forward into the next decade – century – millenium with confidence. During this century meaningful education continued through two world wars. In the last decade we have coped with the social and educational changes brought about by democratic rule in the Republic of South Africa. Although the principal does not finger any particular tier of government, her reference to the country’s official name suggests that the national rather than local level of city
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government is presenting the school with the most challenge. Her phrase of “coping with” conceals the power in the social bulwark being constituted through the school’s spatial arrangements. The defense is for a place that secures middle class privilege, that affords recreation and leisure in its park-like grounds, courtyards that are exclusive to certain grades, sports facilities and learning facilities that ensure an offering of diverse career prospects, and classroom conditions that ease the discomfort of the sub-tropical heat. The defense in a post-apartheid era for such a socially classed place has eclipsed what was forfeited of apartheid-era racial exclusivity, while the racially integrated spatiality conceals an informal spatial practice of segregation that is seen in the gardens where girls wander at lunchtime and in friendship group photographs in the yearbook ([Centenary] High School, 1999). Thus, the gloss being given this public school in the post-apartheid era continues the quality education offered down through the years since its establishment in the colonial and segregated eras, and through the middle years of apartheid, though it is no longer the exclusive preserve of white girls. At Highway Secondary a very different scenario of marginalization and neglect played out. Despite reasons to be optimistic in the first decade of democracy in the city and even in the presence of hard urban-edginess of its durable concrete and asphalt, the school was deteriorating. Though once a respected school with a proud history of Indian education, by 2000 most learners were not local and were black. Further, as state funding had dwindled, the school’s vocational workshops had become obsolete technologically. In learners’ photographs of graffiti, vandalism and their misdemeanors, social alienation and malaise were prevalent. The tensions that infused Highway Secondary suggest a disjuncture in its identification during the unsettling aftermath of the apartheid era and as an educational institution caught in a thoroughfare between the city’s center and periphery. South of the city, there was rapid expansion of low-income townships to provide housing to the black working class. On a hill near to Maximus Primary these housing developments eroded the buffer zone between black and Indian residential areas. Whereas prior to the 1990s, middle class families from the neighborhood had sent their children to this school, this had changed since. More and more learners attending Maximus Primary were from black low-income families residing in nearby working class townships. As a result, local Indian families no longer enrolled their children at Maximus Primary. With these enrolment changes, Maximus had lost the resources that had previously developed and maintained the school site. With local middle class families no longer associating with and supporting the school, the school’s facilities were vulnerable and decaying. There were signs of decline in the discontinued use of the science laboratory, the closure of the art room that vagrants had broken into, an empty music room, peeling paint, graffiti, sports change rooms used as the security guard’s lodging, and the addition of a concrete palisade fence topped with razor-wire to secure the school site from the surrounding community who allegedly used water from taps in the grounds.17 Adjacent to the sports field, disused cricket nets stood rusting and overgrown with grass and benches in the playground lay broken. The school was in need of exterior painting, there were missing doors and dankness in seeping toilets. To counteract the loss of power and prevent further theft and vandalism, the school had adopted a defensive spatial
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strategy to secure property and conserve the condition of what resources remain. This manifested in a new perimeter fence and gate in 2000. The secure perimeter represented the changing social relations between Maximus Primary and its surrounding area. Whereas in the past the boundary between school and neighborhood was not rigid and impenetrable so that mutual identification would have been strong, in 2000 the security fence cordoned off the school and alienated it from families living in adjacent homes. The increasing spatial isolation weakened the school within the neighborhood and undermined the prospect of the school being a center of community life. Perceptions about the social climate of the city, especially concerning crime, had led to changes at Heather Primary. Although government architects had designed the reception and administration offices to be the first entry point for visitors from the street, in the post-apartheid era traffic and security considerations have led the school to permanently lock off the main pedestrian entrance to the school and set vehicle and pedestrian gate entrances elsewhere, deeper into the school grounds. Whereas in the past the public and local residents had had easy access to the school, by 2000 gates blocked their access to the premises. Nevertheless, although Heather Primary shared the same concerns about security as other schools in Durban/eThekwini, its security measures did not appear to be isolating it from the local community. A strong bond between the school and local community was evident when thieves murdered a local shopkeeper; the community meeting to discuss ways to keep such shared threats in check was held in the school’s hall. Notwithstanding this community-school bond, Heather Primary was no longer merely a local neighborhood school. It had opened its doors to enroll learners from all parts of Durban/eThekwini so that many learners were commuting by taxi or private transport from townships and other areas of the city. These are generally black children. Not far from Heather Primary and Centenary High is one of Durban’s newest schools opened in 1999: Simunye Secondary. These three schools are in sharp contrast and illuminate the contradictions in city schools of the post-apartheid era. Simunye Secondary is nested within the Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre, on the second spine of hills overlooking the harbor. Its situation within the multipurpose centre distinguishes this school from older schools in Durban/eThekwini that are discussed in this chapter. Although a new school in the post-apartheid city, its location nevertheless resonates with the city’s colonial and apartheid history. The area was formerly named in the isiZulu language after the river where Durban’s first mayor, George Cato, farmed in 1845 (Dingezweni, 2001, pp. 12–13). By the 1930s, ownership of the farm was taken over by Indian market gardeners who sublet pockets of land, turning the area into a culturally mixed shantytown of 120,000 people (Dingezweni, 2001, pp. 12–13). Following riots in 1949 between blacks and Indians, and the passing of the Group Areas Act in 1950, which the Durban City Council was among the first to implement in 1958 (Davies, 1991, p. 79), this area’s residents were forcibly removed to townships on the perimeter of Durban. Lemon (1991a) notes that such removals signaled the transition of the segregated city, in which urban residential patterns were segregated loosely along racial lines, to the apartheid city with rigid racial zones of “group areas” (Lemon, 1991a, p. 1). From that time, the “Cato Manor” hills stood fallow and became
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reforested, pending expansionary endeavors of the white City Council to develop this valuable real estate so close to the city center. It was only after 1983 that fringes of the area came under residential construction by the House of Delegates, the authority for Indian affairs. However, in 1994 the area was marked for redevelopment by the post-apartheid government in collaboration with the local community development association, and became one of South Africa’s largest urban renewal programs (Corporate Policy Unit, 2004; Dingezweni, 2001, pp. 12–13). Forty-one thousand houses are planned, serviced with shopping centers, markets and multi-purpose centers that will incorporate 106 schools, 4 libraries, 10 community halls, 4 sports complexes, and 5 clinics (MacGregor, 1994, pp. 23–24). In the fluidity of the transitional period (1990–1994), informal settlements sprang up on vacant lots nearest to transport routes. When the urban renewal program got underway in the late 1990s, Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre was among the first institutional clusters to be constructed on a narrow ridge with steep slopes falling away into a valley. The Centre serves the urban poor living on the hills round about in informal shelters and post-apartheid matchbox houses built as part of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (Ministry in the Office of the President, 1994) for those in a low-income bracket. The Multi-Purpose Community Centre was structured to contain four institutions: a primary and a secondary school, and a community hall and public library. Durban’s eThekwini local government is responsible for the staffing and maintenance of the hall and library, while the schools are administered by the provincial government’s KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education. A brass plaque on a pedestal near the library commemorates the opening of the Centre. The phrasing of this plaque contrasts with that for Centenary High’s new Science Wing. Notably, in the post-apartheid era Centenary High named its Wing after the incumbent white principal. However, Simunye Secondary, within the precinct of Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre, restored local black history, endorsed the new political elite of South Africa, and signals its service to the urban poor: [SIMUNYE] MULTI-PURPOSE CENTRE THE [SIMUNYE] LIBRARY COMMUNITY HALL PRIMARY SCHOOL and [SIMUNYE] SECONDARY SCHOOL WERE OFFICIALLY OPENED BY THE HONOURABLE DEPUTY STATE PRESIDENT
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Jacob Zuma ON 14 AUGUST 1999 There are several points of interest in the wording of this plaque. For example, although the Centre is located within an area where people are predominantly isiZulu-speaking, the plaque uses only English indicating the hegemony of the colonizers’ language for public use in the post-apartheid era. However, this is offset by the isiZulu institutional name, which represents official recognition of the pre-1960s history when mostly people of Zulu ethnicity populated the area. A further point is that the opening was conducted by none other than the deputy president of the country, a popular and local political leader respected for brokering peace in the city in the early 1990s. This underlines the importance of the area and its development as a form of post-apartheid restitution and social transformation of land from which communities were once evicted. Thus, unlike the officiating dignitaries in past eras whose names appear on foundation stones and commemorative plaques for public schools, at Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre the dignitary was a black leader. Lastly, it is notable that the joint opening of the institutions within the Multi-Purpose Community Centre signified the agreement among the various tiers of government, including the city, to provide communities with holistic social services. It also works towards government’s aspiration that schools should be centers of community life (Asmal, 1999, pp. 9–10; Department of Education, 1995). Each institution within Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre was designed by a member of a team of four architects practicing within the city, working together to conceptualize the optimal use of shared facilities. However, each institution was designed to function and articulate separately since different government spheres administer them. Thus, each institution manages its own territory and secures its property. Two fundamental ideas inform the conceptualization of the multi-purpose center. First, local residents should be able to access a range of public services and information offered at the Center (Department of Public Works, 2001; Matsepe-Casaburri, 2000). This accounts for the two public schools, free library and information service, general purpose rooms above the library that are suitable for adult education classes, the hall that can be hired for large group meetings, and cultural and sporting activities. Second, the Center is designed with economic sustainability in mind, to avoid duplicating costly specialist facilities. Thus, neither of the schools have halls or libraries since they are expected to use the specialist facilities provided nearby. As a post-apartheid school, Simunye Secondary has been provided with many specialist facilities that might not have been standard at older township schools serving the urban poor – as was the case for Khayalihle Primary. One wing of Simunye Secondary comprises fully equipped purpose-built rooms for science and technical subjects such as technical drawing, home economics and laboratories. Another distinctive feature at Simunye Secondary, not found at schools built in the apartheid-era, are toilets for people with physical disabilities and wheelchair access ramps. While during apartheid the children of the black working class had inferior and inadequate school buildings and education, Simunye Secondary offers good teaching and learning facilities, professional support from public librarians, a library collection, and community hall that might provide school-leavers with further study and career opportunities.
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Despite the huge intellectual and economic investment in Durban’s largest and historically most significant urban renewal project, photo-observations of Simunye Secondary show signs of theft and vandalism and deliberate effacement of the buildings within its first year. Graffiti is scratched outside cloakrooms, change rooms and toilet areas, inside toilets, and on walls furthest from the administration offices and adult eyes. In one of the girls’ cloakrooms, toilet seats and mirrors are missing, water leaks onto the floor and one ceramic bowl and cistern have been smashed to pieces. Although graffiti may not be uncommon in public toilets, the theft and damages inflicted at Simunye Secondary after only 1 year by the very learners intended to be beneficiaries of post-apartheid schooling and urban renewal, raise questions about local geo-political relations to the school. An ambiguous politics of space is evident at Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre and in the spatial field of the neighborhood. Notwithstanding the boundary security fence around the Centre, the open and easy access to the Centre’s precinct during the day signals the Centre’s endeavor to maintain a balance between public access and security concerns. This arrangement and the school ramps and toilets for people with physical disabilities, signal the postapartheid government’s batho pele [people first] public service policy (Department of Public Service and Administration, 1997). This policy is the official discourse of centerperiphery power relations aimed at providing a caring and professional service to communities. Further, the single foundation stone and perceived outer perimeter fencing and continuous paving in the interstices between each component of the Centre, also allows the Multi-Purpose Community Centre to masquerade as a single public institution for the local community. However, as Lefebvre (1996) notes, spatiality produces difference and the inner security gates, roof structures and distinctive architectures distinguish the institutional components, their different functions and administrative authorities. Thus, while the local community may perceive institutional unity through tropes such as the perimeter fence, they conceal administrative ruptures in the city-province unity such as when the principal of Simunye Secondary has to negotiate access to the municipality’s facilities. Use of the hall for any events first requires that a booking fee is paid at an administrative office in the center of the city. As a result, the school rarely uses the hall, and instead uses the courtyard for school assemblies. Although Simunye Secondary is an exemplar of Lefebvre’s proposition that new social relations render new practices and new spaces (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 52–59), traces of the past continue in the present and public domain. These are found in the name of the school and in a nearby Moslem memorial and place of prayer that dates back to when many Indians lived in the vicinity. The last difference to note here is a disjuncture between the spatiality of the surrounding homes and that of Simunye Secondary. The low-income “matchbox” houses stand as a post-apartheid revision and reduction of Calderwood’s (1964, p. 80) notion of the nuclear family township residence and they contrast with the elaborate customization and complexity of the architect-designed Simunye Secondary. These contrasts point to disparities between the public space of a government school and the private space of the home. While Simunye Secondary appears as a richly endowed space, the matchbox house reflects the confined space of poverty in family life. The inequality in these power relations may account for the vandalism evident at Simunye Secondary.
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Conclusion In this chapter I have used the histories of six schools in Durban/eThekwini to illuminate three periods of urban schooling in South Africa. These were the colonial and segregated era (up to 1948) when well-appointed urban schools were restricted to white learners; the apartheid era (1948–1990) when racially exclusive government schools were established in new residential areas of the expanding apartheid city and then when national and local governments sought to pacify urban unrest by improving living conditions and social services for black working class communities on the outskirts of the city. Lastly, I outlined developments in the post-apartheid era (1990-present) when schools and cities were desegregated and urban renewal projects have been used to alleviate conditions among the urban poor. This latter period of racial integration and democracy has rendered some contradictory urban experiences that suggest that many communities in Durban/eThekwini feel alienated within the post-apartheid city. For example, many urban schools have cordoned themselves off from the public sphere by way of their own security fences. Others appear to be unsettled and distressed. In some this may be linked to changes in their institutional ethos as learners commute across the city to attend schools where they might once have been forbidden to enter. In others, we see the city reformulating its priorities to include informal settlement communities and co-operating with other government authorities to provide an integrated public service framework. However, even within such a new urban school the state’s well-intentioned investment and effort jars strikingly with the dire conditions among the urban poor and may account for the evident pilfering and deterioration. Some urban schools have become racially integrated in their enrolments even though the city’s residential areas remain largely patterned by racial homogeneity. This is possible because of the support of the city’s transport systems and parents’ strategies to ferry their children across the city by minibus taxi. In relation to the city of Durban/eThekwini, two of the selected schools take up parenthetical and antithetical positions. Centenary High, as one of the city’s oldest schools, represents an isolated privileged space of cumulative institutional history, with traditions going back to the nineteenth century when single-sex schooling was the norm. It has retained its central and middle class privileged position close to nodes of power for the city: the university, harbor and commercial center. In contrast, Simunye Secondary, one of the city’s new schools, represents an integrated, shared social space that militates against a class-based entitlement to quality education with an egalitarian rights-based education for the children of poor and working class families in a new space not yet encumbered with tradition. It is ironic that Simunye Secondary lies just 3 km over the hill from Centenary High. Simunye Secondary stands to reclaim the black history of Durban in the vicinity where apartheid injustices of racially motivated riots and forced removals once took place. It is a rebuttal of that history of violence, dispossession, and discrimination, affirming the rights of blacks and poor people to live in peace and with adequate shelter, schooling, social services and leisure, near their places of work in the city center. It was the relations of we-them nested in center-periphery spatiality of the city and school that enabled the white Durban City Council to use the spatial arena for rendering
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socially constructed difference. While center-periphery geographic differences continue, the blurring of apartheid race/class divisions in the current changing urban environment have slowly begun to effect changes in schools. This is most pronounced in the daily movement of learner populations transported to schools across the city. Learner mobility is enabled by education policies that prohibit schools in the post-1994 era from restricting enrolment to learners from a geographic area and that allow parents to exercise choice in selecting schools for their children. Learner mobility has desegregated former white and Indian schools more rapidly than home ownership and residential patterns. Although public schooling continues to be confounded by race and class issues, the daily commuting of working class learners to schools across the city has desegregated suburban schools and brought new issues of spatiality to the fore, such as the working class learner’s mobility, contingent on safe and affordable public transport, to schools beyond the local neighborhood. That points to the need for research that will consider the significance of the street as the interstice of school and city space in the post-apartheid era, the street as a fluid city space that bridges home and school and in which learners are vulnerable, especially in a city such as Durban/eThekwini that has known taxi wars between rival minibus taxi operators. The post-apartheid urban project, exemplified in Simunye Secondary, testifies to the vision and capacity of the city authorities in collaboration with provincial and national governments. Amidst the present tangle of rapid infrastructure installation, low-income housing construction, public utilities, markets, and shacks, stand such new centers of learning, offering the urban poor their constitutional right to (quality) basic education and lifelong learning. Just over the hill, Centenary High is witness to the continuing commitment to tradition and quality public schooling among middle and working class families willing and able to pay the school fees. The contradictory co-existence in such close proximity of Durban/eThekwini’s old and new schools is a disquieting yet charismatic feature of the city. As the rural population increasingly drifts to the city and families establish new homes in urban centers, such schools and cities will point to the complex challenges in the urban experience and they may provide lessons for the better development of urban schooling in the “new” South Africa.
Notes 1. This chapter is based on parts of my doctoral thesis on apartheid/post-apartheid discourses in urban school space. 2. Legislation that classified racial groups in South Africa was repealed in 1991 although differentiation through various descriptions (such as language/poverty/previously disenfranchised) is still used for the purposes of tracking redress and employment equity. In this chapter four race descriptors are used for South Africans: black (i.e., indigenous African), colored (descendants of mixed race origin), white (descendants of European origin) and Indian (descendants of those originally from the continent of India). 3. Fictitious school names are used in this chapter. 4. The selection was aimed at providing a range of schools that served the main population groups in Durban/eThekwini in the past. Schools for Afrikaans-speaking white learners and schools for “colored” learners were omitted because these groups are minorities within the city. 5. http://www.durban.gov.za/visitors/about/history/index.asp (Consulted on July 25, 2003). 6. Afrikaans is a derivative from Dutch, the first language of many early settlers from Europe.
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7. Pers. Comm. Gregory McPherson, March 2000, in Durban. By 2007 the school no longer offered technical subjects for the training of artisans. 8. Pers. Comm. Neville Brooks, resident, in April 2001, in Durban. 9. Pers. Comm. Principal, May 22, 2003, in Durban. 10. Pers. Comm. Mr B. Cockwell, November 2005, in Durban. 11. The vast area of Inanda, north of the city, is where Mahatma Gandhi had established his Phoenix Settlement in 1904, comprising the Kasturba Gandhi Primary School, printing press, museum, library and clinic (Nyathikazi, 2000, pp. 14–15). Gandhi had emerged as a community leader when, as a lawyer, he helped Indian communities fight discriminatory laws and practices. Phoenix Settlement was badly damaged during the riots of 1985 and taken over by informal settlements. 12. Pers. Comm. Patrick Culligan, Deputy Chief Architect, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Works, on November 14, 2002, in Durban. 13. Pers. Comm. Acting Principal, August 17, 2000, in Durban. 14. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban. 15. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban. 16. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban. 17. Pers. Comm. Principal August 17, 2000, in Durban.
References [Centenary] High School. (1999). [Centenary] Girls High School 1999. Durban: [Centenary] High School. Apple, M. (1995). Education and power (2nd edition). New York: Routledge. Asmal, K. (1999). Call to action! Mobilising citizens to build a South African education and training system for the 21st century. Pretoria: Department of Education. Beavon, K. S. O. (1992). The post-apartheid city: Hopes, possibilities, and harsh realities. In D. Smith (Ed.), The apartheid city and beyond: Urbanization and social change in South Africa (pp. 231–242). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Calderwood, D. (1964). Principles of mass housing: Based on a series of lectures on housing delivered to postgraduate students in Town and Regional Planning. Pretoria: Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research. Corporate Policy Unit. (2004). Making city strategy come alive: Experiences from eThekwini Municipality Durban South Africa 2000–2004. Durban: Corporate Policy Unit, eThekwini Municipality. Davies, R. J. (1991). Durban. In A. Lemon (Ed.), Homes apart: South Africa’s segregated cities (pp. 71–89). London: Paul Chapman. Department of Education. (1995). White Paper on education and training: First steps towards a democratic society (White Paper). Pretoria: Department of Education. Department of Education. (1998). National norms and standards for school funding (No. Government Gazette, 400(19347)). Pretoria: Department of Education. Department of Public Service and Administration. (1997). Batho Pele – “People First’’: White Paper on transforming public service delivery. Pretoria: Government Printer. Department of Public Works. (2001). Infrastructure development and poverty alleviation. Retrieved on June 17, 2003, from http://www.org.za/ html/govdocs/pr/2001/pr1011c.html Desai, A. (2001). The poors of Chatsworth: Race, class and social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Durban: Institute for Black Research/Madiba Publishers. Dingezweni, K. (2001). Cato Manor: Durban’s District Six. Metrobeat (15 Dec–15 Jan), 12–13. Dubow, S. (1995). Scientific racism in modern South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Durban Metro Urban Strategy Department. (2000). Metro profile: Socio-economic characteristics. UniCity Durban Community Update: One People, One City, (2), 4. Ebr.-Vally, R. (2001). Kala Pani: Caste and colour in South Africa. Cape Town: Kwela Books. Fielden, E. W. (1887/1973). My African home, or bushlife in Natal when a young colony (1852–1857). Durban: T W Griggs and Co. Freund, B. (2000). The city of Durban: Towards a structural analysis of the economic growth and character of a South African city. In D. Anderson, & R. Rathbone (Eds.), Africa’s urban past (pp. 144–161). Oxford: James Currey.
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Hughes, H. (1996). The city closes in: The incorporation of Inanda into metropolitan Durban. In P. Maylam, & I. Edwards (Eds.), The people’s city: African life in twentieth century Durban (pp. 299–309). Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Hyslop, J. (1999). The classroom struggle: Policy and resistance in South Africa 1940–1990. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. Karlsson, J., McPherson, G., & Pampallis, J. (2001). A critical examination of the development of school governance policy and its implications for achieving equity. In E. Motala, & J. Pampallis (Eds.), Education and equity: The impact of state policies on South African education (pp. 139–177). Sandown: Heinemann. le Roux, T., Nel, J. G., Hulse, E. V., & Calderwood, D. M. (1956–1957). The site: Site selection for school and hostel buildings and the layout of playing fields. Pretoria: Government Printer. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell. Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writing on cities (E. Kofman, & E. Lebas, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell. Lemon, A. (1991a). The apartheid city. In A. Lemon (Ed.), Homes apart: South Africa’s segregated cities (pp. 1–25). London: Paul Chapman. Lemon, A. (Ed.). (1991b). Homes apart: South Africa’s segregated cities. London: Paul Chapman. Local History Museum, & Portnet. (2000). The port of Durban: gateway to Southern Africa. Metrobeat, [n.d.], 14–15. MacGregor, K. (1994). Banana tree battles and space wars. Leading Edge, 12(4), 21–25. Massey, D., Allen, J., & Pile, S. (Eds.). (1999). City worlds. London: Routledge. Matsepe-Casaburri, I. (2000). Briefing by the Ministry of Communications. Retrieved on June 17, 2003, from http://www.polity.org.za/html/ govdocs/speeches/2000/sp0209a.html McCarthy, J., & Bernstein, A. (1996). Durban – South Africa’s global competitor. Johannesburg: Centre for Development and Enterprise. McLaren, P. (1995). Critical pedagogy and predatory culture: Oppositional politics in a postmodern era. London: Routledge. Ministry in the Office of the President. (1994). White paper on reconstruction and development. Cape Town: Parliament of the Republic of South Africa. Morrell, R. (2001). From boys to gentlemen: Settler masculinity in colonial Natal 1880–1920. Pretoria: Unisa Press. Morrison, I. (1987). Durban, a pictorial history: A photographic record of the changing face of the city of Durban, with emphasis on its buildings. Cape Town: Struik. Nyathikazi, T. (2000). Preserving the past: Historical places in the townships. Metrobeat, 14–15. Radford, D. (2002). A guide to the architecture of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers. Ranson, S. (1994). Towards the learning society. London: Cassell. Scott, D. (1994). Communal space construction: the rise and fall of Clairwood and district. Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, University of Natal, Durban. Teese, R. (1997). Reproduction theory. In L. Saha (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the sociology of education (pp. 92–97). Oxford: Pergamon. Thiara, R. (1999). The African-Indian antithesis? The 1949 Durban “riots” in South Africa. In A. Brah, M. Hickman, & M. Mac an Ghaill (Eds.), Thinking identities: Ethnicity, racism and culture (pp. 161–184). Basingstoke: MacMillan Press. UniCity Committee Durban. (2000). Short-list of names for the new Unicity. Unicity News, (Nov), 4. Urban Foundation. (1981). The Urban Foundation. (Pamphlet.)
6 URBAN PRIMARY SCHOOLING IN MALAWI: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota University of Malawi, Malawi
Introduction The notion of urban/city schools in developing countries in Africa, such as Malawi, is different from that of developed countries, such as America. For instance, while city schools are considered poor schools by American standards, urban schools in Malawi are regarded as high-status schools by Malawian standards. In the context of developing countries, such as Malawi, urban schooling is considered a privilege or an opportunity by both parents and children. However, there are some challenges that urban schools face that render their opportune status questionable. It is therefore the purpose of this chapter to discuss the opportunities a child attending urban schools has in Malawi and the challenges urban schools face in providing education to the urban population and the socially disadvantaged. In order to contextualize urban schooling in Malawi, the chapter begins with a brief discussion of the geographical characteristics of Malawi, its socio-economic and political contexts, and the education system. This discussion is followed by a brief description of cultural capital and education as a guiding theoretical framework for the chapter. Thereafter, the opportunities of attending urban schools in Malawi are presented, followed by discussion of the challenges. These are illustrated using the city of Blantyre as a case-study. In some instances, comparative references to rural schools are made in order to clearly explain issues of urban schooling in Malawi. The chapter concludes with recommendations to improve urban schooling in Malawi. It is important to note that the urban schools discussed in this chapter are those that are public.
Geographical Characteristics Malawi is a landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shares borders with Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique. It was under British Protectorate until July, 1964. The total surface area of the country is 118,480 square kilometers of which 24,000 square kilometers 115 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 115–128. © 2007 Springer.
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is freshwater from Lake Malawi (CIA, 2003). The main natural resource of the country is arable land with hydropower from river Shire as another added resource. In terms of minerals, the country has limestone and small unexploited deposits of uranium, coal and bauxite (CIA, 2003). Malawi currently faces environmental challenges in form of deforestation, land degradation, water pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage and industrial wastes and siltation of the lake and the river Shire. These challenges affect the lives of Malawians both directly and indirectly. For instance, land degradation has led to loss of fertility of arable land that has in turn resulted in low agricultural productivity. The siltation of the lake and rivers endangers fish populations. Wood is the main source of energy and this, along with uncontrolled agricultural practices, lead to deforestation and consequently loss of arable land and therefore, again, low-agricultural productivity. The eventual results of all these challenges are reduced household income, high-food insecurity and poor health. The population of Malawi is estimated at 12.0 million of which 91% live in rural areas while 9% live in the main urban areas (National Statistical Office, 2002, p. 3). Young people constitute a large part of the Malawi’s population. According to the Malawi Education Status Report (n.d., p. 1), half of the population are under 18, hence of school going age. However, in urban areas alone, 41% of the population is aged less than 15 years (National Statistical Office, 2002, p. 3).
Socioeconomic Context Malawi is generally a poor country. It is ranked 164 out of 174 countries on the Human Development Index with an estimated GNP per capita of US$210 in 1997 (UNDP, 1999). According to the 1998 Integrated Household Survey (Government of Malawi, 2000), 65.3% of the population is poor and about 28.2% of these are in dire poverty. It should be noted however that poverty is more prevalent in rural than urban areas. The Malawi Poverty Reduction Paper (Government of Malawi, 2002) for example shows that 91.3% of the poor and 91.5% of the ultra poor live in the rural areas. Therefore, in general, people living in urban areas in Malawi are of higher socioeconomic status than those living in rural areas. The relatively higher socioeconomic status of the people living in urban areas is further substantiated by the findings of the National Statistical Office. In a survey conducted in 2002 (National Statistical Office, 2002), it was observed that there is a big difference between rural and urban heads of households in relation to the socioeconomic sectors to which they belong. The Survey indicated that 20% of the heads of households in urban areas work as public servants and only 5% of their counterparts in rural areas are in public service. In addition, 45% of the household heads in urban areas are employed in the private sector compared to 12% of the household heads in the rural area. This means that the majority of the people living in the rural areas are in subsistence agriculture, which, although important for the economy of the country (CIA, 2003), does not result in adequate personal income. The indicators on education do not stand in good stead partly due to the generally bad economic conditions. The country has an estimated adult literacy rate of 60.9%
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(Ministry of Education, 2004), with illiteracy more prevalent in rural than urban areas. Statistics show that the adult literacy rate in urban areas is 90.5% while that in rural areas is 58.7%. This shows that many adults in urban areas are educated and have the culture of reading and writing. The low literacy levels could be a factor of low enrolment of pupils in school. For instance, the enrolment rate for children aged 6–13 is estimated to be 77.76%, such that the challenge to the Malawi government is to get the remaining 22% in school in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education (UNDP, 2003), to which Malawi is a signatory. The children who are not in school include those that live on the streets of the major cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe (Afrol News, 2003) and Zomba. This is a challenge for urban primary schools and will be discussed later in the chapter. The health indicators for the country are equally bad. In particular, affecting the education sector of both urban and rural primary schools, is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In general, life expectancy at birth has dropped over the years from 43 years in 1996 to 39.5 years in 2000 and 37.98 years in 2003 partly due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic (CIA, 2003; UNICEF, 2000). HIV/AIDS prevalence is at 15.96% for adults and 8.8% overall. Although there are no settled statistics showing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS for urban and rural areas, Chisomo children’s club (2002) estimated that 25% of the urban population is infected with HIV/AIDS. The consequence of this is the existence of an increasing number of orphans in urban areas, some of whom end up as street children. For instance, Chisomo children’s club estimated that of the 1.2 million children orphaned by AIDS, 0.4% became street children. On the other hand, Afrol News (2003) estimated that AIDS orphans account for 80% of the street children in Malawi. The challenge for urban schools is to include and retain such children in school.
Political Context Malawi had been a one party state for 30 years, that is, from 1964, when it gained independence from British rule, to 1994. However, in 1993, the people of Malawi indicated that they wanted a multiparty system of government through a referendum. In 1994, a new multiparty government was ushered in via elections. The ascent of multiparty politics has seen a number of changes in the education system, the most significant being the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) soon after the new government was voted into power. The introduction of FPE aggravated the inequalities that existed between urban and rural schools. Some of the benefits and challenges urban schools got from FPE and the impact of multiparty democracy will be discussed later in the chapter.
Education System The education system in Malawi is 8-4-4. That is, there are eight years of primary, four years of secondary and at least four years of tertiary education. The system is realized in a pyramidal sense, with very few spaces available for students at the tertiary level. Consequently, as students move further into their education, the system becomes ever
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more competitive and selective. Students are required to write national examinations in order to move from one level to another. For instance, for them to move from primary to secondary level, students sit for a national Primary School Leaving Certificate Examination (PSLCE), and only about 30% who pass the exam with high marks are selected to secondary level, regardless of how many have passed the PSLCE. As is the case with other developing countries in Africa, students’ access to secondary and higher education has been a growing problem because of the mismatch of the number of students in one level and the available spaces in the next level. So it is only those schools that are well equipped in terms of teaching and learning materials, qualified teachers, good advisory, and supervision services, as well as those with a high-culture of competition, that manage to send their children to the next level. The competitive nature of the education system in Malawi has some implications for urban schools, which this chapter will attempt to unveil.
Cultural Capital and Education This chapter uses the theory of cultural capital as a guiding framework for the discussion of issues of urban education in Malawi. The main proponent of this theory is Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu refers to cultural capital as a “cultural wealth” (Bourdieu, 2000), the accumulated values, dispositions, habits, and information that are transmitted from one generation to another. According to Coockson and Persell (1985, p. 74) “cultural capital is socially constructed.” As stated by Bourdieu and Passeron (1977), though not inherently superior, high culture is constructed as superior in various fields using “symbolic power.” It is through cultural and educational practices that dominant classes institutionalize their high culture (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). This high culture “consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relationship of familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it transmits the dominant culture” (Bourdieu, 2000, p. 58). Consequently, “the curricular, linguistic and pedagogical biases of educational institutions tend to be misrecognized by the subordinate classes and are thus viewed as inherently legitimate rather than class-based and arbitrary” (Moss, 2005, p. 6). According to Bourdieu (2000), the education system plays a significant role in the social reproduction of the structure of cultural capital. Schools try to reproduce a set of dominant cultural values and ideas. These schools expect students to possess the capacity to receive and internalize a complex body of high culture (Moss, 2005). Nevertheless, “students who acquire this capacity generally do so as a result of a complex and largely unplanned acculturation process that occurs within their family origin” (Moss, 2005, p. 2). This cultural preparation of students is invested in their “scholastic pursuit,” hence, students’ educational achievement becomes high (Moss, 2005). Students who are socialized in families that do not honor high culture enter school with very low levels of cultural capital while those socialized into the dominant culture enter school with enriched cultural capital. As a result, students socialized into a dominant culture have a big advantage over those not socialized into this culture. For instance, Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell (1999) define cultural capital in relation to
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household educational resources, which may be physical resources, such as books or computers, or cultural resources like reading habits or speaking the language of the school, which create the cultural capacity necessary for success in school. It is against this framework that this chapter attempts to discuss urban education in Malawi as an opportune ground for students coming from families with high culture and a challenge for the children that are not socialized into this high culture. Furthermore, the chapter discusses cross cutting challenges that students both socialized into the high culture and those not socialized in this culture face in trying to pursue education in urban primary schools.
Urban Schools and Educational Opportunities in Malawi Many parents and children in Malawi work to create the opportunity to attend an urban school. A number of reasons contribute to this, including provision of teaching and learning resources and availability of advisory and supervisory services. The urban elite control schools in Malawi. Elites make sure that urban schools are well equipped with both human and material resources. This ensures that the schools reflect the urban families’ high culture and perhaps more importantly it ensures that the children of the urban elite acquire high-quality education. In so doing, the elite maintain their position of power. To begin with, schools in urban areas generally have adequate teachers, many of whom are categorized as well-qualified. While the Malawi Government’s Policy and Investment Framework (PIF) (Ministry of Education, 2001) targets a pupil to teacher ratio of 1:60, in urban schools the ratio is 1:44 and in rural schools the ratio is as high as 1:77 (Ministry of Education, 2004, p. 10). These different ratios imply that pupils in urban areas get greater levels of individual attention from teachers, which may contribute to higher student performance. In terms of professional qualification, by 2004, 85.6% of teachers in the urban schools were qualified as compared to 73.8 % of those in rural schools (Nsapato, 2005, p. 35). In addition, urban schools reflect the culture of urban families where pupils come from. As indicated in the socioeconomic context, many adults in urban areas are able to read and write. As a result, these families transfer the reading and writing culture to their children and also encourage them to go to school, which helps them excel in school. As research shows, educated parents are more likely to encourage their children to go to school than uneducated parents (Lewin, 1993). In addition, urban children have access to a variety of reading materials including newspapers and books that are available in libraries. Such facilities are seldom available in rural areas. Furthermore, urban schools have relatively better infrastructure than rural schools. For instance, in Lilongwe district, where Malawi’s capital resides, schools are both rural and urban, it is generally the case that urban schools have higher quality school blocks than rural schools. As indicated in the education statistics (Ministry of Education, 2004, p. 46), 90% of urban schools have piped water compared to 4% of the rural schools. Moreover, the same statistics show that 38% of the schools in the urban area have electricity compared to 2% of the rural schools.
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Another opportunity for attending urban schools is that education advisors regularly visit them. This is because such schools are closer to the offices of the education advisors and also that there are better roads in urban areas. Besides, education advisors live in urban areas and their own children attend urban schools. The regular visits by education advisors therefore work to ensure that children in urban areas are provided with high-quality education. Finally, education statistics show that urban schools have relatively more female teachers than rural schools (Ministry of Education, 2004). For example, according to the current education statistics, the female teacher to pupil ratio is 1:54 for urban schools while for rural schools it is as high as 1:245. This means there are more potential role models in urban schools for girls gaining their education.
Challenges in Urban Schools Even though urban schools in Malawi are advantaged in several ways, there are some challenges that make their opportune status questionable. These challenges include overcrowding, misinterpretation of multiparty democracy, and inclusion of street children. Some of these challenges emanate from the very opportunities discussed previously.
Overcrowding Overcrowding is one of the chief challenges experienced by urban primary schools in Malawi, and one that has an effect on education quality and the participation of children in education. Relatively more pupils enroll per school in urban areas than in rural areas. There are a number of factors that contribute to the overcrowding in urban schools. To begin with, overcrowding in urban schools is a result of having more educated parents, including mothers, in urban areas than there are in rural areas. As argued earlier, education statistics show that although the average literacy rate for Malawi is 60.9%, that for urban areas is 90.5%. In terms of mothers, James and Kakatera (2000) found that those in urban areas have an average of 5.7 years of schooling compared to 3.4 in rural areas. Since one aspect of cultural wealth for educated parents is the value for education, and as research worldwide has shown, educated parents, especially mothers, are more likely to send their children to school than uneducated ones (Lewin, 1993). It is therefore not surprising that urban schools in Malawi have more pupils. In addition, some of the overcrowding in urban schools is due to lower dropout rates in these schools relative to rural schools. It should be noted that one of the nationwide problems in primary education in Malawi is the dropout rate. It is found that every year some pupils drop out of school for various reasons, most notably lack of interest, which is responsible for over 90% of the dropouts (Ministry of Education, 2004). There is evidence however that pupil retention rate in Malawi is related to the socio-economic status of the family of the pupil (James and Kakatera, 2000). Although the finding is more applicable to primary schooling than other levels of education, the general impression is that children from lower socio-economic status households are more likely to drop
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out of school than children from higher socio-economic status households. For example, in a study of out of school youth, Kadzamira and Nell (2004) found that the main occupation of the parents of out of school youth is small-scale farming. In Malawi, families involved in small-scale farming are generally poor. Although not all parents in urban areas may realistically be described as enjoying a high socio-economic status, it is a fact that they are relatively better off than the rural poor. This, coupled with the fact that literate parents appreciate the value of the long term benefits of education more than illiterate parents do (Dzimadzi, Chimombo, Kunje, & Chiuye, 2003), means that relatively fewer pupils drop out of school in urban areas. Furthermore, overcrowding in urban schools is augmented by the rural–urban migration of primary school pupils, especially those in the senior classes of standard six to eight. From our experience, many pupils migrate to urban areas in order to get high-quality education and increase their chances for selection to secondary school. The pupils that migrate are those who have somebody to stay with in urban areas while they attend urban schools. These pupils take advantage of the extended family system in Malawi and go to urban areas to stay with their aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and so on. Because of the competitive nature of education in Malawi, schools that offer low-quality education fail to send children to secondary school. With most of these weaker schools being in rural areas, children seeking higher quality education are somewhat forced to migrate to urban schools. Overcrowding in urban schools has side effects to urban education and the participation of pupils in these schools. Because of overcrowding, there is frequently a lack of infrastructure in urban schools, especially the school classrooms. According to the Education Statistics (Ministry of Education, 2004), the pupil to classroom ratio for urban schools is 138:1 as compared to 105:1 for rural schools. To some extent, this high pupil-classroom ratio compromises the quality of education in urban schools and it offsets the benefits of low teacher–pupil ratio cited earlier. In trying to decrease class sizes, some pupils are taught under trees or in the open air. This has been found to be problematic especially during rainy seasons (Dzimadzi et al., 2003). When it rains, students no longer attend classes hence losing time they would have used to learn. Furthermore, learning under the tree and sitting on the ground due to lack of desks has adverse effects on children from high socio-economic status families. At home, these children are used to sitting comfortably on a chair when either reading or doing other work. When they come to school and do their work under a tree sitting on the ground, the comfort of the home is missed then their concentration on education is affected.
Misinterpretation of Multiparty Democracy The second challenge affecting urban schools in Malawi results from misinterpretation of multi-party democracy. Multi-party democracy in Malawi was introduced in 1994 after over 30 years of one party, autocratic rule. Following this change, a number of effects, both positive and negative, of the new democratic system especially in the transition period have been felt in different sectors. The effects on the education sector in general and urban primary schooling in particular can best be understood from the historical perspective.
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Missionaries first introduced formal education in Malawi in the 1800s. The emphasis of their curricula was on reading and writing. When the colonial government took over education, following World War I, education was for the elite and still emphasized reading and writing. Following the dissatisfaction with the colonial administration by the Malawians and British, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), under the leadership of Kamuzu Banda, took over the government in 1964. When Banda first came to power, he advocated education for all, a democratic society and the right of every individual for self-determination. However, following an alleged coup attempt by some leaders of the MCP in 1965, Banda started to reshape the education system to provide access to a select few. Politically, his rule has been described as undemocratic, he could “hire and fire” even members of parliament. He advocated political centralization that put him in control of everything, including education. During his reign, curricula emphasized the importance of one correct answer for every question and discouraged inquiry for fear of educating pupils who would in turn question his motives and actions. Banda’s autocratic approach to governance infiltrated all organizations including schools. As stated by MacJessie-Mbewe (1999, p. 19): The political atmosphere of the country instilled in people fear of those in authority and encouraged the power-holders to dictate to their subordinates. This type of leadership in schools and other organizations penetrated throughout Malawian society. This type of dictatorial leadership became the leadership of the day and was embedded in the Malawian’s cultural capital, which was transferred to all institutions including families and schools. For instance, a head teacher had power over teachers although this power did not extend to direct hiring and firing. In turn the teachers had power over pupils. According to Clifton and Robert (1993) power is the ability to force somebody to do something regardless of their resistance while in authority, “orders are voluntarily obeyed by those receiving them.” So punishment (mostly corporal), in Banda’s regime, was given to pupils who could not behave accordingly. The teacher had the right answer and pupils had to look to the teacher for everything. The 1980s however saw a slight weakening in Banda’s tight control of the education sector, when policies to widen participation in education started to be discussed and implemented with the influence of international donors. Eventually, pressures on Banda’s autocratic rule would lead to a referendum being held in 1993 on creating a multiparty democratic government. The next year, 1994, thus saw the first multiparty elections that put a new party, the United Democratic Front, into power under the leadership of Bakili Muluzi. The change from autocratic rule to a democratic government meant that any reforms to governance had to reflect the definitions and values of democracy. Gordon (1992, p. 129) argues that in a democracy: Leadership could not be exercised by those at the top of a hierarchy solely at their discretion. Rather leadership depended for its effectiveness largely upon the willingness of others (followers) to accept and respond to it.
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The implication here is that the local community should participate in decision making on issues that concern them and that the leaders should be accountable to the people they represent. The values of democracy are therefore participation, accountability and representativeness (Pindani, 1994). These values are in contrast to those advocated in the autocratic one party state by Banda, which also formed part of the cultural capital of most Malawians. As a result, the transition to multiparty democracy required creation and strengthening of some structures and perhaps more importantly, a true shift in the mindset of both the leaders and the general populace about their rights and responsibilities, hence need for change in the cultural capital. People had to understand that those in authority have an important but accountable role to play in their lives and that the people themselves have rights that should be exercised with responsibility. While some post-1994 reforms, especially in the education sector, seemed to have reflected, to some extent, the values of democracy, there have been indications that these were not always democratically carried out. One example of such reforms is the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 1994. Although this could be taken as an example of the democratic value of increasing participation, its implementation did not follow democratic procedures. For example, communities, teachers, Ministry of Education (MOE) officials and other actors in the education system were not consulted. As a result, MOE officials and international donors opposed its wholesale implementation, in favor of gradual implementation, in part for fear of compromising on quality. Despite this, the government went ahead in implementing the policy and local communities initially received it with enthusiasm. School enrolment rose from about 2 million to nearly 3 million, representing a 50% rise in enrolment (Ministry of Education, 2001). However, the government was unable to adhere to the structural demands of the expanded school population. Consequently, indicators of quality education, such as pupil/teacher ratio, textbook/pupil ratio, classroom/pupil ratio and average years of teacher training were indeed affected. The lack of consultation in the formulation and implementation of democratic reforms to the education sector was also true regarding other policies such as those concerned with school uniform and pregnancy, which were also implemented soon after FPE. While the uniform policy removed the burden of buying school uniforms from parents, some people, especially those from urban areas who could afford to buy uniforms, were not happy with it. The fear was that pupils, especially girls, who might walk without the school uniform on, are more prone to abuse than those in school uniform. Besides, it was thought that this could promote truancy in that some pupils could simply not attend school and instead would engage in small income generating activities, such as casual labor, and then return home when schools closed for the day. Generally, both truancy and abuse are more experienced in urban than rural schools (Dzimadzi et al., 2003). Decentralization of Ministry of Education delivery services to regional, district and local levels is another of the education reforms that took place after the introduction of multiparty democracy. This led to the increasing role of parents, local leaders and local Ministry of Education officials in school management and operations. However under the decentralization plan, local participation was to be done through locally elected
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councils. To date, some dozen years after multiparty democracy arrived, the local councils have not yet been elected, thus the implementation of the decentralization plan is not complete. What appears to contribute to this situation is a widespread misunderstanding of democracy that starts from government leaders and extends to school pupils. From interviews carried out in 2000/2001 for example, Kaunda and Kendall (2001, p. 2) found that people of all regions, of both sexes and of all ages, tended to define democracy as, “freedom to do whatever a person wants, regardless of the consequences of their actions to others.” According to this study, democracy is perceived to be associated with rudeness, changes in cultural practices, robberies, corruption and even murder. This perhaps explains why although the majority of Malawians prefer democratic to non-democratic forms of government, most of them still applaud some aspects of one party rule and most could not defend democracy if it were under threat (Tsoka, 2002). Beyond this, in urban schools, teachers and head teachers fail to control students when they misbehave for fear of how their parents, who are often well educated and among the political elite, will react. So, this kind of misunderstanding of the concept of democracy has brought deterioration of educational standards in urban schools, where democracy has been interpreted to mean lawlessness and no one seems responsible for anything. In a situation where neither the teacher nor the head teacher is in a position of authority, both give up once they cannot control a pupil. Corporal and even light punishments are no longer practiced and pupils have taken advantage of such a situation to behave in whatever way they want. Furthermore, human rights activists and the nation’s courts have taken precedence over school discipline such that both teachers and Ministry of Education officials are unsure how to handle pupil disciplinary issues. Inasmuch as these activists and courts are largely urban phenomena, and in some cases the activists, lawyers and judges are parents to some pupils, the urban primary schools are more adversely affected. In addition, many teachers in urban schools have themselves misinterpreted the concept of democracy so that they do not want to be tightly controlled by the head teacher and MOE officials. In general, multiparty democracy poses a challenge more to urban than to rural primary schools in Malawi. Some democratic policies have been counterproductive as a consequence of poor consultation of different stakeholders in their formulation and implementation. The urban populace in general, and pupils and teachers in particular, have yet to be fully enlightened regarding how to exercise their rights with responsibility, And, finally, activists and the courts have tended to uphold human rights without emphasizing responsibility in exercising them.
Urban School Inclusion of Street Children Children who are commonly known as “street children” occupy the streets in the cities and peri-urban centers of most countries of the developing world. While these children are commonly found during the day, some are present in the streets even at night. A number of factors contribute to the migration of children to the streets. The major ones are poverty and orphanage due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. UNICEF (1994) identifies three different types of street children:
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(1) Children who have continuous family contact; (2) Children who spend their days and some nights on the street but have occasional family contact; and, (3) Children who do not have any family contact. Despite the gravity of the problem there are no exact figures for the numbers of street children in Malawi. However, it is increasingly acknowledged that the problem of street children is real in Malawi and needs to be dealt with in the immediate future. Although poverty was the main contributing factor to the problem of street children in the past, in recent years, HIV/AIDS has proven even more devastating. As argued earlier, the HIV/AIDS prevalence in Malawi is high with an estimated 16.4% of the population between the ages of 15 and 49 being infected. It is with this realization that, in 2003, it was estimated that 80% of the street children in Malawi had been orphaned by the epidemic (Afrol News, 2003). In addition, Afrol News reports that food shortages are occurring as a result of recent droughts and the continued loss of arable land due to environmental degradation, and these have contributed significantly to the increasing number of children found in the streets in the cities of Malawi. It is important to note that the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Malawi are aggravated by the food crisis that periodically hits the country, creating a vicious cycle. Increased malnutrition weakens the resistance of the people infected with HIV thereby reducing the workforce for agricultural and other work. There are also allusions to the breakdown of the extended family structure in Malawi as another contributing factor to the increasing number of street children in recent years. The general observation is that many families are not willing to take on the responsibility of looking after the children of relatives, partly because they cannot provide for them a better life, and partly because they are already overburdened with children from other closer relatives like sisters and brothers. The extent of this problem may, however, benefit from further research. That there are an increasing number of children living in the streets in the cities, especially Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba and other peri-urban areas in Malawi, is a cause for concern. Such children have limited opportunities to uplift themselves out of poverty because they are not in school. Although there are some organizations, clubs, and churches that attempt to feed them, these are only temporary solutions. If the claims made by human capital theorists, such as Schulz and Becker are anything to go by, accommodating such children in school could be one way of ensuring that they rid both themselves and the nation of poverty. Shultz (1971), for example, argues that education is a form of investment that results in profits that could be recouped later in life. If the street children are educated, they increase their chances of getting employment that could result in some income. However, to date, there is no policy on the inclusion of street children in schools in Malawi. As a result, there is no deliberate attempt to bring the children in school. The challenges of including street children in school are many, and in the absence of policy, it is an almost impossible task to carry out. Such children require such basic needs as food, clothing and shelter, before they require even such other basics as access to
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schooling. It is imperative therefore that policies relating to street children be formulated and implemented if Malawi is to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. In addition, urban schools must recognize that street children develop their own culture, which is often contrary to that cherished in schools. When street children go into an urban school, they often find themselves unfit for the demands of a school culture that reflects the values of the elite. Consequently, they drop out of school and go back to the street where they feel relatively more secure. Unless urban schools understand the cultural capital of street children and work towards dealing with it, many of the school interventions to retain street children in school will be futile.
Urban Schooling in Blantyre City Blantyre is the largest commercial and industrial center in Malawi. It has an estimated population of 620,000 with an annual growth rate of 3.3% (Government of MalawiDistrict Education Plan, 2005). According to the District Education Plan (DEP), there are 79 primary schools in Blantyre, 31 of which are private schools. Total enrolment in the city’s public schools is 130,700 comprising of 49% boys and 51% girls, which reflects an increment of 12% from 1994 to 2005. Blantyre has a relatively high number of qualified teachers, and has a qualified teacher-pupil ratio of 1:57. This is nevertheless higher than an average teacher-pupil ratio for urban schools cited earlier because unqualified teachers are excluded. Moreover, 85% of teachers are female (Government of Malawi, 2005), which is conducive to the education of girls. The DEP further indicates that schools in Blantyre are easily accessible because of the good roads and adequate transport facilities. This enables education advisors to regularly visit the schools for quality control. In addition, a sizable portion of the population of Blantyre earns steady income through employment or business. The income allows parents to participate in school development activities and support the education of their children. Despite the advantages, schooling in Blantyre faces a number of challenges. One of the challenges, as outlined previously, is overcrowding. For example, the DEP indicates that there are inadequate classrooms, which results in a pupil to classroom ratio of 178:1, which far outstrips the sought after ratio of 60:1 according to the Policy Investment Framework. Furthermore, the pupil to desk ratio is 16:1 against the expected ratio of 2:1 and pupil to latrine ratio is 164:1 against the expected ratio of 100:1. Furthermore, the DEP indicates that vandalism of buildings and theft of teaching and learning materials is a key problem in Blantyre schools. Although the DEP does not state the reasons for this, misinterpretation of democracy and its resultant impact on pupil indiscipline (Kuthemba-Mwale, Hauya, & Tizifa, 1996) could be among the contributing factors. The issues discussed are not unique to Blantyre schools, but are also common to schools in other urban areas in Malawi.
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Conclusion In conclusion, it is clear from this chapter that schools in the urban areas in Malawi face challenging issues even though they are treated as better places for most children. Indeed it is widely known that urban schools enjoy the availability of adequate and well-qualified teachers, that they reflect the culture of most urban dwellers that facilitate urban children’s participation in education, that they have good infrastructure and are regularly visited by education advisors so that there is greater quality control, and that they are staffed with a considerable number of female teachers who then serve as role models for girls. However, urban schools are challenged by a number of factors that render their status problematic. Such challenges include overcrowding which results from the encouragement that the children receive from their parents to remain in school, the relatively low pupil dropout rate for urban schools and the rural to urban migration of school pupils, the effects of multiparty democracy that have led to loss of authority by school administrators and teachers over both pupils and themselves resulting in rudeness and lawlessness, and the failure to enroll and retain street children in school.
Recommendations In order to make urban schools a real heaven for children of different socio-economic status, the Government of Malawi, through the Ministry of Education, should consider implementing the following recommendations: ●
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Expand infrastructure in all urban schools in order to cater for the growing population of both pupils and teachers in these schools. Provide civic education to the general population and teachers and pupils in particular on human rights and the importance of exercising human rights with responsibility. Educate parents, pupils and teachers on the relationship between education and democracy and also how the educational process should be carried out in a democratic society. Introduce feeding and clothing program in urban schools in order to keep street children in school. Introduce guidance and counseling services in urban schools to help street children adjust to the school culture and eventually remain in school.
References Afrol News (2003). Retrieved on June 30, 2003, from http://www.afrol.com/news2003/index_maw003.htm Bourdieu, P. (2000). Cultural and social reproduction. In R. Arum, & I. R. Beattie (Eds.), The structure of schooling: Readings in the sociology of education (pp. 56–68). Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). The inheritants: French students and their relation to culture. Translated by Richard Nice. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
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Chisomo Children’s Club. (2002). A report on street children. Retrieved on June 30, 2005, from http://www.streetchildren.org.uk/resources/details/?typecountry &country15 CIA. (2003). World Fact Book - Malawi. Available at: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mi.html Clifton, R. A., & Robert, L. W. (1993). Authority in classrooms. Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice-Hall Canada Inc. Cookson, P. W. Jr., & Persell, C. H. (1985). Preparing for power: America’s elite boarding school. USA: Basic Books. Dzimadzi, C., Chimombo, J., Kunje, D., & Chiuye, G. (2003). Creating enabling teaching and learning environments in primary schools. Zomba: Centre for Education Research and Training. Gordon, G. (1992). Public administration in America (4th edition). New York: St. Martius Press. Government of Malawi. (2000). Profile of poverty in Malawi: Poverty analysis of the integrated household survey, 1998. Zomba: National Statistical Office. Government of Malawi. (2002). The Malawi poverty reduction strategy paper. Lilongwe: Malawi Government. Government of Malawi. (2005). District education plan for blantyre city: Year 2005/06–year 2007/08. Lilongwe: Malawi Government. James, C., & Kakatera, F. (2000). Assessment of the primary education sector in Malawi. Zomba: Centre for Social Research. Kadzamira, E., & Nell, M. (2004). Potential programmes for out of school youth: Exploring the interface between basic education and vocationa education and training. A research report. Zomba: Centre for Educational Research and Training. Kaunda, Z., & Kendall, N. (2001). Prospects of educating for democracy in struggling third wave regimes: The case for Malawi. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 4(1). December 18, 2001. Retrieved on June 30, 2005, from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cite/articles/zknk141.pdf Kuthemba-Mwale, J. B., Hauya, R., & Tizifa, J. (1996). Secondary school discipline study: Final report. Zomba: CERT (Unpublished data). Lewin, K. M. (1993). Defining the Education Agenda: Six key issues. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education, 3(2), 14–46. Macjessie-Mbewe, S. L. W. (1999). Power vs. authority in the democratic Malawian classroom. In M. Chimombo (Ed.), Lessons in hope: Education for democracy in Malawi, past, present, future (pp. 19–30). National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) series no. 1. Zomba: Chancellor College Publications. Ministry of Education. (2001). Education sector: Policy and investment framework. Lilongwe: Government of Malawi. Ministry of Education. (2004). Education statistics 2004. Lilongwe: Government of Malawi. Moss, G. (2005). Cultural capital and graduate student achievement: A preliminary qualitative investigation. Electronic Journal of Sociology, ISSN: 1198 3655, pp. 1–28. Retrieved on June 30, 2005, from http:// www.sociology.org/content/2005/tier1/moss.html National Statistical Office. (2002). 2002 Malawi core welfare indicators questionnaire survey: Report of survey results. Zomba: Malawi National Statistical Office. National Statistical Office (n.d.). Malawi education status report. Unpublished manuscript. Nsapato, L. (Ed.) (2005). Are public funds making a difference for pupils and teachers in primary schools? Lilongwe: Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education. Pindani, D. G. (1994). Bureaucracy and democracy: The missing linchpin? A paper presented at the University of Malawi research conference. Mlangeni Holiday Resort. April 5–8, 1994. Roscigno, V. J., & Ainsworth-Darnell, J. (1999). Race, cultural capital and educational resources. Sociology of Education, 72, 158–178. Schultz (1971). Investment in human capital. New York: The Free Press. Tsoka, M. G. (2002). Public opinion and the consolidation of democracy in Malawi. Afrobarometer Working paper No. 16 Retrieved on June 30, 2005, from http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/afropaperNo16.pdf UNDP (1999). Human development report, 1999. New York: Oxford University Press. UNDP (2003). Human development report- Millennium development goals: A compact among nations to end human poverty. New York: UNDP. UNICEF (1994). Children at work: A report based on the ILO & UNICEF Regional Training Workshop on programmatic and replication issues related to child labor and street children. Bangkok, Thailand.
7 ETHNICITY, POLITICS, AND STATE RESOURCE ALLOCATION: EXPLAINING EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES IN KENYA Alwiya Alwy and Susanne Schech Flinders University, South Australia
Introduction Despite international and national level recognition of the importance of education for all, both for development purposes and as a basic human right, its achievement still remains a huge challenge. Persistent inequalities of gender, class, ethnic, and regional context are evident in education systems worldwide, whether at the stage of enrolment and attendance, in outcomes and achievement, or in terms of consequent opportunities to which education is expected to give rise (Watkins, 2001). While gender inequalities in education are at their most extreme in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (Challender, 2003), inequalities relating to ethnic minorities and indigenous people are widespread in many African countries, where they are often strongly linked to regional inequalities, and to the distribution of poverty (Watkins, 2001). In Kenya, despite heavy government investment in education, enrolment at various levels of education is characterized by regional, socio-economic and gender disparities and declining gross enrolment ratios (SID, 2004). Researchers have also identified imbalances in terms of financial allocations, inadequate facilities, poor teacher qualifications, and high teacher-pupil ratios as further evidence that not all is well in the Kenyan education system (Abagi, 1997; Kimalu, Nafula, Manda, Mwabu, & Kimenyi, 2002; Oyugi, 2000; SID, 2004). But research on education, as presently constructed, has tended to treat the issues of inequality as specific to the Kenyan education system, and consequently assumed that they can be addressed through educational reform. By seeing inequalities in education as a symptom of wider social processes and structures, this chapter aims to connect the issue of educational inequality to the broader notions of equity and the right to education. In pursuing this approach we argue that social inequality emanates from the unequal distribution of resources, power and privilege among members of society. In many societies, particularly in Africa, ethnicity is one of the instruments of division by which access to opportunities and power is distributed among the population. Some ethnic 129 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 129–144. © 2007 Springer.
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groups appear to have better access to national power, and thus are in a better position to enhance access to resources, such as education, when compared to other ethnic groups. Hence, the first challenge we face when looking at inequalities in education is the silence around ethnicity as a factor of inequality. Although ethnic divisions are a fact of life in Kenya, there is a lack of research that focuses on the impact of an individual’s ethnic identity on his or her life choices and opportunities. The everyday presence of ethnicity encourages a primordialist “blood and soil” notion of ethnicity that refer to “inherited” or “objective” characteristics such as kinship, culture, “race” and territory shared by a group. Although this notion of ethnicity is still pervasive in African studies, a growing literature recognizes that ethnicity is not simply an objective fact (e.g., Banton, 1998; Kornblum, 1991). Rather, ethnicity is created, imagined and felt with a group of people in interaction with their surroundings, and “typically has its origins in relations of inequality” (Comaroff, 1995, p. 250). Such a constructivist perspective on ethnicity opens the door for an engagement with ethnic inequalities in education that allows for the possibility of change and reform. In using this definition of ethnicity, we are also arguing that it cannot be discussed in isolation; other concepts such as race, inequality, and stratification also come into play. As in many African countries, ethnic inequalities in Kenya can be traced back to the colonial period. In the early 1900s the British colonial administration divided the Kenyan territory along ethnic lines into eight provinces, each with a different ethnic majority, and sub-dividing each province into districts, often according to ethnic groups and subgroups or “clans” (Oucho, 2002). Upon independence in 1963, the post-colonial government consolidated this ethno-political structure by aligning parliamentary constituencies with ethnic boundaries, which still continue to frame Kenyan politics and provincial administration today. Despite demographic growth and population movements, the provinces have basically retained the ethnic or clan-based boundaries as created by the colonial administration. For example, Nyanza Province is predominantly inhabited by Luo people, Western Province is the home to the Luhya, Rift Valley Province is the traditional home of the Kalenjin, and the Kikuyu inhabit the Central Province and predominate in Nairobi Province. North-Eastern Province is an exclusively Somali-speaking region, and the Coast Province is mainly inhabited by the Swahili and the Mijikenda (Table 1). Hence, from the district to the provincial level, ethnic groups are clustered together, so that regions in Kenya are ethnically distinct. An argument can be made, following Oucho (2002), that ethnicity is the fulcrum of administrative boundaries, constituencies and development patterns in Kenya. Political power in Kenya, as Kanyinga (1995) notes, has been associated with a few ethnic groups since the onset of colonialism. Under the first president Jomo Kenyatta (1963–1978), political and economic power was vested in his trusted circle of fellow Kikuyu. This benefited the Central Province (including the capital city, Nairobi) where the Kikuyu form an ethnic majority in terms of public investment and development, while other provinces received fewer resources. After Daniel Arap Moi assumed the presidency in 1978, political power became concentrated in the hands of Kalenjin elites. By the early 1980s, Moi had purged many Kikuyus and non-Kikuyu allies of Kenyatta from both central cabinet and senior posts
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Distribution of ethnic groups in Kenya by province
Province
Nairobi Central Coast Eastern North-Eastern Nyanza Rift Valley Western
Total provincial population
Dominant ethnic group Name
Population (No.)
Population (%)
1,324,570 3,112,053 1,829,191 3,768,677 371,391 3,507,162 4,981,613 2,544,329
Kikuyu Kikuyu Mijikenda Kamba Ogaden Luo Kalenjin Luhya
428,775 2,919,730 994,098 2,031,704 133,536 2,030,278 2,309,577 2,192,244
32.4 93.8 54.4 53.9 36.0 57.9 46.4 86.2
Source: Kenya Population Census, 1989.
located within administrative districts, and deliberately promoted the Kalenjin in these positions (Ogot & Ochieng, 1995; Oucho, 2002). Cooksey, Court, and Makau (1994, p. 211) argue that Moi adopted a laissez-faire development approach that was not concerned with the alleviation of regional disparities in development, including education. The Rift Valley was the main beneficiary of the change of power from the Kikuyu to the Kalenjin (Ogot & Ochierg, 1995, p. 15): [Moi] started purging or cleaning the civil service that was dominated by the Kikuyu. He replaced them with the Kalenjin. By 1983, the Kikuyu were a minor force in both the civil service, the army, and in politics. He played one Kikuyu leader against the other until they exhausted themselves. Like Kenyatta, he realised that for one to succeed in African politics he had to have trusted generals from home ground. […] There is open Kalenjinisation of most sectors both private and public. Funds were channeled to develop the infrastructure in the Kalenjin land. A succinct summary of the socio-economic inequalities in Kenya is provided by a recent report by the Society of International Development which states that Inequality in Kenya is much more than is conveyed through unflattering figures: it, in fact, leads to discrimination and exclusion, thereby becoming not only a matter of social injustice, but also a matter of human rights and governance. (SID, 2004, p. 5) According to the Third Human Development Report on Kenya, the Central and Rift Valley Provinces had better human development performance than other areas due to policy bias from the colonial and successive regimes. Policies and allocation of resources have tended to favour the high potential areas (UNDP, 2003). Looking at the issues of urban educational opportunities in Kenya, we find very few studies which explicitly look at the issues of urban educational inequalities. However, as discussed earlier on, that other than the Nairobi Province, the urban areas in the
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eight provinces in Kenya, are mostly (over 50%) covered with people from the majority ethnic group of the province. For example, Nyeri, the largest urban area in the Central Province is mostly populated with the Kikuyu ethnic group; the Rift Valley Province with the Kalenjin ethnic group; Nyanza Province with the Luo ethnic group, and so forth, as discussed earlier on. Thus, if the Province has had a strong political presence in the government it is bound to have better educational opportunities for its students in the urban areas, respectively. This rings even more true if the ruling President comes from that constituency. Comparatively, students from the rural areas in Kenya have better educational opportunities if their community has strong political influence in the government. A case in hand is Baringo District, the home constituency of President Moi. During Moi’s term as President (1978–2002), the District continually received educational resources such as new public schools, highly qualified teachers, libraries and other educational facilities. Other comparably rural districts in Kenya without this kind of strong political influence, areas such as those in Coast Province or North Eastern Province, continually received far fewer educational resources. We argue that the underlying cause of inequalities in education is the patron-client relationship between the ethnic group of the ruling elite and the government that prevails in Kenya. Political and economic power, and the wealth affiliated with it, is highly skewed to the ruling ethnic group, whose exclusionary practices have created marked inequalities in access to resources, including educational resources. Our argument is that the ruling group uses the resources of the state for the special benefit of its own ethnic community and its allies, and this is reflected in the educational development pattern in the urban and rural areas. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we seek to bring greater clarity to the concept of equity in education, explaining its links to the rights-based approach to development and education. We then offer an analysis of statistics relating educational resource distribution and opportunities in Kenya, followed by the conclusions. Our motivation for shining a spotlight on the country’s education policies is primarily due to Kenya’s position as an African country with a consistently high public expenditure in education, both as a percentage of GNP and as a share of total government expenditure (Abagi, 1997), and yet home to the largest contingent of students subject to socially unjust or unfair educational disparities (SID, 2004).
Educational Equity and the Rights-Based Approach The need for greater clarity about the definition of educational equity has arisen in the context of recently proposed rights-based approaches to educational reform (Subrahmanian, 2002). Assessing educational equity requires comparing education and its social outcomes among more and less advantaged social groups, like the marginalized ethnic groups, and the rural and urban poor. Without this information, we are unable to assess whether policies and programs are leading toward or away from greater social justice in education. Equity is an ethical concept, grounded in principles of distributive justice (Rawls, 1985). It implies that greater resources should go to those with greater needs in order to aim at more equal levels of well-being overall. In this sense, equity incorporates a
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concept of justice, which recognizes some fundamental humanity, but still attempts to respond to the differing and increasing complex needs that exist within a society. This approach seeks to ensure that the less advantaged members of society (whether the poor in the urban areas or the poor in the rural areas) have a fair opportunity of receiving a reasonable amount of education that would enrich their personal and social life (Rawls, 1985). Amartya Sen brings to the discussion on equity the concept of capability, which conceives justice not only in distributive terms but also considers a person’s capability to convert primary goods into his or her ends – that is, to achieve a life he or she has reasons to value (Sen, 1999, pp. 294ff.; see also Sen, 1993). This is an approach which takes into account the need to empower all students, including the marginalized groups, or the poor in urban and rural areas, with educational opportunities and choices to uplift their life status. One of the tenets of distributive justice is that resources at the disposal of the state should be apportioned fairly (Jupp & McRobbie, 1992). Therefore education, which is generally reckoned to be a primary good, and which is largely financed by public funds, should be made available according to some just principle of distribution. However, because social justice and fairness can be interpreted differently by different people in different settings, a definition is needed that can be operationalized based on measurable criteria. For the purposes of operationalization and measurement, equity in education can be defined as the absence of systematic disparities in education between social groups who have different levels of underlying social advantage/disadvantage – that is, different positions in a social hierarchy. Inequities in education systematically put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged at further disadvantage with respect to their education – a good that is essential to their human development and well-being and to overcoming other effects of social disadvantage. Underlying social advantage or disadvantage refers to wealth, power, and/or prestige – that is, the attributes that define how people are classified within social hierarchies. Thus, more advantaged and less advantaged social groups are those groups of people defined by differences that place them at different levels in a social hierarchy. Examples of this kind of definition by difference include: socioeconomic groups (typically identified by measures of income; economic assets; occupational class; and/or educational level); racial/ethnic or religious groups; or, groups defined by gender, geography (urban or rural), age, disability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics relevant to the particular setting. This is not an exhaustive list, but social advantage is distributed along these lines virtually everywhere in the world. Equity in education means equal educational opportunity for all population groups. If schooling can be viewed as a continual process that operates as a mechanism for selection, then equity in education can be viewed from the perspectives of access, survival, output, and outcome. Equality of access refers to the probabilities of being admitted into school. Equality of survival refers to the probabilities of staying in school to some defined level. Equality of output refers to the probabilities of learning the same thing at the same level. Equality of outcome refers to the probabilities of living similar lives as a result of schooling (Farrell, 1997). Equity in education thus implies that resources are distributed and processes are designed in ways most likely to move toward equalizing the educational outcomes of disadvantaged social groups with the outcomes of their more advantaged counterparts.
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This refers to the distribution and design not only of educational resources and programs, but of all resources, policies, and programs that play an important part in shaping education, many of which are outside the immediate control of the educational sector. A selective concern for worse-off social groups is not discriminatory; it reflects a concern to reduce discrimination and marginalization. At its core, the right to education refers to the legal rights of an individual to seek and receive education, and a corresponding duty on the state to provide such opportunities. According to human rights principles, all human rights are considered interrelated and indivisible (UN, 1993). Thus, the right to education cannot be separated from other rights, including rights to a decent standard of living and education as well as to freedom from discrimination and freedom to participate fully in one’s society. Equalizing educational opportunities requires addressing the most important social and economic determinants of education, including, as stated earlier, not only equal educational resources for all but also access and opportunities, and policies that affect any of these factors. Concern for equal educational opportunities is the basis for including within the definition of equity in education the absence of systematic social disparities not only in educational status but also in its key social outcomes.
Statistical Contours Inequalities in the distribution of educational resources and opportunities among the provinces/districts constitute a formidable challenge to Kenya’s development. For equity in education it is important to know at which level of schooling the constraints on the socially disadvantaged are most binding. Additional data1 analysis was therefore undertaken in order to help pinpoint the current location of inequalities within the education system. The issue of regional disparities will be explored using the existing administrative provinces2 as units of analysis. It is seen that inequalities in educational access and participation often take a regional dimension in Kenya. These differences are observed between urban and rural areas, and between defined administrative regions. Inequalities in regional or geographic educational opportunities often, but not always,3 coincide with ethnic identities because ethnic groups often reside in given geographical regions as discussed earlier in the background section. Key education statistics for the year 2002 are summarised in Table 2 below. The statistics show wide disparities in respect of access to education across the provinces. In Central Province, the gross enrolment rates (GER)4 in primary school in 2000 was 106% compared to only 17.8% in North Eastern Province. The corresponding figures for secondary school for the two regions are 37.7% and 4.5%, respectively. There are also wide disparities in the pupil-teacher ratio at the provincial levels. Eastern and Central Provinces have the most favourable (lowest) teacher-pupil ratio while North Eastern Province has the least favourable (highest). It is notable that the regions differ also in terms of school drop-out rates with the highest being in North Eastern Province. The data analyzed by rural-urban residence, reveals that about 36% of the rural population was attending school compared to about 31% of the urban population. A larger
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Access to education 2002 GER %
Province Nairobi Central Coast Eastern N/Eastern Nyanza Rift Valley Western Kenya
Pupil-teacher ratio
Primary
Secondary
Primary
Secondary
52.0 106.0 71.0 96.9 17.8 94.0 88.3 93.3 87.6
11.8 37.7 14.4 23.3 4.5 23.5 18.3 25.1 22.2
33.7 32.2 35.7 30.4 43.8 32.7 33.1 34.1 32.9
11.4 16.2 15.7 16.0 19.3 17.8 16.9 17.2 16.5
Dropout rates %
11.3 7.1 11.8 8.8 12.6 6.8 8.2 16.9 8.1
Source: Ministry of Education Statistics Division 2003.
Table 3.
Number of primary schools and trained teachers by province, 1999
Province No. of schools No. of trained teachers Population age 6–13
Nairobi
Central
248 4,537 305,175
R/Valley
Eastern
Nyanza
N/Eastern
Coast
1,799
4,494
4,091
3,806
175
1,121
25,320
44,764
35,454
30,586
1,145
10,567
816,629 1,702,318
1,136,941
1,088,530
268,827
543,175
Source: Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Statistics Section, 2000.
difference existed between rural and urban populations for those who had left school, as well as for those who had never attended school. Some 55% of the urban population had left school compared to 39% of the rural population. On the other hand, 22% of the population never attended school in rural areas, compared to 11% of the urban population. The number of schools is an indicator of the supply of education in a particular area. It determines the capacity of the education system in a given area to provide for educational needs. Table 3 indicates a large disparity in the provision of government schools in the different provinces, with the Rift Valley having the highest number of schools and the Northeastern having the least number of government schools. Educational inequalities are closely related to regional disparities in the sense that some rural districts have fewer schools, which are far from each other, and attendance is thus more difficult. This is not the case with non-slum urban areas, where there are many schools, which are located closer to one another. The long distances that many rural and urban poor children must walk are a serious deterrent to school participation. Rural inhabitants, in particular, do not enjoy many opportunities in this regard. There are also variations in the distribution of schoolteachers across regions. In the Rift Valley Province, trained teachers are the majority, standing at 44,764. This is
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Gross and net rates of enrolment by gender, Kenya, 1994
Group
Rural females Urban females All females Rural males Urban males All males National
Gross enrolment rate Primary
Secondary
92.56 90.20 92.28 96.21 89.22 95.40 93.88
20.37 42.74 23.78 23.64 63.65 28.21 26.01
Source: Welfare Monitoring Survey, 1994.
compared to the Northeastern Province which has 1,145 trained teachers. Table 3 shows the extent to which some areas are being understaffed while others are overstaffed. Gender inequalities in education remain an issue of concern in Kenya. The percentage of girls going to school is still low and becomes even lower as they move up the educational ladder, as seen in Table 4. However, the Kenyan government has tried to narrow the gap between girls’ and boys’ enrolment, and has made great strides in gender equality, as Deolalikar (1999, p. 35) observes: The ratio of male to female gross secondary enrolment ratios in Kenya is far lower than would be predicted at its level of GNP per capita, given the observed relationship between per capita GNP and gender disparity in secondary enrolments in Africa. Indeed, Kenya’s ratio of male to female gross secondary enrolment ratio is comparable to countries such as Egypt, that have a per capita GNP that is three times as large as Kenya’s. Data on access to education by wealth group reveal that the wealthier groups in Kenya have generally better access to education than the poorer ones (Table 5). The poorest 20% of Kenyans, both in rural and in urban areas, do not have adequate access to primary education. These disparities increase in secondary school enrolment due to the fact that the relatively high costs of secondary education are affordable only to richer families, which also tend to benefit more from government subsidies and bursaries. Education, then, acts to perpetuate socio-economic inequalities rather than bridging them. The attendance ratio in primary schools for the top wealth group is 86% compared to the lowest wealth group whose attendance ratio is only 61%. Although attendance is much lower in secondary schools than in primary schools, the richer segments of the population still maintain their dominance over lower wealth groups. The net attendance gap in both primary and secondary schools between the top and bottom wealth groups is about 25%. The degree of inequality is even more severe if one looks at the distribution of public spending across all school-age children instead of across households, due to the fact that poor households in urban areas have more out-of-school children of the relevant age
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Access to education by wealth group in Kenya, 2003
Wealth group
Poorest 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Highest 20%
Net attendance ratio Primary
Secondary
61.3 79.9 83.8 88.1 86.0
4.0 7.3 11.4 16.2 28.2
Source: 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey.
range. Children from poor households who do go to school are further disadvantaged by the fact that schools in poor communities tend to receive less public resources, such as teachers from the government. The increase in poverty has exacerbated the problem of access. Many of the poor are unable to afford even the low costs associated with participation in school or training programs. They also feel a greater need for the involvement of their children in their household economics and in the generation of the resources they need for survival. The result is an increasing number of children who do not enroll in school, who do not complete the primary cycle, or who are withdrawn early by their parents. Cultural and social practices, particularly those affecting girls, also contribute to this failure to make adequate use of existing facilities for education. Poverty is frequently accompanied by extensive child malnutrition, tuberculosis, sicknesses caused by poor sanitation and inadequate access to safe source of drinking water, as well as a range of vitamin deficiencies. These factors adversely affect child development and the possibility of profitable participation in education. The nationwide impact of HIV/AIDS further aggravates the situation for young children, particularly by increasing the number of orphans and child-headed households, and for youths and adults whose health or economic situation debars them from further participation. One distinctive issue that calls for immediate public policy intervention is the basic education coverage in urban slum areas. For example, the urban slum areas cover over 60% of the population in Nairobi. Public school coverage is in general low and leads to the low GER in these areas. In addition, the existing public schools in these areas tend to be over-crowded. Although many community schools exist, they usually are not covered under school census, and thus have limited support and supervision from the Government.
Education as a Basic Right: Performance Benchmark in Kenya The rapid development of education in Kenya was an aftermath of the Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya, which emphasized combating ignorance, disease and poverty. It was based on two long-standing
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concerns that: (1) every Kenyan child, irrespective of gender, religion and ethnicity, has the inalienable right to access basic welfare provision, including education; and (2) the Kenyan government has an obligation to provide opportunity to all citizens to fully participate in the socio-economic and political development of the country and also to empower the people to improve their welfare. For nearly four decades therefore, the education sector has undergone several reviews by special commissions and working parties appointed by the government. The U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Kenya on September 30, 1990. However, the convention has not been incorporated into Kenyan law,5 as children’s rights are not explicitly enshrined in the country’s constitution, and nor are there specific sections in the constitution that focus on children. Although the Kenya Constitution guarantees citizens rights, it is silent on education as a basic right and need. In this connection, Chapter V, Sections 70–86, entitled “Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of Individual,” does not directly mention education as one of the fundamental rights. Further, although the sections of the constitution may reinforce the right to education and public participation in policy formulation and debates, they do not make non-attendance or denial of schooling to a child a legal offence. This is why basic education is not compulsory in Kenya. Cooksey et al. (1994, p. 211) argue that the post-colonial Kenyan leadership adopted a laissez-faire development approach that was not concerned with the alleviation of regional disparities in development, including education. The official government response to inequality in educational opportunities was less equivocally stated than was in Tanzania, which had inherited a similar colonial segregated education system. For example, according to Kenya’s 1974–1978 Development Plan: Government’s provision of education and health services will be accelerated. The present plan provides opportunities for everyone to participate actively in the economy … . [however] … . Equal income for everyone is therefore not the object of this plan. Differences in skill, effort, and initiative need to be recognized and rewarded. This implied the ruling elite used the functional theory of social stratification as their social ideology and henceforth development policies. As a result, inequalities were justified because they reflected differences in achievement and in the individual’s contribution to society. The unstated rationale for this meritocratic ideal was the notion that people will accept inequalities and personal relative deprivation if they believed that they had an equal chance to benefit and did not choose to question the criteria by which merit and hence mobility were determined (Court, 1979). The lack of policy efforts to tackle the inequalities in education has been lamented widely, most notably by Amutabi (2003) in his study on the effect of the politicization of decision making in the education sector in Kenya since independence in 1963–2000. Amutabi (2003) argues that political decisions have marginalized the role and contribution of professionals and thus impacted negatively on educational policy formulation and implementation in Kenya. Utilizing a catalogue of major political
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decisions that have influenced trends and patterns of educational growth and policy formulation in Kenya, he demonstrates how such decisions have interfered in the running of education, causing the inequalities and decline in educational outcomes in the country. One example still relevant today is the introduction of the quota system in 1985, where a Presidential directive stipulated that each school must draw at least 85% of its students from its local area (Amutabi, 2003). This was a political move to prevent Kikuyu residing in the Central Province and other ethnic groups in other provinces from accessing schools in the Rift Valley which experienced greater investment in schools under President Moi at the expense of the rest of the country. This directive contravened the policy of national integration that was recommended in the Ominde Report of 1964 (GoK, 1964), as well as denying students the chance of joining better equipped secondary schools in other provinces.
Conclusion and Policy Recommendations The proposed definition of equity supports operationalization of the right of education to the highest attainable standard of education as indicated by the education status of the most socially advantaged group. Assessing educational equity requires comparing education and its outcomes between more and less advantaged social groups over a period of time to assess its trend. These comparisons are essential in determining whether national and international policies are leading toward or away from greater social justice in education. Inequities in education systematically put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged (e.g., by virtue of being poor, female, and/or members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic, or religious group) at further disadvantage with respect to their education. The principle of equity requires fair opportunities both to enter education programs and to succeed in them. Applying the principle of equity implies, on the one hand, a critical identification of existing inequalities which are the product of policies, structures, and practices based on economic, ethnic, gender, disability, and other forms of discrimination or disadvantage, and on the other, a programme of transformation with a view to redress inequalities. Such transformation involves not only abolishing all existing forms of unjust differentiation, but also measures of empowerment, including financial support to bring about equal opportunity for individuals. Hence, the rights-based framework is important because it ensures that resource allocation and policies are not just based on limited calculations of returns, but on the perspectives and interests of the most powerless and disadvantaged, too. The chapter has shown that the ethnic element has been, and continues to be, one of the salient features of Kenyan politics. A combination of factors account for this: the existence of relatively ethnically homogeneous geographical spaces in pre-colonial Kenya; the colonial policy of divide and rule which intensified ethnic separation by establishing administrative jurisdictions along ethnic and racial lines; and, two ethnically biased post-independent regimes that have legitimized ethnic representation and state resource allocations.
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Kenya’s development strategy sanctions growing socio-economic inequalities and these are inevitably reflected in the education system. The data has shown substantial inequalities in educational opportunity and educational resources between students from the Kenyan provinces where the ruling elite have originated, past and present, a difference that has remained largely unaddressed by current public educational policies. The issues of access to schools, distribution of qualified teachers and other educational resources are equity issues and influence the educational outcomes and achievements of the disadvantaged groups. Nairobi Province, Central Province and Rift Valley Province have the highest enrolment rates in all education sectors, primary, secondary and tertiary. Inequities also exist in the number of schools and higher institutions, where schools in the three better resourced provinces are more numerous than in the other provinces, and these inequities are compounded by the fact that students from other regions, like the North Eastern Province and Coast Province, are more likely to have poor parents, inaccessible road networks, and poor qualified teachers. Available data also indicate the greater disadvantage of girls at the primary level, and the widening gap as one ascends the educational ladder, suggesting that the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women through education are still a remote dream for Kenya. To equalize educational opportunities for all students in Kenya, it would seem pertinent that in its educational policies the government should give preference to those groups which seem to be currently disadvantaged. Spending additional public resources on urban poor and underserved districts and fewer resources on better-off and well-served districts would thus not only be more equitable but also increase the effectiveness of public spending on education. Taking into consideration the current economic and educational situation in Kenya, there is a need to shift policy in ways that will reinforce the right to education. The Kenyan Government has already signed numerous international and regional declarations and conventions guaranteeing every citizen the right to education. What the Government now needs to do is to translate the provisions of the signed declarations into practice. This study relied on the Kenyan national surveys. While the surveys were useful in raising questions and generating new hypothesis for testing, this usefulness is limited by the fact that the surveys were not designed, nor the data gathered in ways that fully suit the purposes of our research. While the descriptive evidence of ethnic inequality in Kenya is conclusive, this study is exploratory with respect to understanding the determinants of education inequalities among ethnic groups in Kenya, insofar as it highlights provincial inequalities among selected groups and offers an explanation of the findings based on the limited data at its disposal. The consistent results presented here strongly support placing the notion of ethnicity at the forefront of analyses of educational policies in Kenya. Based on these results, this chapter argues that ethnicity should be placed at the forefront of analyses of educational development in Kenya, as well as in policy efforts to reduce inequalities in education.
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Appendix 1: Kenya’s International Obligations on Education United Nations Treaties
Date of admission to UN: December 16, 1963. -International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights – ICESCR Acceded: May 1, 1972. Reports submitted/due: 1/2 No reservation related to the right to education - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – ICCPR Acceded: May 1, 1972. Reports submitted/due: 1/5 No reservations - International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination – CERD Acceded: September 13, 2001. Reports submitted/due: 0/0 No reservations - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – CEDAW Acceded: March 9, 1984. Reports submitted/due: 4/5 No reservations - Convention on the Rights of the Child – CRC Ratified: July 30, 1990. Reports submitted/due: 1/2 No reservations
ILO Treaties
ILO 98 Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention (1949) – date of ratification: January 13, 1964. ILO 111 Convention concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation (1958) – date of ratification: May 07, 2001. ILO 138 Minimum Age Convention (1973) – date of ratification: April 04, 1979. ILO 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999) – date of ratification: May 07, 2001.
African System
The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Date of ratification: January 23, 1992. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child Date of ratification: July 25, 2000.
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Appendix 2: Constitutional Guarantees on Education Kenya Date of Adoption/Date of Entry Into Force 1969 Relevant Provisions
The Constitution includes human rights guarantees, but not the right to education. But, see: Chapter V – Protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual Art.78 – Protection of freedom of conscience
Full Text of Relevant Provisions
Art.78 (1) Except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of conscience, and for the purposes of this section the said freedom includes (…) freedom, either alone or in community with others, and both in public and in private, to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in (…) teaching, (…). (2) Except with his own consent (…), no person attending any place of education (…) shall be required to receive religious instruction (…) if that instruction (…) relates to a religion other than his own. (3) Every religious community shall be entitled, at its own expense, to establish and maintain places of education and to manage any place of education which it wholly maintains; and no such community shall be prevented from providing religious instruction for persons of that community in the course of any education provided at any place of education which it wholly maintains or in the course of any education which it otherwise provides.
Notes 1. The data used in this report is from three main sources: the 1999 Population and Housing Census; household surveys; and administrative records. The Population and Housing Census cover mainly demographic data such as population size, distribution and socio-economic characteristics. This dataset was collected by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and covers all the districts, locations and divisions in the country. Three Kenyan Welfare Monitoring Surveys (WMS), conducted in 1992, 1994 and 1997, were used to access information about enrolment rates, completion rates, the teaching force as well as the physical resources in the different provinces. While not comprehensive, these household surveys sampled both rural and urban areas in all provinces of the country. For other administrative records, we rely on government data made available by the Ministries of Education. These include budget figures disaggregated by province, and unit costs calculated using statistics on the number of students in each province and districts. 2. The province is the most convenient unit of analysis because government opportunities and resources tend to be distributed more or less on a provincial basis. It must be borne in mind, however, that there are definite limitations to analysis in terms of such large units, for differences within provinces, districts
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and urban centers tend to be obscured. Nevertheless, since the goal of the chapter is to demonstrate the general disparity patterns, we feel that this may not be a major limitation likely to affect the conclusions drawn based on the overall trends at the provincial level. National statistics do not show socio-cultural and economic disparities in educational access and opportunities. At best, provincial educational statistics do not reflect the anomalies except by inference, but as mentioned earlier on there is a strong interrelationship in Kenya between ethnic groups and the region they populate. 3. Rural areas are more ethnically homogenous than large cities which have a more ethnically diverse population due to urban migration. 4. Gross enrolment ratio refers to the number of students enrolled in a given level of education, of whatever age, reflected as a percentage of the total population of official school age individuals for that level. The GER can be greater than 100% if grade repetition occurs, or if school entry at ages either earlier or later than the typical age for that grade level occurs. 5. See Appendices 1 and 2 for details on Kenya’s International Obligations and Constitutional Guarantees on Education.
References Abagi, O. (1997). Status of education in Kenya: Indicators for planning and policy formulation. Nairobi: IPAR Special Report. Amutabi, M. N. (2003). Political interference in the running of education in post-independence Kenya: A critical retrospection. International Journal of Educational Development, 23(2), 127–144. Banton, M. (1998). Are there ethnic groups in Asia?. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(5), 990–994. Challender, C. (2003). Counting gender equality in education – not as easy as 1,2,3. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Comaroff, J. L. (1995). Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of difference in an age of revolution. In J. L. Comaroff, & P. C. Stern (Eds.), Perspectives on nationalism and war (pp. 243–276). Yverdon (Switzerland): Gordon and Breach. Cooksey, B., Court, D., & Makau, B. (1994). Education for self-reliance and Harambee. In J. D. Barkan (Ed.), Beyond capitalism versus socialism in Kenya and Tanzania (pp. 201–233). Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Court, D. (1979). The education system as a response to inequality. In J. Barkan, & J. Okumu (Eds.), Politics and public policy in Kenya and Tanzania. New York: Praeger Publishers. Deolalikar, A. B. (1999). Primary and secondary education in Kenya: A sector review. Unpublished Research Report. Nairobi. Farrell, J. P. (1997). “Social equality and educational planning in developing nations.” In L. J. Saha (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the sociology of education (pp. 473–479), Oxford: Pergamon. Government of Kenya. (1964). Kenya education commision report, Part 1. Nairobi: Government Printer. Jupp, J., & McRobbie, A. (Eds.). (1992). Access and equity evaluation research. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Office of Multicultural Affairs. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Kanyinga, K. (1995). The changing development space in Kenya: Socio-political change and voluntary development activities. In P. Gibbon (Ed.), Markets, civil society, and democracy in Kenya. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Kimalu, P., Nafula, N., Manda, D. K., Mwabu, G., & Kimenyi, M. (2002). A situtional analysis of poverty in Kenya, Working Paper No. 2. Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), Nairobi. Kimalu, P. K., Bedi, A., Manda, D. K., & Nafula, N. N. (2001). Education indicators in Kenya. Working Paper No. 4. Nairobi: KIPPRA. Kornblum, W. (1991). Sociology in a changing world. New York: The Drydhen Press. Mwaruvie, J. (1999). Political party cooperation in post-election as ethnic tensions: Kenyan case. Anthropology of Africa and the challenges of the third millennium – ethnicity and ethnic conflicts, Management of Social Transformation Programme (MOST) – ETHONET/UNESCO. Kenya: Moi University.
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Ogot, B., & Ochieng, W. (1995). Decolonisation and independence in Kenya: 1940–1993. London: East African Studies. Oucho, J. (2002). Undercurrents of ethnic conflict in Kenya. The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill. Oyugi, E. (2000). The legacy of colonialism. Nairobi: Kenya Coalition for Social Watch. Rawls, J. (1985). Justice as fairness. Philosophy of Public Affairs, 14, 223–251. Sen, A. (1993). Capability and well-being. In M. Nussbaum, & A. Sen (Eds.), The quality of life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York: Alfred Knopf. Society for International Development (SID). (2004). Pulling apart: Facts and figures on inequality in Kenya. Nairobi: SID. Subrahmanian, R. (2002). Engendering education: Prospects for a rights-based approach to female education deprivation in India. In M. Molyneux, & S. Razavi (Eds.), Gender justice, development, and rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. UNDP. (2003). Third human development report on Kenya. Nairobi: United Nations Development Programme. UNDP. (2004). Human development report 2004. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations. (1993). UN world conference on human rights. GA resolution number 48/121, Vienna. Watkins, K. (2001). The Oxfam education report. Oxford: Oxfam International.
8 DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY: EDUCATING URBAN TOWNSHIP LEARNERS, A CASE OF UMLAZI TOWNSHIP SCHOOL IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA Thabisile Buthelezi University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Introduction This chapter examines educational tensions and social constraints existing in the South African urban township environment that make it difficult for learners in these contexts to receive quality education. In the learners’ perceptions and experiences reported in this chapter, I identify the specific daily challenges that learners experience in both township life and the township school. Here, I argue that these challenges make youth in the township settings more vulnerable to HIV infection, different forms of violence, substance and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, suicide, child abuse, and so on. Based on the analysis of stories, drawings and poems that were written by learners from a secondary school at Umlazi Township, near Durban in South Africa, I further discuss the negative effects of the township context on learners. Central to this discussion of negative effects is my argument that effective education can mediate these effects. Schools and teachers, with substantive support from communities, government and other sectors, can develop social competence in this group of learners. In order to realize this, schools should effectively implement the new South African school curriculum, particularly the subject field that is called Life Orientation (LO), which is outlined in the South African curriculum policy document, the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS) (Department of Education, 2002). Nevertheless, in order for the effective delivery of the school curriculum to happen, schools should provide an enabling environment. In other words, schools should employ democratic and transformational strategies to school organization and classroom management. My recommendations, therefore, include further research projects that aim to assist urban township schools to engage fully with transformation and to implement the RNCS document effectively in order to improve the learners’ quality of life. 145 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 145–182. © 2007 Springer.
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Central Issues Recent studies in education, and some educational interventions in South Africa, focus on disadvantaged African students living and schooling in urban townships. In most literature, African students from urban townships, together with students from rural areas, are often referred to as students from “disadvantaged backgrounds” (Mangena, 2005; Marais, 2002). The growing interest in researching African students from disadvantaged backgrounds arises because a great proportion of school-leavers from this group of learners are not adequately prepared for higher education (Hay & Marais, 2004). Many of them have lower academic achievement in Matric,1 which does not qualify them to enter into tertiary education and this severely restricts their educational and career choices. In order to qualify for university entrance in South Africa, a “Matric endorsement” is required. This means that of the total Matric subjects passed, a minimum of three subjects should be passed with higher grade.2 Students, who do not meet this requirement, obtain a standard school-leaving certificate, which allows them to apply only in a technikon or technical college (Garson, 2005). Because many of the school-leavers in urban townships obtain neither a “Matric endorsement” nor a standard school-leaving certificate, they join a large unemployment “pool” of people in society. Research has also revealed that students who successfully enter university are often underprepared in terms of the skills needed in Higher Education. They have very low literacy levels, language and critical thinking skills. As a result, they struggle to succeed in higher education courses. In trying to support school-leavers coming from “disadvantaged” backgrounds who are not ready to enter into higher education, different universities in South Africa are making a number of efforts to increase access and success rates in Higher Education. For instance, various universities have developed access programs, which are sometimes called foundation courses, or bridging courses (Hay & Marais, 2004; Mapesela, 2004; Paterson, 2005), which aim to support students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and require additional academic tutoring. Remarkably, several authors have used the concept “students who are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds” to describe students coming from urban townships. This signifies that the context in which one lives and is educated plays a role in determining the nature and quality of education that one receives and the chances of success that one has in life. Furthermore, from the concept we see that while South Africa is now governed by one constitution and a single set of laws, persistent inequality based on the diversified urban contexts still prevails. Given the unequal distribution of resources that happened during the apartheid3 system of government, urban townships (including urban township schools) were the most poorly resourced areas in South Africa. Africans who lived in urban townships were employed in poorly paid jobs in the mines, industries or cities. Authors such as Brink, Malungana, Lebelo, Ntshangase, and Krige (2001), Nhlengethwa (2004), Bhengu (2004), Thloloe (2004), and Le Roux (1993), have documented the difficult life – characterized by poverty, crime, violence, and death – that
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Africans endured over the years in urban townships. Miyeni (2004), who was born in Soweto (a township near Johannesburg), briefly comments about his traumatic life experiences during his growing up years in Soweto. His story exemplifies the traumatic life that many Africans had endured in urban townships during the apartheid and postapartheid era in South African urban townships. He writes: But it is so difficult for me to write about my childhood township. I grew up in an asbestos-roofed, three-roomed house in Soweto. Most weekends involved watching drunken death stabbings of neighbours over girlfriends and old grudges of no real importance. Monday trips to school often meant walking past weekend corpses that had not yet been claimed by relatives or collected by authorities. In addition, I had to duck and dive from glue-sniffing young hooligans who wanted to rob me of my meagre food money and tear my books apart. Miyeni (2004) However, more than ten years of democracy in South Africa have not eradicated poverty, deprivation and inequalities that are experienced by people living in urban townships. South African urban township learners still experience the “history” of social disadvantage, which is embedded in both the township social life and township schools. The unchanging urban township context has resulted in the migration of learners from urban township schools to urban city and town schools previously occupied by Whites. This happened after 1994 when South Africa achieved democracy, when some parents in urban townships started to send their children to the privileged multiracial schools in towns and cities so that they could get better education. In this way, African learners from urban townships came to form an emerging group in South African privileged multiracial schools in towns and cities. However, only the African middle class families can afford to pay more for school fees and for transport to send their children to privileged schools in towns and cities. Most parents can only afford to send their children to urban township schools. The experiences that learners who live in urban townships bring to the public classroom setting are significantly different from those of other groups of learners who live in towns and cities. Generally, South African urban township learners come from a distinct cultural background – where life is “survival.” In urban townships, you have not only to survive gangsters, rape, and road accidents, but putting a plate of food on the table is a struggle that needs one’s survival strategies. The combination of poverty with a materialist and consumerist culture means that having money forms the key part of the world of youth who live in urban townships. Because of the changes in the way families are organized and function, which have resulted in lower quality “adult-child” closeness, parental authority is sometimes lacking or challenged. Formal urban township schools, which can play a secondary socialization role, are not adequately resourced and supported to play this role. Besides, schools are seriously undermined as many young men (the role models for in-school youth) who lack marketable skills have access to money through their involvement in crime as gangsters.
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This study, therefore, addresses the following two main questions: 1. In which way are urban townships and township schools a disadvantage to learners in these settings? 2. What are the effects of the township context on learners in these settings? To address these questions, I begin by giving a brief overview of South African urban township life. In the second section of the chapter, I highlight some challenges that are still facing the South African education system. This is followed by a third section that discusses Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development which postulates that the environment with its complex structures such as the family, school, church and culture, exert negative or positive pressure on the child’s development (McCollum, 1997; Paquette & Ryan, 2001). Supporting Bronfenbrenner’s theory about the influence of context, I discuss the anti-child culture phenomenon (Smith & Le Roux, 1993) in order to provide a framework for analyzing the oppressive nature of the township context to the learners. Furthermore, I discuss Van Greunen’s (1993) concepts of co-existentiality and co-essentiality, to argue that while the environment influences the development of the child, the child herself or himself as a human being cannot be reduced to the status of a mere response to his or her environment. I argue that when adequate education and support are given, a human being can alter his or her environment. This is followed by fourth section, which presents a detailed discussion of the research strategy where I highlight the setting, design and methodologies that I used in the study, including the arts-based methodologies, particularly the category of drawings and poems. By identifying and analysing the life experiences and perceptions of learners in a secondary school situated at Umlazi Township, in Durban, I discuss, in fifth section, the day-to-day sociocultural and educational challenges faced by urban township learners. Here, I argue that an interplay of social and school factors such as violence, inadequate family life, exposure to crime, gang culture, availability of drugs and alcohol, particular gender relations, and traditional authoritarian school culture, render youth in these settings more vulnerable to HIV infection, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, child abuse, suicide, and so on. I conclude the chapter by arguing that the school and teachers, with substantive support from communities, government and other sectors, can develop and promote social competence in this group of learners by employing transformational strategies in their approaches to school organization, leadership, management (including classroom management) as well as effective teaching of the Life Orientation (LO).
Democracy in the Context of Apartheid – “Urban Townships” in the New South Africa All over the world, definitions of “urban” and perceptions of urban areas differ widely (Haberman, 2004). One dictionary meaning of the term “urban” is “a city or town” and it is used to oppose “rural” (Allen, 1992). However, when viewed through South African history, this definition is insufficient to describe urban areas in South Africa, as there are different kinds of urban environments; for example, urban
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cities and towns, urban townships and informal settlements. In this chapter, only one category of urban residential area will be discussed – the urban townships. Urban townships have their origins in South Africa’s apartheid past, which was rooted in the various legislative acts such as the Bantu Education Act of 1953, the Natives (Black) Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the Extension of University Education Act of 1959. Systematic racial segregation was not only prevalent at social, political, economic and educational levels, but was also used as a criterion to allocate urban residential land. For instance, the Group Areas Act of 1950 forced physical separation between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Townships emerged when the government permitted that certain areas (usually some distance away from each town or city and near rubbish dumps and smog-producing industries) would be set-aside for Africans. In this way, towns and cities became almost exclusively for whites while townships were exclusively for Africans. The only Africans that were allowed to live in towns and cities were domestic workers who were working for white families. The division of South Africa into urban cities (towns) and urban townships created the diversity of urban contexts with distinct standards and resources. For a range of reasons, it is likely that this social order will remain for a long time. As Miyeni (2004) puts it, urban townships are the “true symbols of racist triumph over innocent victims.” South African urban townships are still characterized by limited space, poverty, crime, violence and poor schooling. Because of the apartheid laws, which restricted Africans from formal economic activities, many people in townships turned their three- or four-roomed, “match box houses” into shebeens4 (Brady & Rendall-Mkosi, 2005, p. 136; Mona, 2005). The continued existence of many shebeens in townships increases the availability of alcohol. Moreover, the abundance of alcohol in the context of unemployment and poverty that exist in urban townships leads to the escalation of crime rates. Robbery, car hijacking, torture, and murders, had long become the daily ritual of township life. In most townships, certain areas such as bus stops have become common crime spots where people are robbed and killed. Such areas have acquired nicknames that describe the common criminal activities that take place in them. For example, many townships have areas nicknamed KWAMSHAYAZAFE (which means that, you beat a person until they die), or EMPHELANDABA (which means, where all stories end – usually where people fight each other) or KWADLULA-WAFA (meaning that you pass, you die) or EMLAMLANKUNZi (meaning, you survive by your strength). Because of crime and violence, gangsterism has become a common feature in township life. As Sampson (2004, p. 76) accurately says: If you offend them, they’ll beat you up. If you bring a case against them, they will beat up the witness. If you cause them any trouble, they will kill you. At inquest, the witness will be absent. Given this context, the survival of young men depends on keeping on the right side of gangsters. Therefore, some young males either join the existing gangs or form their own in order to develop skills and gain support to survive in the harsh environment of the township. Gangsters are role models for young ambitious males because they have big power, big money, big cars and the best girls (Sampson, 2004, p. 76). They wear
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expensive clothes, drink expensive liquor and can afford expensive drugs and expensive weapons (guns). From the young man’s perspective, they are “cool.”5 However, not all Africans in townships become involved in crime in order to improve their financial situation. Many still see education as a solution to their problems and they study continuously. As a result, a new aristocracy of doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, and other professionals had emerged over the years in townships, though few of this group of African aristocrats have chosen to remain in townships. However, even if they stay in townships, most send their children to better schools in towns and cities because they can afford the higher fees in such schools and can pay for the transport that takes their children to school. Poor families, some headed by single women, send their children to urban township schools where there are affordable fees. One of the gains made in the difficult life in urban townships is the involvement of illiterate and semi-literate African women in the country’s economy. Although an argument can still be made about the low-paying jobs such as domestic work, shop assistantship, factory work, and so on, most women in townships are hard workers who maintain their families and make sure their children go to schools. Women also may become informal traders, selling vegetables, fruit and clothes, and other goods in taxi ranks as well as juice or sweets in school gates. Because of their low income, these women, together with other poor families, can only send their children to township schools. Unfortunately, the system of education is still failing these families and their children because the quality of education in most township schools is greatly compromised.
Urban Education and Issues Haunting the South African Education System Though South Africa has fixed most of the apartheid policies, it still has to improve its educational quality, particularly in urban township and rural schools. Since 1994, the South African Government has made impressive gains in terms of transforming the education system through various legislative instruments and policies such as the South African Schools Act (Department of Education [DoE], 1996), Revised National Curriculum Statement (DoE, 2002), and others. Nineteen different educational departments separated by race, geography and ideology, which were operating under apartheid have been replaced by a single system of education. All schools have to follow a single curriculum (DoE, 2002) underpinned by one ideology. Through the application of the policy of Norms and Standards for School Funding (DoE, 1998), the Department of Education is able to differentially allocate funding to schools according to individual school needs. In this, the government has made serious efforts “to redress inequities arising from past discrimination” (Taylor, Muller, & Vinjevold, 2003) in terms of providing resources to poor schools. Besides these and many other legislative provisions that are geared to transform education in South Africa, a number of initiatives that aim to support teachers, curriculum delivery and management in schools, are being implemented. Here, I can mention the Dinaledi project, which supports the delivery of numeracy, math, science and technology in schools. In this project, selected
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teachers from a number of disadvantaged schools across the country are re-skilled to effectively teach science and technology subjects in schools. Although the current government, through interventions such as the Dinaledi project that I have mentioned above, is intent on rectifying the imbalances in education, the apartheid legacy lingers on as Cele (2004) correctly says: Even as we aspire to create productive non-racial, multi-ethnic democracies, we need to acknowledge and study the ways our past responses to difference have shaped fundamentally the conditions in which we now seek to create new forms of community. These legacies of strangeness and estrangement must be confronted, because they accompany us into our current social encounters, providing the warp and woof of our social tapestries. They are like irons on our legs, and we stumble because of them even as we try to move forward. While in the budget allocation of the national Government, education gets a big slice, usually 20% of the total budget each year (Garson, 2005), more money is needed to address the immense backlogs in schools owing to more than 40 years of apartheid education, when money was pumped into “white education” at the expense of African schools in urban townships and rural areas. Even now, most schools in townships and rural areas are still struggling for resources. Despite the unequal resources across schools, all schools are now expected to deliver on the new school curriculum. Given the differing access to resources, it is not surprising that troubling reports have documented that most schools have difficulty in implementing the new curriculum (Chisholm & Muller, 2000; Taylor & Vinjevold, 1999). Furthermore, inadequate training of teachers on the new curriculum, lack of appropriate materials for the new curriculum, and the challenges related to the language of learning and teaching (LoLT),6 have also been offered as explanations for teachers’ difficulty with the new curriculum. However, these are not the only reasons. The pedagogical shift that the new curriculum demands from teachers is perhaps the most crucial one. Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) forms the foundation for the new curriculum that is outlined in the RNCS document (Department of Education, 2002). The OBE approach challenges the traditional pedagogy where teachers were transmitters of knowledge. In OBE, the classroom becomes a space where knowledge is processed and produced. All learners as well as the teacher bring into the classroom their existing “knowledges” and experiences (which might be full of stereotypes, prejudices, beliefs, and so on). The teacher facilitates activities aimed at processing the shared knowledge and challenging existing domains of knowledge. In this situation, the learners are highly cognitively involved and the process aims to empower them with a number of skills, including decision-making skills, which they will use to develop their own individual principles and values. This pedagogical shift requires that classrooms be managed democratically. The teachers themselves have not been prepared for this change. Most teachers in township schools were poorly trained by the previous system of education. Their college training did not develop in them critical thinking and analysis skills (Wieder, 2003).
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Overwhelmed by curriculum change, teachers resort to traditional methods of teaching where they stick to theory and “spoon-feeding.” This does not prepare the learners for life and for entering into higher education.
The “Context Debate” – Some Theoretical Reflections In highlighting the importance of context in child’s education and development, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development emphasizes a person-process-context model (McCollum, 1997), where the child’s development is looked at within the system of relationships that form his or her environment (Paquette & Ryan, 2001). The theory postulates that child development is fundamentally social since individuals construct their learning through interacting with their environment (McCollum, 1997). The child’s environment is comprised of “complex” layers each of which has particular structures such as the family, church, culture, school, community, and so on. The interaction within and between the systems and structures in the child’s environment may directly or indirectly exert negative or positive force on the child’s development. One example given by Bronfenbrenner (1984, p. 52) (as cited in Paquette & Ryan, 2001) is that the instability of family life, which results from the society’s economic crisis, may be a destructive force in the child’s life. In such situations where family life is compromised, the child may feel insecure and he or she may present with problems such as antisocial behavior. In South Africa, the interplay between bigger environmental systems and structures at different levels, such as capitalism, the former political system of apartheid with its ideology of segregation and social factors that resulted from it, created an environment that was not conducive to the development of the African child in particular. The traditional, rural family and community lifestyle was replaced by urbanized township life, in which many parents struggled to provide for their families, because the apartheid policy of unequal distribution of resources among different race groups meant that African urban townships and families would get the least of resources, including land. Given the economic imperatives faced in urban townships, many African children were affected because parents had neither the time nor adequate resources to effectively care for their children. As a result, most African children in townships grew up in an environment where the quality of life was greatly compromised. To describe the negative social, economic and political influences in South Africa, which undermined the African child’s family life, education and development, Smith and Le Roux (1993) came up with the concept of “anti-child culture phenomenon.” They give the following definition of the anti-child culture phenomenon: An anti-child culture is an anti-child educational environment. In an anti-child educational environment, the education of children is seriously hampered by educational and societal factors. A child accordingly experiences his [or her] family and society as situations in which he [or she] has no legitimate place. Smith and Le Roux (1993)
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From this, I deduce that the anti-child culture phenomenon is consistent with the ideas of Bronfenbrenner because it posits that the environment with “negative” factors will have negative influence on the child’s development. According to Smith and Le Roux (1993), the South African urban township environment, with its inadequate accommodation, lack of adequate health and recreational facilities, poor quality education and poverty, constrains many African children. However, Van Greunen (1993) has the view that while we recognize the importance of the environment in the development of a child, we should guard against overemphasizing the influence of the environmental factors because this could result in subjecting a human being to his or her environment. In this way, we would be “reducing the child to the status of a mere response to situational events” (Van Greunen, 1993). According to this view, the child cannot become a victim of the environment because the child is a human being and all human beings possess (within themselves) hereditary factors, which Van Greunen (1993) has termed the “genetically determined multipotentiality.” Such hereditary factors mean that the child has a range of possibilities or dimensions for development that can be categorized into physical, emotional, cognitive, conative, moral, spiritual and social (Van Greunen, 1993). In support of this idea, I argue that the outcome of the child’s development is not always reflective of the nature of the environment in which the person grew up. However, it may be reflective of how that particular person interacted with their environment. This means that the nature of the relationship or interaction between the person and the environment might be a determinant of the outcome of development. To conceptualize the idea of a relationship between the child and his or her environment, Van Greunen (1993) came up with the concepts of co-existentiality and co-essentiality. Co-existentiality means that the child and the environment are interdependent, inseparable and interwoven, and should both be present at the same time for the child’s development to occur because they need each other. The concept of co-essentiality implies the interrelatedness between the child and the environment, where there is interaction between the self-developing child and the environment. According to this postulate, the child is not passive but actively participates to change and affect his or her circumstances. He or she is also “simultaneously being changed and affected by the very same circumstances he or she is trying to change and affect” (Van Greunen, 1993). In this regard, the nature of the interaction between the child and their environment is important as it determines the outcome of the developing child. Then, what is the role of education in this relationship between the child and the environment? Van Greunen (1993) has the view that education acts as a mediating factor between the child and his or her environment. He says: In this sense, education is not only essentially an interaction between the child and the educator, but also a purposeful endeavour to facilitate meaningful interaction or dialogue between the child and his [or her] environment. [Education] thus becomes a powerful agent in helping the child constitute a meaningful life world, a world he [or she] can meaningfully orientate himself [or herself ] by being actively and purposefully involved in it. Van Greunen (1993)
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From this definition, we understand that education is part of the process of interaction between the child and his or her environment and that it enriches this process. Therefore, in an educational situation the educator leads, guides, or helps the child to reach out to his or her environment and assign meaning to its realities. For education to effectively play this mediating role, an important relationship needs to be established and maintained between the child and the educator who is guiding the child. Both the educator and the child have to fulfill their responsibilities in order to maintain this relationship. For instance, the educator has a responsibility to trust, accept, respect, understand the child, apply meaningful discipline and create an educational climate where the child is adequately engaged in exploring the environment. This learning environment should be safe, exciting, challenging and should provide opportunities for personal development (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002, p. 4). However, it is not only the classroom environment (during formal subjects) that constitutes the learning environment, but also all the experiences that the child has at school (e.g., the values the school holds, the way teachers relate to each other and to learners) are part of the learning environment. The total sum of this environment shapes the thinking, insights, perceptions, skills and behavior of learners (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002, p. 4). On the other hand, the child has the responsibility to actively participate and engage with and learn from their environment. To reflect on the South African situation, I argue that the urban township anti-child cultural environment successfully constrained the lifestyle of many African children, because apartheid education did not facilitate interaction between the child and his or her environment. It did not act as a mediating factor between the children and their environment. As Wieder (2003) puts it, apartheid education “was a kind of built-in learning disability and extreme disadvantage.” The inferior curriculum had nothing to do with what was going on in the everyday lives of the children. As a result, children became victims of the negative urban township environment, which negatively affected them. From this, I can therefore conclude that it is possible for the child to become the victim of the environment if education does not actualize hereditary factors (Van Greunen, 1993).
Research Strategy This paper is the result of the research conducted in one of the secondary schools in Umlazi Township near Durban. It is situated to the southwest of central Durban. Like all South African townships, Umlazi Township is designated for African people. It originated in 1845 when the British forcefully occupied Natal and established a number of “locations” (townships) for the Zulus (Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, 2005). Not different from other South African townships, Umlazi Township offers shebeens, izinyanga’s (traditional doctors’) shops, artwork and township music such as jazz and kwaito (South African Townships, 2005). As is typical of South African townships, Umlazi Township has more than 30 sections, which are differentiated by alphabetical letters, for example Section A, Section B, Section C, Section AA, and so on. Established in 1983, the school that participated in the project is situated in one of the sections of Umlazi Township. Adjacent to the school is an informal settlement. Not
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typical of township schools that are characterized by vandalized buildings, the school has good buildings and a well-maintained schoolyard, which are little different from some of the city or town schools that are well resourced. On entering the overcrowded classrooms and seeing the empty bookshelves in the school library, however, one immediately recognizes the difference between this school and city schools. I purposefully selected the school because it is one of the biggest schools in the area with about 2,600 learners and 110 teachers. Learners come from several sections of Umlazi Township, as well as from other townships in KwaZulu-Natal since the school has some boarding facilities. In order to gain entry into the school, I formally applied to the school management to work at the school. Then followed a meeting with the principal. Having obtained permission from the school, and obtained ethical clearance from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, my home institution, I worked with two guidance teachers in the school to select the sample and to set up dates to visit the school. Because I had to use the school time to work with the learners, it was therefore more appropriate to work with learners in one class to utilize some of the class periods in the timetable. As is common with all South African urban township schools, the classrooms are overcrowded. The class I worked with, the Grades 11, had 9 classes and the number of learners in each class ranged between 47 and 60. I worked with a class that has the least number of learners, 47 (35 females and 12 males). In this class, learners come from several sections of Umlazi Township (Sections A, C, D, E, K, M, N, R, U, and Z). Some come from other townships near Durban; Amanzimtoti, Chesterville, Lamontville, while others come from townships that are next to other South African cities and towns, such as Imbali Township near Pietermaritzburg (about 72 km from Durban), Emondlo Township near Vryheid (situated in Northern KwaZulu-Natal and within striking distance of both Durban and Johannesburg) and townships near Stanger (about 80 km in the North coast of Durban) and Newcastle. Therefore, the sample included perceptions and experiences of learners who come from a number of sections at Umlazi Township and from several other townships in KwaZulu-Natal Province. Several concerns informed the choices I made about the kind of data collection methods that I used. I considered the focus of the study, which has as its main purpose to gain a deep level of understanding of the township social context and how this context affects learners’ lives and their education. Based on this view, a neat, “scientific” approach to data collection was deliberately avoided in favor of an individual learner narrative, in the hope that this would lend itself to an in-depth analysis. To collect data, I therefore used arts-based methodologies: the drawings, language arts, such as written poems and written songs as well as the textual narratives that were completed in the dialogue journal. By using arts-based methodologies I wanted to uncover the youths’ frame of reference (Babbie & Mouton, 2002) on such issues existing in their environment. It is important to note that by developing a study that places particular emphasis on learners’ voices about their perceptions and experiences, my intention is to nurture an understanding of the township context and the difficulties learners experience in such contexts. I also incorporate learners’ experiences and viewpoints in recognition of children’s rights and the principle of young people’s participation as set out in the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) (1989) as well as in the South African Constitution, Act 108 of 1996.
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The arts-based methodologies used in this project draw from a growing body of work on visual and arts-based participatory methodologies such as photo-voice, performance arts, video documentary, collage and drawings (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2002; Walker, 1993). The use of these methodologies is meant to expand an ongoing research and teaching agenda within the social sciences in the area of media education studies and participatory visual and arts-based approaches to inquiry and representation with young people and HIV prevention (Mitchell, De Lange, Moletsane, Stuart, & Buthelezi, 2005), where research has a social change orientation. In the project at Umlazi, I was interested in the category of drawings as forms of art and narrative mode of inquiry in working with young people. Scientists have discovered similarities between art experiences and the function of the human brain and as Silver (2005) says: Art tells a story. Through pictures, images and symbols, the art maker communicates feelings and thoughts and creates pathways for others to understand what often lies just beyond the realm of verbal awareness. Drawings are also used in psychology to assess aggression and depression in adolescents. As an activity that emphasizes a focus on meaning, while providing a natural space for learners to express their experiences, views, values and the meanings they make of their lives, a dialogue journal that was titled “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari” was given to each of the 47 learners who were participating in the study. Validity and reliability was ensured by the use of several themes in the dialogue journals. The dialogue journal had the following four themes with instructions: ●
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Theme One: My Self ● Learners had to draw a self-portrait; write a song or poem about, for and to themselves; write about themselves, for instance, what they like, do not like, what other people say about them; their future dreams and plans and unforgettable moments in their lives. Theme Two: My Home ● Learners had to draw and write about their home, and neighborhood. Then they had to write about safe and unsafe spaces in their home and neighborhood and what they think should be done to make all spaces safe. Theme Three: My Education ● Learners had to write about what they like and not like about their school; their typical school day; the school day they will never forget; and safe and unsafe spaces at school. Theme Four: Experiences and thoughts about issues ● Learners had to write about their experiences and thoughts about HIV, AIDS, education and employment, alcohol and drugs, violence and gender-based violence, sex and sexually transmitted infections, teen pregnancy and abortion and what they liked and not liked about the project.
The dialogue journal provided an avenue for spontaneous conversation with the learners. For most learners, the concept of the dialogue journal combined with the arts and
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free writing expression required by the project was novel, exciting, fun and led to a sense of freshness and authenticity. Respondents’ anonymity was fully protected by omitting the use of names on the written responses. The notion of a diary that was embedded in the title of the journal “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari” affirmed confidentiality. This, together with the permutation of an “outsider” (researcher) rather than a class or subject teacher as a dialogue partner, granted the learners anonymity and therefore greater freedom of expression. Learners could use the language of their choice to respond to the “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari” dialogue journal, as all the learners were not first language speakers of English. The majority of learners speak isiZulu, and a few speak isiXhosa. Forty-six learners (35 females and 11 males) between ages 14 and 19 years all from grade eleven responded – one male learner returned an uncompleted dialogue journal. The high response rate and the wealth of information suggest that respondents felt comfortable in participating in the project and they wanted to use the opportunity to talk about issues that affect them in their context. Most learners expressed their views openly that such opportunities, which allow them to talk about issues that affect them, should increase. I did not consider it appropriate to apply statistical analysis to the qualitative data collected. Therefore, data were captured, analyzed and creatively organized by means of codes. The most frequently occurring items were re-coded and organized into themes. Drawings were analyzed at a narrative level and not artistically, via such elements as colors and shapes. Significant thematic overlaps were noted and the results presented below.
Urban Townships, the “Disadvantaged Backgrounds” A total of 46, 32 page dialogue journals titled “Dear Diary: Sawubona Dayari” were completed by learners who participated in the project. Together the dialogue journals express narratives of danger, survival, violence, crime, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, anger, resilience and hope. For most children in South African urban townships, “being a child” is a traumatic experience and life is a risk. The insecurity in township environments presents a situation in which children are routinely exposed to gang violence, with the possibility of being raped (with its possibility of HIV infection), assaulted or robbed by gangs. The learners’ responses expressed in dialogue journals reveal structural problems in the community, systematic problems in the school and unresolved personal, emotional and family problems that they experience. In this section, I present the day-to-day socio-cultural and educational challenges faced by urban township learners at Umlazi Township, in Durban, to reveal the disadvantaging nature of township situations. As discussed earlier, Le Roux (1993) came up with the concept of “anti-child culture,” to explain situations that children experience in societies, where “… [children] cannot be adequately accommodated” because of the nature of the context. As such, from the learners’ narratives, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the urban
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township environment provides this anti-child culture situation. In urban townships, the fear of gang-related violence, as well as alcohol and drug related crimes restricts learners’ freedom to use many of the public spaces such as the roads, bus stops, shops and tuck shops. Almost all learners in the project mentioned home and school as the only places where they feel safe. Their route to and from school is not safe. When learners leave their homes in the mornings to catch a bus or taxi to school, they risk being mugged, robbed, assaulted or killed by criminals at the bus or taxi stops. Learners expressed the following concerns: A place, which gives us problems near my home, is an important place. At the bus stop of my home it is not safe because if you happen to be delayed until evening not even at about 7.00 (P.M.) I am talking about 5.00 (P.M.) you must know that you have little chances of passing at the stop. And, in the morning it is not easy that you reach where you are going to … As far as I am concerned, I can say that the only way that can help is that there should be about three law people (meaning police) so that they see to it that it is safe. Another thing that can help is that robots should be put because road accidents are so many. Every year we bury people who have been run over by cars others have been stabbed others have been shot. I would be happy if we can get help near my home. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 06: 17 years) … if it is in the morning I go to school and it is winter I feel unsafe because it is still dark. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 11: 16 years) Clearly, learners are not only exposed to criminals and gangsters on their route to and from school, but they are also prone to road accidents, as female learner number six above has expressed. Again, three participants mentioned that they had been involved in serious road accidents and they expressed how traumatic their experiences were. For instance, the first participant would not forget how shocked the class was when she came on crutches after the accident; the second participant, would not forget the day he was in a speeding taxi that overturned; and; the third participant, was in a coma after being run over by a car and she was hospitalized for a month. As stated previously, along with the home, most learners mentioned school as a safe space. Almost all participants in the study – male and female – said they feel very safe everywhere within the school premises. To emphasize how safe the school is, a few of the learners mentioned that the school had stamped down theft that had occurred in the school hostels. This was when people from outside the school started to break into the schoolyard to steal learners’ clothes. However, it should be noted that the school participating in this project is one of what the provincial Department of Education recognizes as best, or safe schools, both in Umlazi and in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Otherwise, several studies have revealed that safety is an issue in most South African schools. One study, by Human Rights Watch (2001), reported that most South African schools are places of violence, particularly gender-based violence such as rape and sexual harassment.
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However, respondents in the project reported that they are only safe when they enter the school gate. As soon as they leave the school in the afternoon, learners, particularly girls, face harassment from gangs in the bus stop: I am very safe if I am at school. When I am outside the school [premises] that is when I am not safe. Because some boys who did not finish school, wait for us and demand our moneys. As we are at school, they just say we are children of rich people. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 13: age not indicated) When it [is] after school at the stop, but inside the school I don’t have an unsafe spaces. (Female 05: 15 years) Because of the gang culture that is a common feature of youth sub-culture in South African townships, learners in townships daily survive harassment and violence. The presence of gangsters in many public and sometimes private spaces was a theme running through several responses: Their [there] is a speace in my neighbourhood called ka Joe I real real do not live [like] that place because the [there] is a corruption boys like to rape girls and they real not good for me I do not love them they have storng laugage. [strong language] (Female 04: 16 years) At Kwa-Joe, at Umlazi, in every place we meet with hooligans because at times when you are just walking you sometimes suddenly feel a cold thing on your neck [meaning you feel a knife or a gun], then you realise they [hooligans] want what you have got, which is not theirs and they’ll end up killing you. All places in my neighbourhood are not safe. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 08: 19 years) There are a lot of corners where hooligans hang out and do bad things. To be on the safe side you just have to stay at home and be sure to be at home before seven P.M. (Female 01: 16 years) I was walking with my brother there came many boys who wanted to take our bag. We refused [to give them the bag] and we fought with these boys. They took out the gun trying to shoot us. They missed; only one of them was shot. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 11: age not indicated) Brady and Rendall-Mkosi (2005) have mentioned “Having too many liquor outlets in one area puts people who live in that area at risk because of possible alcohol-related crime problems.” This is because the high consumption of alcohol is likely to result in public drunkenness, car crashes, fights, rapes and homicide. While a source of income for many families in townships, numerous shebeens and taverns provide too many outlets for alcohol and this increases consumption in urban townships. Furthermore, some tuck shop owners have (illegally) combined their businesses to also serve as shebeens. In such places, when drunken people fight each other and use weapons such as guns,
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children who have come to buy anything from the tuck shops risk being shot by stray bullets, as one learner expressed it: The places we buy from like tuck shops are now also used as shebeens. If people are drunk they fight each other and shoot you find yourself being shot by a stray bullet. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female, 29: 18 years) Given the economic constraints faced in townships, many parents are preoccupied with the daily struggle of earning income for their families. As a result, adult-child closeness is compromised. This leads to the lack of adequate childcare and open communication between children and their parents, which communication is necessary for a balanced upbringing and socialization. Sometimes the family’s supportive and protective roles to the child’s life are also affected. For instance, instead of parents (families) protecting their children from the unsafe environment of the township, some parents expose their children to the risks of being robbed, harassed, shot, stabbed, and even killed when they send them to the shops and tuck shops as the following learners said: We have shops, which sell cards for electricity. It ends up that children are robbed of the money when they are sent to the shops. We need safety and security there is unemployment at Umlazi I am not blaming anyone. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 8:19 years) I feel safe when I am in my room. I am not safe if I am in the sitting room because my father sends us even at night to shops or to his brother’s house. My father does not think [carefully] before he sends us. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 01: age not indicated) The earlier discussion expressed that most participants reported that they are safe in their homes; conversely, a few learners stated that they were not safe even when they are at home. Because there is limited space in townships (Smith & Le Roux, 1993), properties are small, and houses are built too near each other as well as too near the roads. Lack of sufficient income often means that properties are not properly fenced and secured. When this situation is coupled with increasing crime and violence rates, and the common use of guns in townships, people are not safe even in their houses as the following respondents reported: The most safe place at home it’s the passage because no-one can see me. The unsafe places at my [home] are the kitchen, at the dining room near the door and outside. It is unsafe at the kitchen because there is a big window and anyone can see me. The dining room is unsafe because it is near the door and I don’t even study at the dining room. Outside it unsafe because there is no fencing. (Female 10: 15 years) The safe place at my home is inside the house it very safe cause it always locked and the unsafe place is in my room. It unsafe because my room is out side. So it realy unsafe I can get raped without being herd (heard) by anyone. The thing that should be done is my mom have to buy a new house that the only solution. (Female 19: 17 years)
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In an environment where the anti-child culture sentiments prevail, children do not experience personal relationships, security and support that are often found in a stable family environment. Understandably, the African family in urban townships has become unstable, because of the increasing socio-economic forces that are continually producing family patterns that are undesirable for the “adequate nurturing of the growing children” (Smith & Le Roux, 1993). Some learners mentioned domestic violence and alcohol abuse within the family itself: My home has a lot of domestic violence, My mom my dad and my dad’s girlfriend. I also like my dad’s girlfriend. (Transvestite7 04: born in a leap year) … What I do no like in my home is my father who drinks. And, I can see clearly that I’ll end up not respecting him at all because of certain reasons. (Female 13: age not indicated) When my uncle gets drunk he acts strange and calls us names and when we ask him the next days he denies everything. (Female 31: 15 years) The critical concerns to the above representations are that South Africa has many urban townships, which provide this anti-child culture environment. For millions of African children, each day is a battle to survive poverty, violence, harassment, and death.
Education as Dialogue – a Gap in the Dialogue In his or her development, the child continues to interact with the environment in which he or she grows (Smith & Le Roux, 1993). Again, as Van Greunen (1993) states that education facilitates this interaction so that it becomes more meaningful – what happens at schools, lays the foundation for what happens later on in the children’s lives. Therefore, the ultimate goal of education is to develop learners’ knowledge, skills, capacities and attitudes they need in order to make clear decisions about their lives. In other words, education provides them with a base to participate and contribute towards a meaningful life. However, in most South African schools, it is still difficult to realize this educational goal. With schools having a different history and traditions, the “social history of disadvantage” is still evident in historically disadvantaged schools, such as the urban township schools. Due to apartheid-era exploitation and economic oppression of the urban townships and the rural areas, urban township schools still lack vital educational resources: classrooms, equipment and teachers. Because of a large number of people concentrated in small townships, schools are never adequate in townships, and classrooms are characterized by overcrowding. Although I was working with a class which has the least number of learners (47), compared to other classes in the same grade, I still did not have a space to move in between desks. Most learners use their laps to put their school bags on, so that they can have a space to write on the desk. Some of the learners expressed their concerns that the large classes meant destruction of learning and overstretched resources: What I don’t like: the crowdiness in classes because it causes (sometimes) distruction. (Female 18: 18 years)
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As discussed earlier on, education acts as a mediating factor in the interaction process between the child and his or her environment (Van Greunen, 1993), and this means that education has to be relevant to the child’s environment. The South African new school curriculum (Department of Education, 2002), which was implemented soon after 1994, aims to realize this ultimate educational goal as it envisions a learner who will: … act in the interest of a society based on respect for democracy, equality, human dignity, life and social justice. The curriculum seeks to create a lifelong learner who is confident and independent, literate, numerate, multi-skilled, compassionate, with respect for the environment and the ability to participate in society as a critical and active citizen. (Department of Education, 2000) While the new school curriculum is moving towards a more holistic and integrated understanding of educational practice, the effective implementation of such a curriculum rests with teachers. The curriculum alone cannot bring about transformation. The quality of the teacher who is delivering on the curriculum is equally important. As Luthuli (1982, p. 29) accurately says: … in a pedagogic situation, it is only a competent, efficient and mature teacher who is able to implement the desirable educational reforms and innovations reflected in a school curriculum. However, most teachers in urban township schools have been poorly trained by the previous apartheid system. As mentioned previously, in that system, it was not just that the curriculum was irrelevant to learners’ lives, but the teaching methodologies were damaging. It is unlikely that the teachers’ previous training prepared them for what is expected of them now in the new curriculum. Several learners questioned the competence of some teachers in the subjects that they teach: What I also do not like in my school is that other teachers speak wrong English which you can see that even a six-year old child will not speak but I ask myself and I do not get an answer how are the teachers employed. Another thing is that they do not want to be corrected they say you take advantage of him/her. He/she is a teacher they cannot be told by a learner. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 28: 17 years) For education to play a mediating role, an important relationship that is built on trust, acceptance, respect, understanding and meaningful discipline should be established between the child and the teacher who is guiding the child (Van Greunen, 1993). The Revised National Curriculum Statements document for South African school curriculum is more engaging and requires teachers who will interact differently with learners. However, this essential relationship between the teacher and the learner cannot be established when teachers still exercise the authoritarian mode of communicating with the learners. In most township schools, the history of top-down control of schools, learners and the curriculum that was part of the apartheid legacy, remains part of the school culture (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002). In this culture, rules were made for people
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to unquestioningly obey and discipline was not meaningfully applied. Rote learning, together with textbook and telling methods were the dominant modes of instruction in the classrooms. It is within this context that corporal punishment (which teachers harshly and sometimes unfairly exercised on misbehaving learners), was the common disciplinary action in South African schools. However, the current South African legislative framework declares corporal punishment illegal (Human Rights Watch, 2001, p. 7; The Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act, 1997). And to assist teachers in disciplining unruly learners, the National Department of Education has developed a manual for teachers on alternative modes of discipline. Despite this new framework, evidence from responses shows a learning environment that is typical of the previous apartheid schools. The traditional formality of the teacher-learner relationship that is characterized by power, control and undemocratic practices by the teacher, was evident not only from the classroom seating arrangement (all learners are sitting in straight rows facing the chalkboard), but also as many learners mentioned that harsh and unfair corporal punishment was still administered by teachers, including the principal: The principal and classmates beat me to death when I was in grade 7. (Transvestite 04: born in a leap year) … when we were drunk at school, they called the police and the police beat us. I will never forget. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 01: age not indicated) … What I do not like is that if a teacher is angry about his or her own things, he or she just pour that anger on us who were not there (when those things annoyed him or her). Then he or she would beat us for indaba kaZibandlela (IsiZulu expression that has a literal meaning “for a December story”––which means that so severely that we’ll not forget that story for the whole year). {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 11: 16 years) Kwaku (It was) last year when uthisha ongasifundisi engena kubangwa umsindo (the teacher who does not teach us, got into the class) and I was asleep but he hit us all ezinqeni (at the back) even if I didn’t talk in my class. Sorry Shame!!! Angikaze ngikhale kanje ngangikhaliswa nanokuthi (I had never cried like this, I cried because) I did not make noise with other but!! (Female 14: age not indicated) The harsh discipline that certain teachers impose on learners, and the learners’ (and parents’) silences about it indicate that the school environment is still oppressive to learners. Although some learners mentioned that corporal punishment was not changing the behavior, there was little evidence that learners know it is a criminal offence as only one male learner saw corporal punishment as a rights violation. Many learners saw it as justifiable. For example, one learner stated: First thing I don’t like in my school is standing for hours at assemble and ukushawa (to be beaten) I can say I don’t like it but we do deserve it and I don’t think any one likes to be punished by being hitted on the bums or hands. (Female 14: age not indicated)
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From Van Greunen’s (1993) view of education that I discussed earlier, it is clear that education is part of the process of interaction between the child and his environment and it enriches this dialogue. Moreover, the quality of education on offer to the child will determine his or her outcome of development. As I argued earlier, and in support of what Van Greunen (1993) calls co-essentiality, the developing child actively participates in the interaction process to change and affect his or her circumstances while he or she is also simultaneously being changed and affected by the same circumstances. In South Africa, the new school curriculum, based on the values expressed in the constitution, attempts to facilitate this kind of dialogue between the learner and his or her environment. However, evidence presented in the previous section indicates that the school culture and ethos has not changed so as to adopt human rights values and deliver on the new curriculum. This situation means that for children who live in urban townships, and receive education that does not facilitate the dialogue between the child and his or her environment, the danger is that such children might lack a base on which to participate and contribute towards a meaningful life. In other words, they may not be able to make meaningful decisions about their lives and may become victims of the environment. The following section reveals evidence of how the urban township life and the ineffective township education negatively affect learners in these settings and make them victims of the township environment.
Effects on Learners Literature has proved that the township environment, which Van Greunen (1993) has described as an anti-child culture environment, has negative social, economic and educational influences that are not conducive to the development of the child. In the absence of effective education, children who grow up in such an environment might be negatively affected by it. Miyeni (2004), who grew up in Soweto Township (near Johannesburg) has expressed his hate of Soweto in his brief story “How I hate the place” and he says: If I could wave a magic wand and make a wish come true, I would wipe Soweto off the face of the earth and have leafy suburbs for all its residents. I hate the place with an unfathomable passion because it reminds me of my oppressor’s hold over me as I wriggled in pain under his grinning red face. Miyeni (2004) Similarly, learners who grow up in urban townships are affected by township conditions. The interpretation of learners’ drawings and poems provides us with an indication of some of the effects of urban township life on African learners. Not all participants were able to draw their self-portraits. Some learners started to draw, but gave up when they discovered they could not draw. I analyzed 30 learners’ drawings of their self-portraits (10 from male and 20 from female learners).
Female Learners The female learners’ drawings mostly show strongly positive attitudes of subjects who are achieving goals in their lives. The solitary figures are wearing beautiful, fashionable
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and sometimes professional clothes, necklaces, earrings and beautiful hairstyles. At least one drawing has a car next to the subject. However, 64% of the drawings do not have legs and feet, only 36% of the drawings have feet and legs. A few do not have hands and fingers. Only two of the female learners’ drawings are portraying subjects in particular scenes. For instance, see the descriptions of drawings below: Drawing 1. This drawing reflects an independent, bright and progressive life of a woman. In this, we see a woman wearing a dress, a necklace and carrying a small handbag. Next to the woman are a car and a flower above the car. The sun is shining from the back of the woman. (Female 33: 17 years)
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Drawing 2. This drawing shows a peaceful, prayerful woman with inner strength and progressive life. Here, we see a portrait of a woman at the centre and arrows radiate from the centre to point at other objects (the bible, trophy, heart, candle, flower, musical instruments) drawn in all corners of a page. The learner has given labels of what each object symbolizes: the heart symbolizes peace and love, the trophy symbolizes success, the flower symbolizes everlasting life, the candle symbolizes light and the bible represents prayer. She describes herself as the Christian who loves music. (Female 18: 18 years)
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Drawing 3. This drawing portrays isolated parts of the body with funny sexy gestures. For instance, we see a face with one eye closed labeled ‘ordinary,’ six isolated mouths two smiling, two with lips closed and one with a tongue sticking out of the mouth. The labels scattered among the parts of the body are ‘fit,’ ‘short hair,’ ‘tall,’ ‘long legs,’ ‘small lips’ and ‘small hands.’ (Female 17: 17 years)
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Drawing 4. This drawing portrays a woman dressed in beautiful fashionable clothes, with a label. She is wearing earrings and a beautiful hairstyle, but she has no feet. (Female 09: 18 years)
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The solitary figures indicate that learners have a positive self-image – they value self. The positive self image that the drawings project reflects the resilience that the girls learn from their mothers. As mentioned earlier, in townships, most females work hard to keep life going in their families. In the study, most female learners mentioned their mothers as role models. Assertiveness was evident in both the drawings and the poems, and contrary to what is commonly discussed in most literature on gender, that is, that females see themselves in relation to men, the female learners in the project described themselves as independent. Resilience and inner strength was also reflected from all the poems that the female learners wrote about themselves; for example: Me, Myself and I I’m independent (Female 3, 17 years) … I am a girl, a young township girl I may not be the pretty girl but I try to keep myself looking neat and Beautiful I’m not a person who lives up to The people’s expecties And for that I am glad To know that people don’t Like the way I am That keeps me going in life Female 01: 16 years … I’m going to rise and the day I rise you will be down I’m down but not for Long and I’m going up Slowly but surely I can’t give now I’ve come to far from where I started from. (Female 17: 17 years) The beautiful, seemingly expensive clothes and jewelry in the drawings is representative of the materialist and consumerist culture of the township life. However, while learners dream about this life and about achieving their goals, they do not have realistic plans of how they will realize their dreams. Therefore, the absence of feet and legs in most drawings indicate their insecurity in life.
Male Learners As in the females’ drawings, the male learners’ drawings show evidence of materialist and consumerist culture. The males drew subjects in fashionable clothes and most subjects were wearing neckties. About 50% of the drawings have solitary subjects. The
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rest of the drawings have subjects drawn in social contexts, reflecting alcohol drinking, drugs, guns and smoking, condoms and cars. One drawing has an accompanying female and an expensive BMW car. See descriptions below: Drawing 5. The drawing reflects a solitary subject wearing decent clothes and a necktie. He is smoking and the words written at the bottom say: “I’m smoking weed, Folishi bbolwabishi.” (Male 03: 17 years)
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Drawing 6. This drawing shows a solitary subject lying down, stoned with drugs, the tongue is protruding and saliva dripping from the mouth. Next to him are injection, dagga, benzene, glue, ugologo (alcohol), petrol and drugs. (Male 11: Age not indicated)
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Drawing 7. This drawing shows a solitary subject holding a bottle in one hand and a gun pointing up, with another hand. There is a car next to the subject. (Male 02: 18 years) Drawing 8. In this drawing, the male subject is with the female subject. The male is smoking. There is a small table with several bottles of alcohol on top and some bottles are scattered on the floor. There are two chairs on the others side of the subjects and on another side is a BMW car, which has what I can call here a gun-firing device attached at the back. (Male 06: 17 years)
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Unlike females’ drawings, which showed some insecurity, only 20% of the subjects in males’ drawings were without feet and legs. This reflects that male learners feel that they are in control of their lives although there was no evidence that they have clear plans for their lives. Apart from the socially defined male status that they have, male learners might belong to gangs, a position which also gives them a sense of security. The social scenes which show expensive clothes, expensive liquor, the presence of guns as well as “binge and booze” in dagga smoking, condoms, doing drugs and drinking alcohol, indicate tensions between male power (defined by the resources that one has: money, cars, guns) and male powerlessness (which shows itself through
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engagement in risky and self-destructive behavior). This reflects that beyond feelings of security and being in control, males have deep-seated insecurity that projects itself as self-destructive behavior. This is also in line with many gender studies that have revealed that societies socialize males not to show their true feelings. Contrary to the female learners, who mentioned their mothers as role models, none of the male learners mentioned fathers, mothers, teachers or anybody else as role models. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that male learners see gangsters as role models. One would not normally associate the wearing of a necktie with “binge and booze” in drug, alcohol and sex. However, male learners’ drawings reflected subjects wearing neckties, though in social scenes where there is indulgence in drugs, alcohol, sex (indicated by the presence of condoms), and so on. From this, I conclude that male learners fantasize about power. Moreover, from the township point of view, power is associated with powerful gangsters who rule all spaces in the township. The gangsters’ power is defined in terms of their involvement in risky behavior as well as what they have: the expensive clothes, the expensive liquor, the powerful guns, the beautiful girls, the big money, the big cars as well as what they can do: their involvement in risky behavior like doing drugs and crime. In line with what is reflected in the drawings, drug and alcohol abuse is obviously a growing problem and many male learners are involved in the abuses. Most expressed that they had been at some stage arrested by police although they did not mention the kinds of crimes they did. Crime, violence and drugs, feature as a common theme in many responses from male learners, see for instance the following prose and stories: What can I tell u about me, the name is anonamous, with no house, also known as a suicidal vigilanty, Addicted and evicted by my crazy sisters Aunti, I walk with a bounce, Talk while im smocking an ounce, stalk all my prey then pounce, right before they announce, that he was the forgotten spouse, silence sharper than violence, this Geometric alliance, is fucked up like defiance, Domestic violence, thretoning my innocence, please do confess that I travelled a parralel universe, into an uncoatios diverse, lyrical curse, this clinical curse, has made most of my thoughts worse, moving forward in reverse, for these words, are made real, by my conscious skill, A contest of poing pills, Just like I fear ivy, I scribble on my Dear diary. (Transvestite 04, born in a leap year) … I have a problem of liking drugs now I cannot stop, and I have a problem of liking girls too much and that disturbs me in my schoolwork. And I have a problem, with my relationship with my parents because I have given them too much trouble, I take other people’s things and loose them and people report at home. My parents no longer buy me any clothes because they say I am still doing drugs; I will sell them and buy drugs. And I do not feel all right in my head. I need a person who can help me with all the problems I have. And help me reduce the drinking of alcohol because it makes me mad. And at school, I am troublesome to teachers. Now I do not like this thing. I need a person who can advise me so that I listen and stop being rude to teachers, and I become popular with good things and not bad things. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 11: age not indicated) The unforgettable moment in my life is when I was arrested. It is when I experience crime. (Male 02: 18 years)
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Some More Effects High rates of crime and violence in townships greatly compromise the lives of children in these settings and make them vulnerable. Much behavior that is violent, harassing and degrading has become normalized in urban township societies in that it remains unchallenged by communities and not addressed by relevant structures such as police services. For instance, if the bus and taxi stops were unsafe for children in towns and cities, the parents, teachers, police and security companies would immediately address the situation. This exemplifies how in South Africa the different contexts still influence service delivery. The numerous shebeens in urban townships that lead to common public drinking and drunkenness has normalized alcohol drinking. Several learners did not see alcohol as bad and at least one said drugs were not bad either. However, the following learner expressed contrasting views: … I wouldn’t say alcohol is bad because I’m one of those who drinks alcohol but infact it is bad for us because uma sesiphuzile umuntu akakwazi (if we are drunk, one cannot) even control him/her self. (Female 11: 16 years) Some learners have developed “unhealthy” coping strategies to deal with crime, conflict or violence. They do not assume the victim status in their communities; instead, they return violence with violence. In addition, they view violence as the solution to any conflict: … I do not like a person who gossips about me, tell lies about me, and provokes me I do not want to fight with people because I am quick to fight and I am not scared of anybody. I do not rely on anybody except myself. (Female 12: 18 years) As another learner expressed it: Near my home I am not scared because when a person does anything to one of us (people in the neighbourhood), we all go straight to that person and we teach him/or her a lesson that he/she will not repeat that in future. {Translated from isiZulu}(Female 11: 16 years) A number of gender stereotypes including sexual prowess for boys and “bitching” by girls emerged. Although there was no evidence of a passive, dependent and conventional female, girls still embrace traditional gender expectations for the future, such as getting married. Such beliefs may hold young females in abusive romantic relationships and raise their risk to HIV infection, pregnancy and violence. For the boys, power and sexual prowess is still important, as the following expresses: Many people regard me as isoka lamanyala (a man who is valued because of his many girlfriends) because I have had many girlfriends. Everywhere I go, I am also known for my playing of soccer, and I always speak about my football club which I support the-Orlando pirates. (Male 10: 18 years)
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However, there was evidence of some transformation from traditional gender role stereotypes. For example, female learners were more assertive. As discussed earlier, almost all female learners were comfortable with themselves and valued self, though they still mentioned beauty as an important quality. Particularly, female learners saw general cleanliness as important although one male learner expressed that he values cleanliness. The females’ career aspirations covered a wide range of fields. Interestingly, females mentioned careers that were traditionally for males such as being an advocate or accountant. Again, as is evident in the earlier quotations, fighting and alcohol drinking was not only associated with male learners, but also involves some female learners.
Implications – Life Skills Education and Social Competence Though more South African children are now being sent to schools, many African children are still confronted with an anti-child culture in their contexts. In the absence of effective curriculum delivery, the urban township environment greatly affects the lives of children in these contexts. However, the urban township environment cannot be held solely responsible for the proper development of children. As Van Greunen (1993) states, children are not passive recipients of home and environmental influences, but are actively involved in their own development. However, in order for this involvement to be meaningful for the child, education should intervene and facilitate the dialogue between the child and his or her environment. In this way, the child will become an author of his or her own life rather than a follower of meaningless behaviors, rituals and rules that are prevailing in his or her environment. Having said that, not all kinds of education can facilitate this dialogue. As Davidoff and Lazarus (2002, p. 4) state, a particular kind of education that: … provides a learning environment, which is safe yet exciting and challenging; where self-confidence is developed; where self-concept is positive and intact; and where there is meaning; where there is provision of rich enjoyable times; and where there are opportunities for personal development in the context of a humane society. The classroom is not the only space where such education is obtained. But, all the experiences that learners have at school shape their thinking, their values, their insights and their skills. For example, the values that the school holds, the way teachers relate to learners, the conditions of buildings, and all other practices and behaviors prevailing in the school. Clearly, the quality of the teacher that provides such education is equally important. In his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner (1993) included interpersonal intelligence (the ability to understand people and relationships), and the intrapersonal intelligence (the ability to be deeply aware of one’s inner feelings, intentions, and goals). Gardner (1993) argues that one can learn and nurture these intelligences. Given the context of the urban townships in South Africa, there is an urgent need to
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make these humanistic personal intelligences an integral part of the school curriculum through social and emotional education. As defined by Weinstein and Rosen (2003), social and emotional education means “strategies and techniques used to promote social and emotional competences.” In this education, learners learn to “read” themselves and others and then use that awareness to develop themselves, to be creative and to solve problems. In South African schools, this could be incorporated in Life Orientation (LO). The current school curriculum in South Africa has a new learning area, Life Orientation (LO), which is relevant in developing social competence in learners. As mentioned earlier, LO is outlined in the South African curriculum policy document, the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS) document (Department of Education, 2002). The RNCS document is based on the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) one aim of which is to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person.” Of the eight Learning Area Statements identified in the RNCS document, LO is central to the realization of this aim. Within the post-apartheid South African context, which is characterized by socio-political change and the fact that the country is facing many challenges such as socio-economic development, unemployment and environmental degradation, LO was introduced as a subject in schools. This was done in order to develop a sense of confidence and social competence that will enable learners to live well and contribute productively to the shaping of a new society. LO is an inter-disciplinary subject that “draws on knowledge, values, skills and processes embedded in various disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Human Movement Science, Labour Studies and Industrial Studies” (Department of Education, 2003). By integrating several disciplines in one subject, LO aims to guide learners to develop their full potential holistically. In this subject, learners will engage on “personal, psychological, neurocognitive, motor, socio-economic, and constitutional levels” to respond positively to the environment and assume responsibilities for their lives in order “to make the most of life’s opportunities” (Department of Education, 2003). The effects of the urban township environment on learners signify the urgency in properly teaching LO in schools in order to empower learners with knowledge and skills of addressing issues that affect them. For example, learners will know how their constitutional rights relate to corporal punishment as well as their safety and security on their way to and from school. Again, they will know their responsibilities and have relevant skills to respond to an environment that is full of gangsters, alcohol outlets, crime, drugs, HIV, and so on. However, for LO to have an impact, it has to be properly taught in schools. In addition, proper teaching of LO in schools depends on the teachers and the approaches they use in the classroom. As with all other subjects that in South African school curriculum outlined in the RNCS document, Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) forms the foundation for LO. This means LO teaching should follow OBE principles and approaches. For instance, the notion of a learner-centered approach is central to the OBE approach. It emphasizes that teachers should make place for, listen to and extend learners’ thinking in the classroom. Teachers are asked to focus on learners’ thinking and ways of knowing, to respect the learners’ diversity and to build on what learners already know. Teachers
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need to find out about learners’ experiences and how learners are thinking to help them build on and transform their ideas. This approach takes into cognizance the proven learning theories, which advance that what people learn is constrained or afforded by what they already know. Therefore, what learners think, say and do make sense to them in relation to what they know. The new curriculum (including LO) does not provide content detail. What is outlined in the RNCS document are outcomes that have to be achieved in each grade. This is because teachers are recognized as professionals who can make curriculum decisions in the best interest of learners and who do not have to rely on the dictates of a centrally devised syllabus. Therefore, teachers ought to be curriculum developers who would design a learning program according to the needs and levels of development of the learners. This means that the same outcomes will be achieved through a wide range of learning activities and contexts. Teachers must choose the content and locate the activity in contexts of relevance for their particular learners in order to achieve the set outcomes. Currently, LO is not implemented properly in schools because teachers have neither the knowledge nor the skills to implement it, despite having attended workshops organized by the Department of Education. Several studies have revealed the inadequacy of teachers in implementing LO. These teachers have not been educated as to the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of OBE. This gap needs to be filled by developing quality teacher-training programs for LO teachers to assist them in making sense of and adapting to new pedagogies. However, the curriculum alone will not bring about transformation in urban township schools. Therefore, to effectively serve young people in urban townships, culturally sensitive and youth-friendly programs have to be developed. These should aim to support learners in all facets of their lives. For example, several interventions such as the following, should be developed: ●
●
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Comprehensive counseling programs, which address multiple problems affecting learners. Within LO, social and emotional education should be well developed and made relevant to different contexts, such as urban township contexts, in which schools are situated. Educational and occupational learner support programs that will increase the learners’ chances of realizing their dreams. Programs that address the needs of learners who are no longer able to remain or communicate with their families, providing them with caring adults and organized community activities. Peer support programs in areas of substance and alcohol abuse, gang involvement, and sexual and physical abuse.
For such programs to be effective, communities, government and non-governmental organizations should assist school management, in systematically transforming their schools according to the existing legislative framework. Transformed schools will function as part of and with the communities in which they are situated. Unfortunately, funding for programs that target young people in urban townships for youth-driven programs is still very low.
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Conclusion This research highlights urban township life that renders youth vulnerable to violence, child and substance abuse, etc. Suggestions have been made and further research could be undertaken, particularly in implementing transformation in schools, proper implementation of the subject, LO, including incorporation of social and emotional competence education within LO, and developing quality teacher training programs and youth-driven, youth-friendly programs.
Notes 1. Matric constitutes the school-leaving exams that are taken during the final year of high school, and which will determine students’ chances for entrance to tertiary institutions. 2. There are two types of papers set for matric examination in each subject. One is set on higher grade and the other is set on standard grade. These papers differ according to the types of questions that are asked, and the level of thinking skills that they assess. For instance, a higher-grade paper would require higher levels of thinking and application of knowledge than the standard grade paper, which might require more of the acquired knowledge than the application of it. 3. Apartheid is originally an Afrikaans word, which means separation or segregation. Especially in South Africa, it has acquired the meaning of a system or policy of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race. 4. A shebeen is a person’s house, which has been turned into “a place where people can stop for a drink, a date, a chat or beautiful music” (Mona, 2005). 5. “Cool” is a word used in township slang, which means the best person, usually young males who are perceived to be having no problems because they can do whatever they want at any time. 6. The English language is still the Language of Learning and Teaching in most schools, while many teachers and school learners are second language speakers of English. 7. This learner identified him/her self as transvestite in the dialogue journal that was completed.
References Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act, Act No 33 of 1997. Allen, R. E. (Ed.) (1992). The concise oxford dictionary of current English. London: BCA. Babbie, E., & Mouton, J. (2002). The practice of social research. New York: Oxford University Press. Bhengu, R. (2004). My Soweto. In A. Roberts, & J. Thloloe (Eds.), Soweto inside out: Stories about Africa’s famous township (pp. 43–47). Johannesburg: Penguin Books. Brady, M., & Rendall-Mkosi, K. (2005). Tackling alcohol problems: Strengthening community action in South Africa. Cape Town: University of western Cape, School of Public Health. Brink, E., Malungana, G., Lebelo, S., Ntshangase, D., & Krige, S. (2001). Soweto: 16 June 1976. Cape Town: Kwela Books. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1984). The changing family in a changing world: America first? Peabody Journal of Education, 61(3), 52–70. Cele, N. (2004). “Equity of access” and “equity of outcomes” challenged by language policy, politics and practice in South African higher education: The myth of language equality in education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 18(1), 38–56. Chisholm, H., & Muller, J. (2000). A South African curriculum for the twenty first century. Report of the review committee on Curriculum 2005. Pretoria: Department of Education. Davidoff, S., & Lazarus, S. (2002). The learning school: An organisation development approach. Second edition. Cape Town: Juta.
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9 THE MIDDLE SCHOOL CLIMATE IN SENEGAL1: THE CASE OF THE DIOURBEL MIDDLE SCHOOL Abdou Karim Ndoye Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Sénégal
Introduction The province of Diourbel is one of the smallest in Senegal in terms of square mileage. It is, however, very densely populated, with a regional density of 243 inhabitants per km2 in 2004, and a total population of more than 115,000 (2004). The population is unequally distributed throughout the province. For example, and apropos this chapter, less than twenty percent of the provinces population lives in the town of Diourbel. Given its location, however, and relative proximity to the cities of Thies and Dakar, Diourbel has seen net population inflow from throughout Senegal. The town of Diourbel, which serves as the capital of Diourbel province, is characterized by its accessibility. It is a relatively populated town where one can find all governmental administrative services, from the Governor’s office to more basic services (water, electricity, and telephone services, etc.). Civil servants are numerous and people are engaged in a range of economic activities beyond agriculture and cattle raising. Greater-Diourbel, comprising settlements in the peri-urban zone of the town, is a poor district in which the population is generally low income civil servants, petty traders, farmers, and craftsmen. This section of the province suffers from the lack of roads, water network, public sanitation, and other services found in other areas.
The Research Issue The notion of school climate refers to the quality of work and communication perceived within the school. It gives a general indication of the atmosphere that prevails in the social relations of the values granted to individuals and the institutions as a living place. In other words, the climate of a school refers to the values and attitudes, and feelings that are obvious among the actors of the school (Fraser, Walberg, & Herbert, 1991; Freiberg, 1999; Gadbois, 1974; Sangsue, Vorpe, & Nguyen, 2004; Taguiri, 1968). In a middle school, for example, the climate is a subjective variable linked to the perception 183 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 183–204. © 2007 Springer.
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established by the teachers on their roles in relation with the students. It corresponds in general terms to the culture of the school and can be analyzed on the basis of the set of the perceptions of all the school actors. In recent years, a growing number of works have focused on the study of school climate. The literature shows that school performances is not simply a function of individual characteristics of the students, and student success, but are in some meaningful way influenced by the attitudes and behavior of the teachers. More specifically, some works have demonstrated that these attitudes and behavior contribute to determining school climate, and that this in turn facilitates the promotion of quality teaching (Brault, Durand, & Janosz, 2003; Janosz & Leclerc, 1993; Louis, 1998; Parkes & Stevens, 2000; Solmon, 1996; Thomas, 1976). In a middle school we can estimate that the school climate will be of great importance because it has an important impact on the quality of school life quality beyond issues directly related to the learning of the students (Janosz, Georges, & Parent, 1998; Rutter, 1983; Steinberg, 1996; Stickard, & Mavberry, 1986; Thiebaud, 2003). The question of education quality is of interest to decision-makers, planners, education managers, trade unions, families, communities, development agencies, and others, as well as educators who wish young people to master the key competences that allow them to participate to the new global knowledge economy (ADEA, 2004). Bearing in mind that quality education is the key to development, Senegalese political actors have determined that they must set quality education standards in general, with particular focus on middle schools (Bregman & Bryner, 2004; Ministére de l’Education, PDEF, 2003; Ndoye, 2003; Sourang, 2004). Through this policy they aim to implement the frameworks the country needs to realize an appropriate development policy, as well as articulated means by which to break the poverty circle. Taking into account the issue of quality in middle school education, the issue of the work climate for middle school teachers today appears not only as an important aspect, but as an imperative need. Given this, it seems strange that until recently while some studies have focused on the influence of the professional climate in firms (Brunet, 1983; Likert, 1967), few have studied school climate. In a more focused sense, even those studies done on school climate seem to put aside African middle schools. Finally, on those rare occasions when research interest looks at school climate, teachers’ opinion are only infrequently taken into account. This chapter aims to begin filling this gap through the use of a psycho-sociological framework in which the subjective perceptions of teachers are considered as firsthand, meaningful data. The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyze the atmosphere that prevails at the middle school of Greater-Diourbel. More precisely, the chapter looks at the impact that this climate may have had on the attendance and performances of the students.
Conceptual Framework Researchers in the field of psycho-sociology of education have established a set of similar results on the relation between school climate and school efficiency. Indeed, many researchers agree that schools differ not only in some of their ecological variables but also
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in the atmosphere and the climate (Halpin & Croft, 1963; Kalis, 1980; Owens, 1998), and that this difference bears on the results of the students (Brookover, Beady, Flood, Scweittzer, & Wisenbaker, 1979; Heck and Marcoulides, 1996). In the same way, Anderson (1992), Matluck (1987), Cruickshank (1990) and Bliss, Firestone, and Richards (1991) for North America review the research conducted on the influence of the climate on school results. Per the conclusions of these studies it seems that ecological variables (physical and material aspects) have a weak influence on school performances (Brunet, Brassard, & Corriveau, 1991; Janosz & Le Blanc, 1996; Klitgaard & Hall, 1974). It is important, however, to be cautious with such conclusions since some studies show that behaviour and academic success tend to be better in clean schools, thus favouring the view that a positive climate is good for learning (Rutter, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979). At the level of milieu variables (individuals and groups) it appears that the characteristics of the teachers (e.g., level of training; salary) and those of the schools (e.g., socio-economic markers; ethnic origin) have little influence on school performances. On the contrary, it seems that teachers’ morale is in positive correlation with school success (Ellett & Valberg 1979; Lumsden, 1998; Pelletier, Saeguin, Levesque, & Legault, 2002). Indeed, many studies indicate that the more the teacher’s surroundings offer social support the more people are motivated by what they do (Cropanzano & Kacmar, 1995; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Sagor, 1996; Short & Rinehart, 1992). About the social system variables (relations between individuals and groups) it seems that good relations between school administrators and teachers (Ellett & Valberg, 1979; Sweeny, 1992), and between students and teachers (Chittom & Sistrunk, 1990; Grisay, 1993; Phi Delta Kappan, 1980) favour school success. On the other hand, decision-making, when shared with teachers (Fitzgerald, Young, & Grootenboer, 2003; Norman, 1988), and in combination with good communication (Gonder & Hymes, 1994; Hanna, 1998; Silverman, 1970) seem to positively influence students’ performances. As for the school climate variable, acknowledging its role as a force on the various factors linked with the students’ and teachers’ work and welfare has been supported by many researchers. Bloom (1964), Bandura (1969) and Savoie (1993) each recognized the environment as a powerful source of influence on learning. Students show greater readiness for learning (Janosz et al., 1998) and better performances (Bulach, Malone, & Castleman, 1994; Stronge & Jones, 1991) when they perceive the climate of their school as good. Also Sweeny (1988) strongly says that if the school climate is positive, the teachers stimulate learning and improve pupils’ performances. Finally, Klicpera and Gasteiger-Klicpera (1994) demonstrated the existence of a significant relation between a bad classroom climate, a lack of confidence between teachers and pupils, and a high rate of aggression. In the same way, classes with few problems of aggression are marked with good relations with teachers. These results do not differ from those reported by Debarbieux, Dupuch, and Montoya, (1997); Janosz et al. (1998); Steffgen (2003); and Bowen and Desbiens (2004), all of whose works say that the climate of a school is narrowly in relation with the perception of the problems of violence in the school. Among the rare studies on the school climate in developing countries Samoff, Assie-Lumumba, and Cohen, (1996), and Garrett (1999) reached the conclusion that some organizational measures (e.g., school equipment; infrastructure; material resources; availability of course books; hours devoted to learning; teachers’ qualification; etc.) do exercise significant influence on the school climate.
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Studies in the African context have shown that in middle school, academic variables had an effect on the teachers’ morale as well as on the school success of the pupils. Among variables analyzed were school authorities’ policy, school buildings, syllabi, teaching styles, class oral interaction, staff’s qualification, equipments, course books, didactic materials, computers and printing materials, personal contacts, school security (Fuller, 1986; Lahaye, 1987; Watkins, 2000). With an interest in the effect of the middle school climate on academic performance we take into account the fact that, despite the heap of results suggested by the authors quoted here, none was researched and uncovered through empirical work conducted in Senegal. Conducting such a study does raise some questions of methodology. For example, which pieces of information ought be collected? From whom should the data collection be taken? How will the collected data be analysed? How will the results be exposed?
Methodological Framework The present psycho-sociological research is exploratory and consists of a qualitative study with the teachers. The proposed approach used intensive interviews to better emphasize the meanings which carry the perception of the teachers of Greater Diourbel.2 As the aim was to deepen the knowledge of school life through a careful, structured, scrupulous study of the motivations and perceptions and intentions of the subjects the methodology was necessarily to use the new research paradigms in the social sciences, and identify and preserve the individual meanings offered by those interviewed (Rogers, 1985).
Subjects For the choice and the number of subjects of inquiry we relied on Bertaux who described a sampling procedure that seemed particularly suitable to the characteristics of our study. It is on the concept of saturation, defined as being “the phenomenon through which, after a number of interviews, the researcher gets the impression that he has nothing new more to learn as far as the object the inquiry is concerned ” (Bertaux, 1980, p. 205). Following this logic, the election of the teachers to be interviewed proceeded without any problem in terms of the number of subjects, though some difficulty did arise at the level of the redundancy of the gathered pieces of information. In the case of this present research we collected information through deepened interviews with 13 teachers.
Measurement Tools An interview grid covering all the themes of this research was elaborated to be used as a flexible guide rather than a rigid protocol. The interview scheme was tested and refined in the course of the first phase of contact. The approach to data collecting
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was planned in two steps: first, initial contact was made with the political authorities of the province. This was followed with contact with the educational authorities of the school. Only on receiving their approval did contact with the teachers take place. These meetings were aimed at rousing the support of some of those people and their participation in the inquiry for others. The Target Group Deepened Interviews (TGDI) were conducted by two assistants, and took place at the school. The research assistants were well-trained in sociology, and had rich experience in research interviews. Systematically in the course of the deep interviews and remaining inquiry, tests of concordance were administrated in order to check first if each interviewer was gathering information in line with the research objectives. The interviews lasted 2 hours each on the semi-directive mode. Subjects were asked to freely answer general questions on each theme of the study. More specific questions were then asked to glean more precise impressions of the initial response. In this way, dimensions and themes were allowed to develop over the course of the individual interviews. The interviews were then taped and transcribed “verbatim” later.
Analysis Data was initially analysed every evening in order to identify any holes in information gathering or potential new directions. Lists were made of main ideas, words, themes, phrases and quotations which translated the perceptions and feeling of the subjects vis-à-vis their work conditions. This first-level analysis consisted of various deepened readings to get out the common specificities and the different aspects of the collected corpus. Thus, many partial analyses were written in the course of the first 2-week period of field inquiry and in the 4 weeks before the writing of the first version of the study. The fidelity of the data was maintained via regular review by two trained judges who were to reach full agreement. A more deepened content analysis was done when writing the final version. The gathered data was submitted to a double reading: first via a grid highlighting the main socio-demographic characteristics of each subject, and then full transcription of the interviews were done with EPI-INFO software designed for processing and analysis qualitative data. This allowed us to identify links between social conditions and the personal life experience of the teachers for comparison.
Results Teacher Characteristics The teachers were interviewed on the elements that we identified as being most immediately linked to their teaching and the administration of the middle school. These included: – Some important features of the individuals (sex, marital status). See Table 1. – The main conditions for the practice of their profession (state of the school buildings, types of equipment, tasks and material resources).
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Table 1.
Personal and professional profiles of the teachers of Greater Diourbel Middle School (GDMS)
Family and first name
Sex
Age
Matrimonial status
Académic level
Professional diploma
Professional status
Bachelors A’ Level Under graduate
MSTC MSTC Computer diploma MSTC MSTC MSTC STAPS MSTC MSTC MSTC MSTC ESTC ESTC
MST MST Part time teacher
Married Single M M. Sarr C. T. Kone M. Fall
M M M
49 51 32
M. Thiam F. Seck A. Badji B. Gning M. Sene M. Seck R. Diouf B. Ndione S. Gueye A. D. Diaw Number of teachers
M M M M M M F M M F
27 34 34 32 27 44 37 27 48 49
S
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8
1
Under graduate Under graduate B. A M. A A’ level A’ Level A’ level M. A M. A A’ level
MST MST MST Part time teacher MST MST MST MST Primary school teacher Primary school teacher
4
Notes: MSTC: Middle School Teaching Certificate. MST: Middle School Teacher. ESTC: Elementary School Teaching Certificate.
The teaching body of the Middle School consists of eleven male and two female teachers. Eight of the men are married with one wife, and three are single. One female teacher is married, the other single. This faculty composition aligns with the national demographic of teachers in Senegal (Ndoye, 1996). The discrepancy males/females is a difficulty in a school where girls’ excellence is promoted when we consider that the sociological studies on that question underlined the positive impact of the female presence on the schoolgirls’ learning (Ndoye, 1999).
Age The average age of the teachers is 38 years, with the oldest being 51 and the youngest 27. Eight teachers are under 40 years, with five between 44 and 51 years. More than half of the teachers are under 35 years. This relative youth is linked on the one hand, to the recent development of the middle schools, and on the other hand, to the fact that at the completion of their secondary studies some students are recruited as teachers in middle school after a 2 year training at the University Teacher Training School.
Academic Level The general level of the teacher training and preparedness is not uniform. It extends from the four teachers with GCE-A Level qualifications, to the two teachers who hold Masters degrees. Most of the teachers were trained at the University Teacher Training
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School (ENS) for 2 years to be qualified with the middle school Teaching Certificate, and most teacher recruitment happens at this training school. There are two teachers without any training. They are substitute teachers recruited by the State because of the lack of teachers.
The Physical State of the School According to the school Principal the middle school is up-to-date and well located at the crossroad of many villages. Its physical state is good for it is a new unit. This opinion is shared by the female under-teacher who says that the school is up-to-date but is poorly equipped. “There is just the minimal equipment to allow its functioning, the comfort is really poor. We would like to have offices at the level of our status of teacher trainers. Truly it would be a shame for me to receive my female friends in such an office (and what an office!). Have a glance at the Principal’s office, it is a true attic.” (Verbatim) Some teachers think that the middle school looks like a rural school. Recalling his first impression on his arrival at the middle school a teacher says: On my arrival here for the first time, I asked the taxi driver if he was not mistaken so much the middle school in front of which I was had the profile of an elementary school. It is the reason why people say that it is a bush middle school. (Verbatim) The art education teacher talks in the same way: I was discouraged to work in the open air; the pupils do not like this school which is deprived of all and they would prefer to attend other middle schools with a better standing. (Verbatim) In the unanimous opinion of the teachers what is embarrassing about the physical state of the middle school is not the lack of comfort in classrooms, but the lack of a wall. One teacher says: The lack of fence round the middle school allows animals very often to go into the classrooms and disturb the courses. Such conditions present major risks as well for the teachers as for the students. (Verbatim) Although the physical state of the middle school is unsatisfactory it must be noted that its presence in the peri-urban zone is very much appreciated by the populations. Indeed the Greater Diourbel Middle School had been built to meet the real needs of education of the basic community. Most of the pupils of that community had difficulty attending secondary schools because of the long distances to such schools, and also because of the high cost of education in private-owned schools. It remains, however, that the middle school has no fence or surrounding wall3 and is under-equipped.
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The General State of School Premises The general opinion of the teaching staff is that the premises of the middle school are in an unhealthy and uncomfortable state. This unhealthy state is due to two main reasons. First, the lack of general health and sanitation awareness among students. Second, the lack of a surrounding wall, which lack puts the school in the situation where it is impossible to control its academic space which is then used as a passageway by cars, taxis, pedestrians, and even cattle. A quick visit to the classrooms indicates the low level of awareness of sanitary behaviour and environmental hygiene among students. As a rule the classrooms are not regularly cleaned, despite the presence of a cleaning group composed primarily of girl students. These rooms are compared to rubbish heaps (scattered waste paper pieces, fruit skins, tissues, and pieces of stuff … etc.). The schoolyard is also flooded with plastic bags and rubbish of all kinds. The Principal explains this unhealthy situation of the yard by the fact that before the opening of the school the site was reserved and used as a public rubbish-place. In spite of the students’ mobilisation, the buried waste still poses problems especially in the schoolyard where the plastic bags and rubbish are scattered. As for the lack of a surrounding wall, the Principal says, in an unquiet whisper: This Middle school is transformed into a live stock park at times for herds of goats, sheep and cattle. In the morning, the cattle cross the schoolyard to the pastures and in the evening they cross back. This lack of wall … sets a non-security situation as well for the pupils as for the teachers.4 (Verbatim) Critically the teaching body is unanimous on the nakedness of the Middle School of Greater Diourbel. Some teachers do not like it and see in it disrespect for teachers. As explains one of them: They do not respect the State’s agents for we work [in] classrooms with untiled floors and a lot of dust. No one minister or engineer would like to work in our conditions. The State should have more consideration for teachers and pupils. (Verbatim) In addition, the lack of ceiling fans in a town where the temperatures between April and July may reach 45C (approximately 113F) hinders efforts at teaching, especially in the afternoon: “The perspiration is too intense and it is sometimes impossible for the teachers and pupils to give or follow courses,” says a teacher. (Verbatim)
Classrooms The middle school started with two forms (1st and 2nd) at the school reopening of 1996–1997. It was in the course of the 1998–1999 school year that the Ministry of Education (ME) built two other classrooms. These classrooms have untiled floors, and
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Evolution of the students’ numbers 1996–2001
Numbers Classe 1st Form Total Number (B–G) Number of girls Girls’ rates %
1996–1997
1997–1998
1998–1999
1999–2000
2000–2001
50 20 40
75 20 26.7
83 20 24.1
148 59 38.9
145 48 33.1
Classe 2nd Form Total Number Number of girls Girls’ rates %
100 23 23
74 25 33.8
119 38 31.9
123 36 29.3
151 63 41.7
Classe 3rd Form Total Number Number of girls Girls’ rates %
– – –
81 22 27.2
92 29 31.5
119 41 34.5
110 32 29.09
Classe 4th Form Total Number Number of girls Girls’ rates %
– – –
– – –
61 23 37.7
87 31 35.6
92 38 41.3
Source: Archives ME, Dakar, 2000.
lack sufficient pupils’ desks, built-in-blackboards, teachers’ desks, and book shelves. The floors, combined with the lack of a good cleaning program contribute to make the classrooms unhealthy. Each classroom, on average, holds 28 desks, with enrolment of between 92 and 145 at 2000–2001, even as the official ratio is 55 pupils for a teacher (Table 2). Thus, students do not have enough places to sit in the classrooms. In addition, the middle school suffers from a lack of classrooms. To make up for this deficit teachers are compelled to borrow rooms in the elementary school, Ngor Sene, 15 minutes away from the middle school. The middle school has got eight classes, all of which would occupy the four rooms in the same building. Instead, by making profitable use of the vacancy in the nearby elementary school, which is empty of its own students in the afternoon, the middle school has adopted a double-tide system, in which the middle school holds courses at the elementary school on Monday and Friday afternoons as well as Saturday mornings, so as to meet the regular hours of teaching stated in the middle school curriculum and syllabi. However, these movements to and from the elementary school and middle school are tiring for the pupils and teachers and at times impact the duration of the courses.
Educational Materials The Greater Diourbel Middle School is remarkable for the lack of course books and teaching material. Taking into account the financial situation of the relevant provincial governing bodies overseeing education, the middle school is sometimes confronted with reductions in the funds for distribution of course books and other materials. Most of the teachers say that they make use of all means at their disposal to help in their courses. In maths classes, for example, one teacher says that each year he is compelled
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to write a synthesis of the application exercises at the end of each chapter for his students to master his courses. He also writes for them a collection of paper topics for the GCE-O Level (B.F.E.M) school leaving exam to help them in their studies. The other teachers are in the same situation, with each making best efforts to find the books selected for the year’s syllabus, along with any pertinent teaching supports (photocopies, mimeos, etc.) to aid students in acquiring the necessary knowledge. One teacher says this by way of illustrating the situation: It is impossible for me to correctly teach my art education activities because we can’t either mix colours or stock the pupils’ works. (Verbatim) This point of view is reinforced by his colleague, the German teacher: For the German courses only three students have books they bought. The Middle School has seven reading books only for the 3rd Form, which compels me to have photocopies or to write out all application drills on the blackboard. (Verbatim) Even the gym teacher is not spared by that shortage because he has to find his own supports for physical education (buying weights to throw, or accept using worn-out equipment). As for the appropriateness of the available course books, the teachers agree that those they have are in small quantities and are out-dated. One teacher says: Available books are out-dated; the syllabus has changed but the course books have not followed. (Verbatim) To avoid this difficulty, the teachers use tricks. One of them says: We are compelled to make a medley of books to teach the lessons on the syllabus. (Verbatim) In short, it must be said that the teachers suffer from the lack of books on methodology, as well as concerns supplemental audio and video material. In language courses the audio material remains indispensable for the improvement of pronunciation and listening skills. It is the same in natural sciences or life and health sciences courses, in which experiments constitute important parts of the course. In the end, it can be said that the middle school is pedagogically poorly-equipped. The available equipment, including library services, is very limited.
Study Syllabus and Teaching Methods Most of the interviewed teachers have declared that the syllabus is too long and even ambitious. Says one, The syllabus is ambitious though rich.
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Another joins in: The syllabus is not difficult but long if compared with the number of hours. The content is good in the whole but the time devoted to teaching is short. Hardly do we teach half of the syllabus. (Verbatim) Some teachers insist that the syllabus does not often take into account local realities. Here there is a real discrepancy between the official syllabi of the ministry and those used on the ground. As explains one of the teachers: The selected themes on the syllabi are very interesting but sometimes there is misadaptation of the content to the study milieu. In fact a standard syllabus which is schemed by the ministry of education does not allow to take into account the realities specific to the milieu in which the school is and where the syllabuses are in use. (Verbatim) The words of the teachers reflect a set of strategies used to complete the courses and adapt them to reality. The most common strategies consists of site visits, lectures, class debates, language club facilitation, thematic research groups, school twinning, etc. These practices are pertinent because they allow the students to acquire new knowledge in many fields mostly related to their preoccupations. As one teacher puts it: Such activities allow facilitating exchanges with other students and can rouse vocations. (Verbatim) In addition to methodological matters, the teachers state that they use other themes to take into account local realities. Among these topics are the rural exodus, the “Moodu Moodu” phenomenon, family ceremonies, civic education, sexually transmitted diseases5 (STDs)/AIDS, youth reproduction health, etc. These various strategies allow the teachers to deal with the interests of their students who live in a fast-changing society, especially regarding globalisation, with ever more acute informal constraints on various topics.
Grading and School Performance The teachers universally recognize the major difficulty in respect to the practice of seeking student papers worked on over two-semesters. Instead, they resort to quick evaluations with oral questions before starting their courses to be sure the lessons are regularly comprehended. In addition, they schedule a semester class exam and often a semester paper. Still, given the heavy enrolments, it remains difficult to efficiently check student performances and to bring in the best timely pedagogical and appropriate changes. Yet despite the non-continuous nature of student assessment and the conditions of the middle school, the academic performances are good. As the Principal proudly says: We won the Olympics of 1998, and for the GCE-O Level (BFEM) we always are among the best middle schools. We are regularly quoted as a reference at the level of the town of Diourbel, which we deserve. (Verbatim)
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The analysis of the school quitting and class repeating rates we were given by the school’s administrators shows that indeed the middle school has a fairly good retention record. In 2000, class repetition rates were between 15 and 26%, higher in the 3rd and 4th Forms, those working on the GCE-O level exams. School quitting rates are between 0.8 and 8.1%. Answering a question on the pupils’ performances, the Principal underlines that: The girls do not do less for the good results of the school. They have good academic results and make people requestion the sex stereotypes on their aptitudes to understand sciences and maths and technics (SMT). In the Middle School itself the pupils with the best performances are the girls. Even for the G.C.E-.O’ Level our girls are among the best of the middle schools. (Verbatim) The Principal’s opinion was confirmed by all the teachers, according to whom the best students of the Middle School are girls, who are more motivated in their studies. But this motivation is not equal. According to one teacher: Village pupils are more motivated than town ones who often neglect their studies for other activities such as TV/video watching, rap music, games, entertainment in dancing rooms, tea round. (Verbatim) The motivation of the rural students is seen in the fact that they still believe in the utility of the school. Studying is their main entertainment. A teacher explains: Some pupils are motivated even though there is no longer a reference model because they still believe in school. In other words they believe that studying is necessary for success. (Verbatim) Indeed despite the difficult conditions they live within and the distance they walk daily (an average of 7 km per day), the village pupils are the most punctual and regular in their performances. A teacher witnesses: You should see the abnegation with which these pupils work at school. Measured with their life condition the commitment of these pupils can be understood only through their motivation and resolution and all the hope they invest in their studies. (Verbatim) We can, on the one hand, think that the interest the pupils have in their studies, especially the rural world girls, comes from the new strategies of education which have other motivations. As Pilon and Yaro (2000) express it: It is less for these disfavoured fringes to climb the social scale through education than to reach social integration, which more and more necessitates the minimal mastering of the basic elements of education. In this perspective school is no longer perceived with the only view of getting a promised work, it has other basic functions (to read and write French, to know how to make one’s way through the
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public services) which from now on are included in the education request expressed by parents. In fact the acquisition of these basic functions can be a factor of individual or group emancipation, an instrument of appropriation of different capitals (symbolic, social, politic, economic) and various knowledge (practical, technical, of communication). (Quoted by Gerard, 1989) On the other hand, we can recall the changing rationales for education, that is, give account of the fact that for some, the valorisation of the social capital gained from school performance has new meanings and motivations because it accesses other socioeconomic areas. Alternatively, it may prepare girls for marriage in a marketplace in which the main clients are the well-to-do migrants (Moodu Moodu) seeking educated wives. Essential then is the debate relative to the ends of education in their concrete modalities of implementation. In this view, we can wonder about impact of the “Moodu Moodu” phenomenon on the degree of motivation of the pupils regarding their studies. Indeed, one of the aims of education is to get a job and a salary. The potential advantages that can be drawn from education may be motivating factors or discouraging factors at the time one registers for school. If children must, at the end of their schooling, join in the long queues of those who look for a job, parents might be more inclined toward disillusionment, and so encourage their children to explore other possibilities of a more immediate reward type. The choice brings into question the postulate according to which socio-economic success is a consequence of conventional schooling. Sometimes the real discrepancy between the hopes of society and what school offers is what gets uncovered. Again, the “Moodu Moodu” example is pertinent enough in this aspect. As says one teacher: With the Moodu Moodu phenomenon the pupils study to become traders. (Verbatim) He goes with his analysis to explain: Trade is an investment with immediate yielding and a Baol-Baol gives more importance to yielding than to academic knowledge acquisition. So they do not hesitate to choose between school and trade. (Verbatim)
Student Discipline The teachers are unanimous regarding the pupils’discipline. All say that the middle school students are quite disciplined. Some cases of indiscipline may occur. For example, to refuse to obey or to take a class admission ticket after missing class. It is noticed that such cases are often those of “resheltered” pupils from other schools who rely on their parents’ protection sometimes having great influence in the town of Diourbel. A teacher states: But except the cases that may be handled, and that happen about the end of the school year when the students are tired, the pupils are disciplined and even shy. (Verbatim)
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The Quality of the School Relations It is important to observe that nearly all the teachers affirm that the relations between the pupils are good on the one side, owing perhaps to the fact that most of them are from the district, and on the other side because they live in a space of communication and meeting which allows them to strengthen their relations (home, English club, German club … ). Elsewhere the relations between students and teachers are good generally because many of the teachers have their sons and daughters in the middle school, or their nieces, nephews, etc. This special aspect of the school may explain the quality of the relations between the teachers and their students. We can notice the good relations between the Principal and his students. Many teachers think the Principal is a very gentle and available man. One of them gives this opinion: He is a school Head who is not authoritative. He is very soft. He has good fathersons relations with his students, for he is before all a family father. (Verbatim) Nevertheless, there are sometimes unhappy conflicts between students and teachers. They may be so strong that the pupils refuse to attend their courses. That happened with one pupil who since school began has not attended the maths class of a teacher. The problem is still on and the student’s training in maths may be damaged considerably. Living in such a conflictual situation the pupils use the class walls as a framework for the expression of their soul. Indicates one teacher: So most of the teachers and under teachers are taunted and jeered on the walls of the classrooms. An example of this: “Mrs. X is a she-monkey” (Mrs. X is as ugly as a monkey) or “Mr. Y has no guts.” Even the Principal is not spared. He says: I happen to read on the walls words about myself that are not polite at all. I simply ask to erase them. Let us notice that this practice is not specific to our middle school. In most of the secondary schools and middle schools and even at the university kids are used to expressing themselves on the walls of the classrooms. (Verbatim) These disagreements do not seem limited to the relations between students and teachers. Through some four interviews we recognized a conflictual situation between the Principal and some members of the teaching staff. On this point the Principal is blamed for not calling a meeting of the Management Committee to report on the pupils’ annual registrations and the amount of the school year budget. And a teacher says: In spite of all the initiatives taken to have information on the registration of the pupils and on the budget the Principal refuses to communicate with us. He even dared to forbid a teachers’ meeting and sent us an explanation mail. We talked to the Academic Inspector (I.A) and to the Departmental Inspector of the Ministry of National Education (IDEN) to settle this problem but with no results. (Verbatim)
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The point of view of those teachers is interesting because it fairly well illustrates the difference felt by the teachers between the constraints of a concerted effort to represent the school in a positive light and the personal way the Principal manages the school. We can wonder whether this lack of communication by the Principal is not the source of the accusation against himself by one of the teachers. This charge is: There is money misuse because for five years the management committee has not met and we have no pedagogical and logistic material and no chalk nor any support. (Verbatim) Another teacher mentions a conflict that opposes him and the Principal about the printing of course papers and other supports. He says: This school is badly run; sometimes I have great difficulties to have printed material. At the end of his interview with us, the Principal in responding to his conflicts with some teachers didn’t deny them. Rather, he sought to emphasize the concerted effort to present the school positively and to lower the conflict around differences of opinion on school matters. For him, the conflictual situation with some of the teachers arose from misunderstanding. So, in his mind, and in the general interest of the school, it would be good to organize a session to call the management committee in order to establish a good atmosphere. One underteacher agreed, saying: In all human communities there are conflicts and disagreements that sometimes put fire in the atmosphere, but people should overcome them. (Verbatim) A second teacher concurred: These divergences should be hidden for the interest of the school. We all have to do things in the interest of the school and the pupils. (Verbatim) About the relation between the administration and the pupils some misunderstanding is noticed. A teacher said: The underteacher is very authoritative and hard with the pupils. Maybe because he is from the secondary school where the students are more troublesome. He wants to impose himself on!! (Verbatim) The underteacher-in-chief indicated that he sees his work as being to have students respect school by-laws in the most acceptable way. Regarding the relation between the teachers and school girls, the interviews reveal that they are simply pedagogical. If in general student-teacher relations are good there will be, nevertheless, a tense climate between some students and some teachers. It seems that the middle school exemplifies the phenomenon described by Barry, the
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Principal of the Middle School Mamadou Diaw, Thiès, Senegal, in his article “Crise d’autorité et violence dans nos lycées.” He wrote: If we scrutinize things we quickly see that the phenomenon in fact (not new in our education system) is the revelation of two bad things which have been developing for a long time slowly in our education system: the lack of authority and violence … . These bad things of course can be explained by an objective situation due to the multifold-crisis context that stirs our society and also to the serious and material and human carelessness that often causes great difficulty in the running of our secondary and middle schools. (Wal Fadjri, number 2781 of June 23–24, 2000, p. 10)
Security Climate On the whole, the teachers affirm that the lack of a wall around the middle school leads to some insecurity for teachers as well as students. In illustration, one female underteacher tells us: One day I was alone in the office and I was aggressed by a madman. I shouted out breathlessly. I locked up myself in. It was the same on another day when a bull attacked a group of students. One of them with the bull running after her escaped thanks to her great experience with animals. She laid down flatly breathless and motionless. Her friends kept on telling her not to move or breathe. A while later the bull went away. (Verbatim) Additional cases of insecurity were mentioned by teachers. Before the digging of the foundations of the surrounding wall, carts, and cabs would sometimes go through the school grounds at high speed, which endangered the lives of both students and teachers. Other comments mentioned cases of theft of books and documents in the school secretary’s office, stone throwing by the kids of the district and naked madmen strolling in the vicinity of the Middle School. And yet no cases of physical violence, sexual harassment, or sexual abuse have ever been brought in the middle school. The interviewed teachers did refer to pupils who smoke cigarettes and, very rarely, “yamba,” or marijuana. For these teachers, most of the pupils smoke for mimetic reasons, doing so in the communication space or in their tea-rounds. But inasmuch as the teachers fear it, and inasmuch as marijuana consumption is more an urban phenomenon, it is obvious that as Diourbel itself grows in population, the youth of Diourbel will not be able always to escape from it, particularly on the occasion of dancing parties and “fourals,” music concerts, or tea-rounds. Those meeting spaces of the youth also constitute places of sexual contacts between the pupils and occasions of STD and AIDS contamination. Recent inquiries on the AIDS prevalence at the level of the secondary and middle schools reveal rates that are higher than the national average rate (2%). This is a worrisome situation if we know that most sexual intercourse at that age is unprotected and can lead to undesired pregnancies, illegal abortions, and/or other potentially serious consequences for the girls’ reproductive health. For all those reasons the teachers are happy to note that pregnancies are very rare at the level of the middle school. For example, in the school year 2000/2001,
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there was only one pregnancy, that of a 3rd Form girl. That seems not to have surprised the female under-teacher who affirms: As soon as I saw that girl with her manners I asked the teachers to be very cautious with her boyish behaviour. She was a resheltered pupil in our Middle School; she was from elsewhere with manners unknown in this school … (Verbatim) Another teacher confirms that opinion: I once met that girl at a late time at night and when I asked her why she was in that place at that time, she told me she was there to watch films. So I am not surprised to see that pregnancy. (Verbatim) Answering the question, what attitude should one have in case of pregnancy in the school, the teachers answer carefully. If the teachers expressed unanimity in respect of the by-laws in force requiring pregnant girls to be excluded from school, so, too, would the partner in the pregnancy be excluded (if a pupil) and the sentence should be extended to him if it is a teacher. A teacher underlines this point: It’s really shocking to see a schoolgirl with pregnancy excluded while the guilty boy is not punished. More than that pregnancy is a true loss for parents and a big risk for the girl who is not in good conditions to carry her pregnancy to the end and to have an undesired child. (Verbatim)
Conclusion This inquiry allowed us to investigate the general climate of the Greater Diourbel Middle School as perceived by the school’s teachers. Results show that the school climate plays a determining role in the good running of the middle school. Thus, where you feel secure, where you can rely on others, and where stress is placed on quality teaching, a school’s teachers become very involved in their work, and students show strong academic performances. Concretely, this research sheds light on the teachers’ conditions which are, if not poor, then certainly difficult, materially and pedagogically speaking. The buildings are relatively new but they are not taken care of as well as they could be. There is not a true staff room, and there is insufficient school equipment. Most teachers think that the syllabi should be reduced and adapted to local realities, especially concerning gender issues. They find it difficult to innovate at the level of the teaching methods, and are confronted both by routine and the constraints of the teaching/learning situation. About paper grading and correction, generally, the teachers recognize that it will be difficult to respect the norms of requiring two papers per semester. Despite these adverse factors the performances of the students remain good because the teachers pay a great deal of attention to those who are motivated in their studies and disciplined in their behaviour. Regarding security issues, the teachers acknowledge that, despite occasional cases of deviance here and there, juvenile delinquency has not reached an alarming threshold.
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The relative tranquillity of the milieu creates a feeling of security which favours education processes and practices. This current research sustains the conclusion of Klitgaard and Hall (1974), Brunet et al. (1991) and Janosz and Le Blanc (1996) according to which ecological variables have weak relation with the academic performances. It also brings to light the importance of the variables of the social system. Because the school context offers social support, the teachers and also the students are motivated by what they do. Similar results were gathered by Short and Rinehart (1992), Cropanzano and Kacmar (1995), Sagor (1996), Ryan and Deci (2000). So like those of Grisay (1993) and Bowen and Desbiens (2004), our present conclusions are that this middle school is characterized by a good relation between students and teachers and has little difficulty with drugs, sexuality, or violence. In the light of those results it seems correct to generalize this study and to conduct it with a representative sample of all the Senegalese middle schools. In addition to the analysis of the climate of the middle schools at the national level, such research will allow the identification of more organisational and individual features (relational climate, educational climate, security climate, justice climate, and belonging climate). In bringing to light the role of school and organisational factors in the explanation of school performance, it would provide precise data to school heads wanting to build a school environment which will be materially and psychosocially favourable to learning.
Notes 1. With a total land area of 196.722 km2, Senegal is a semi-arid country occupying the westernmost position in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean coast. Senegal’s population was estimated at the end of the year 2003 at slightly more than ten million, and like most other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is characterized by its rapid growth (estimated at 2.5% per annum between 1988 and 2003). The impact of this rapid growth can be seen in the increasing population density. The data also reveal an imbalance in the spatial distribution of that population. The Province of Dakar which occupies 0.3% of the national territory holds 22% of the total population of Senegal (PNUD, 1998). 2. The choice to undertake research at the Greater Diourbel Middle School results from a practical circumstance. We were already there doing a study at the request of a Dakar-based NGO. We then opted to study, simultaneously, work conditions of the teachers. The school is located in Diourbel, a town approximately 80 miles from Dakar, and is a strong presence for students from villages in its vicinity. Its student population includes numerous students from lower socio-economic status families. Opened in 1996 it had 481 students in 2002–2003. 3. Beside the administration building the Provincial Council funds the creation of a fencing wall and in September 2001 they completed the building of another block of two classrooms. 4. This reflects the situation in June 2001. According to latest information the closing wall has since been built. 5. “Moodu Moodu”: It history goes back to the Islamic religion and its the specificity of its local practice. This noun is structured by reduplicating the Senegalese proper name Mòòdu; which is the diminutive of Muhammad or Mamadou. Its most common meaning refers to Senegalese emigrants living in rich countries of the North. The French and the Italians used, at first, used it to refer to Senegalese peddlers living in their countries. Nowadays it tends to describe a socio-professional group, namely those you encounter in the informal economic (Thiam, 2000); the sense is currently evolving to social behaviour, who, on the field of economy is tough at trade, saving every cent, rather fundamentalist, of a rustic in their everyday life, great capacity of adaptation to circumstances, and abstemious (Ndiaye, 1997).
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However, in Senegal it is: a people who did not go to school and who became rich, after emigrating from Senegal (Sène, 2003). The term Mòòdu Mòòdu meaning is evolving to a group of individuals, trying to achieve professional integration without any support from the State. They manage to by-pass the institutional structures by using informal and intra-personal relationships. The kernel location of the networking process is Touba, capital city of the Mourides: 49 km from Diourbel, and central market places all over Senegalese cities; from where they shape their commercial strategies to spread in such a span that they are to be met in African countries such Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Congo, South Africa, etc. or in the Us, in Asia (Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc.) or in the Pacific (Australia, etc.).”
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10 URBAN EDUCATION DIFFERENTIALS AND MARGINALIZATION: THE CASE OF EDUCATING THE YOUTH IN NAIROBI’S INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS Kinuthia Macharia American University, U.S.A.
Introduction In this chapter, I will discuss an array of issues; the most pertinent being the disillusionment of many of Kenya’s urban poor who, like the majority of rural-urban migrants, moved to the city with the hope of finding jobs and improving their economic wellbeing as well as achieving new optimized opportunities. I will also look at how this hope for improved lives has been elusive for the parents and now for the children through a process of unrealized education objectives, massive drop-outs or push-outs, un-conducive learning environment due to area violence, dirt and filth, and lack of family support. This will provide some understanding of the plight of the many poor in urban areas and particularly in the informal settlements (slums) of Nairobi, Kenya. Other questions to be dealt with here include how the informal settlements themselves came about in a city that was originally planned for Europeans; how has the presence of these informal settlements perpetuated socio-economic inequalities in Kenya’s urban areas, and particularly in Nairobi, Kenya’s largest city; and what is being done and what should be done to bring about some form of social justice in the goals of “education for all” especially the youth from poor families – most of them in the large informal settlements of Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho, Mukuru? I will argue that a holistic approach to the problem of the youth in poor areas need to be addressed going beyond the recently celebrated “free education for all” introduced by President Kibaki and his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government in 2003. Whereas this introduction of free primary education is a welcome partial solution to the issue of differentials and marginalization of city youth in the informal settlement as pertains to their search for modern education, there are still many socialhistorical problems that need to be addressed. I will discuss how, for example, one non-governmental organization, the Undugu Society of Kenya, has been dealing with this problem, well before the government gave it as much serious thought. There are some lessons to learn from the example of the Undugu Society, particularly because 205 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 205–218. © 2007 Springer.
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this organization specifically deals with the poor youth, street children and indeed focuses on the major informal settlements of Nairobi.
Social Historical Development of Urban Education Differentials (Inequality) Historical materialism (Marx, 1894, 1972), which refers to understanding the history of power and accumulation of property in a historical perspective, could assist us in understanding the current situation in Kenya’s urban areas and specifically the city of Nairobi. The social history of Nairobi is one that has bred inequality in various areas of people’s lives, and the matters of education and schooling have not been spared. If anything, these glaring inequalities that were formerly in evidence between racial groups (Europeans, Asians, and Africans) in Nairobi and are currently in evidence between social classes (the rich and poor observed in the distinct residential areas of the city) continue to shape the prospects for many urbanites. The history of who has had power and control both materially and ideologically dates back to the colonial establishment of the city of Nairobi in the late nineteenth century by the British imperialists, initially as a railway workshop in 1899. Before the coming of these imperialists, who were interested primarily in maximizing their wealth through collection and accumulation of raw materials (hence the need for the railway), Nairobi was simply a forested savannah where the Maasai used to graze their cattle. The word “Nairobi,” which the British colonialists adopted, was a Maasai word for the “cool waters” where they would bring their cattle to drink, especially in the hot tropical afternoons. From the open grasslands, cottages emerged to house those who worked in the railway workshops. Eventually, the first British administrators began to settle in Nairobi. The city’s climatic conditions (cool and temperate) were environmentally acceptable to the British, hence the original workers’ cottages grew to become a small village of White settlers, and eventually this would grow to become a sizable urban center that would be home to African servants working for European officers, farmers, and industrialists who gradually called Nairobi their home. The city grew with European interests at heart, and with no true concern for the African population that over time would become the majority. Indeed, the history of unequal development of Nairobi, as well as other urban centers that emerged in Kenya, explains the continuing differentials in the residential circumstances of the current population, the emergence of informal settlements, the poor education standards of certain groups, and the helplessness in which a majority of city dwellers, especially the poor, continue to dwell. The national and local public policy that has guided the growth of what is today the city of Nairobi has been one that served the colonial interests up to 1963, when Kenya achieved independence. This was an innately biased policy, one without the interests of the majority Africans at heart. The policy that has existed since the onset of independence to the present has advanced those biases, with the focus this time not against the African population per se, but against the majority poor urbanites. The impact of this policy that serves the interests of the rich and the politically well-connected has been
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a neglect of the poor leading to ever more overcrowding in the poor neighborhoods (referred to as the Eastlands during the colonial times and to date), a dearth of basic resources, high unemployment, and more specifically to the purposes of this chapter, poor overcrowded schools. It is important to understand the core of the urban policy that guided the colonial development of cities like Nairobi. I argue that while there were some modifications in favor of the city’s African population after independence, that policy is to a large extent, and certainly in the eyes of the many poor, almost as it was in the past. The “city” and the “town” were not the place for the African. The “rural” was the home of the African. This meant that no residential areas were originally designed for the Africans because they were not expected to settle there. No schools were put up for African children in the city of Nairobi, and the infrastructure one would expect in a “city” was only to be found in the European residential areas of Lavington, Westlands, Muthaiga, and Kileleshwa, the latter specifically built to house senior government officers. It was not until the 1940s that the colonial government was faced with the reality of an increasing number of Africans who were working in the city as servants, menial job holders, low ranking security men, etc., that the “so – called Eastlands,” with such estates as Bahati and Shauri Moyo, were built. A specific example: a number of these housing estates, Muthurwa, Land Mawe, etc., were constructed to house those who worked for the Kenya Railways. Colonial urban policy largely assumed that only men would be coming to Nairobi, as they were the only ones who might have a legitimate reason (work) to be in the city while their families (wife and children) would continue to live in the rural areas. Further, if the children of these working men were lucky enough to be able to go to school, it would be out in their home, rural areas. It should be clear by now that the African residential area, Eastlands, was conceived to start off from a position of disadvantage, with non-existent or very limited general amenities, poor schools, if any were built at all, and a general lack of resources. But a strict policy will not always succeed in keeping people away, especially from places where they think they might get opportunities to improve their lives. This was the case in Nairobi during colonial times, and despite colonial restrictions on Africans coming to the city, they still did albeit initially in relatively small numbers, though enough to overcrowd the few legitimate houses, or rooms, as the houses were only ten feet by ten feet and expected to house only one man. This kind of one room residence would eventually become the “home” of families, as the working men brought their wives and children to the city. The resulting overflow would lead to the creation of some of Nairobi’s oldest and largest informal settlements, including Mathare Valley and Kibera. This would be the beginning of the seemingly never-ending process of overurbanization in Kenya. Similar processes are observable in other African countries. This process refers to the situation where a nation is urbanizing too fast to give adequate amenities and resources to the new urbanites. In Kenya for example, urbanization rose from 8% in 1962, just prior to independence, to 15% in 1978, and 21% in 1995 (World Bank, 1998). This increase in population suggests a large, concomitant, ongoing increase of urban labor unmatched to available jobs. The new rural-urban migrants who settle in Kenya’s cities and towns cannot easily find
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employment. Housing is similarly problematic, and they face great difficulty in educating their children, as the available schools are either already overcrowded or are too expensive for these new urban migrants who want to make the city/town their new home. Unlike the European and American cities that arose during the period of mass industrialization, African cities have not encountered industrialization at this level, which helps to explain why the city, for most Africans, has come to signify gross socioeconomic inequalities and real poverty for the majority.
Post-Independence Urbanization: Hopes and Aspirations Kenya’s independence in 1963 brought hopes and aspirations for the African majority, who sincerely believed that once the government was focused on Africans, poverty would be dealt with, and the Africans would be able to live in abundant resources. Needless to say this was not to be. The main reason for this is that the country was already fully implicated in the global capitalistic economic system wherein world markets would impact the quality of the lives being led by most Kenyans. This was particularly the case with the economy’s overreliance on introduced cash crops like coffee, tea, sisal, pyrethrum, etc. as well as tourism, still a major source of income for Kenya’s economy. The country’s reliance on these resources and markets leaves much outside the control of Kenyans. The leaders of newly independent African countries largely perpetuated the same economic policies as the former colonial powers, and in the long run, benefited the few Africans in positions of power, while the majority were left to learn how to adapt with harsh poverty-stricken circumstances, then and now. After independence, the urban policy that had earlier restricted the free movement of Africans to the urban areas was relaxed in the name of freedom of movement for all. This was a symbolic way for the new African government to show that independence had brought about civic freedom. The rural areas, especially those in Central Province to the north of Nairobi, which had been ravaged by the war for independence, the Mau Mau war of 1952–1960 (Macharia, 2006) could no longer hold their growing population. Soils had been overcultivated in the preceding decades of cash cropping. The previously fertile soils had been shifted to become coffee and tea plantations for large companies, wealthy Europeans, and eventually, wealthy Africans after independence. The Kenyan government’s modification of the former colonial urban policy, to allow unfettered rural-urban migration saw large numbers of Africans from all parts of the country moving to Nairobi. As I have argued elsewhere (Macharia, 1997) most rural–urban migrants follow certain social networks. This was no different during the great urbanization period in Kenya immediately after independence. The urban areas were seen as the place to go in search of employment and all manner of economic opportunities, hence the unstoppable flow to the cities. Nairobi, being Kenya’s biggest city then and now, received the lion’s share of urban migrants, all hopeful about improving their life chances. Many of the new urban migrants were not well-educated and could not get jobs in the formal economy. Most of these migrants also could not find housing in the few established residential areas. As a result, many of these new migrants ended up in the already
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mushrooming informal settlements of Mathare and Kibera, eventually swelling their populations immensely. Previous restrictions on the movement of non-workers also ended, thus easing the way for families, husbands with wives and children, to migrate to the city. This posed new challenges to the newly independent local and national governments. It meant that there was the need to improve infrastructure in the new areas where populations were settling. For many migrants who did not find the kind of work they had hoped for, this meant living rural-like, amenities-free lifestyles despite the fact that they were within the city boundaries. This remains the reality for many in Nairobi, including the estimated two million residents of Nairobi’s informal settlement, the two largest of which are Mathare Valley and Kibera. As each of these has become incredibly densely packed, other informal settlements have developed, such as Mukuru, Kwa Njenga, and Kayaba, each of these on land in or adjacent to the city’s industrial area. Yet more settlements exist in the peri-urban space. Kangemi, Kawangware, Korogocho, and Kasarani have all expanded as the population of Nairobi has continued to grow from the migration into the city as well as from births within the city (Mburugu & Adam, 2001). One of the missed opportunities and most disappointing for many young parents who moved to the city was the reality that their children were not getting the education they had anticipated. The “blight-light hypothesis,” that is, the idea that in moving to the city people are moving toward more hopeful circumstances, has not been realized for large numbers of these new migrants! Many of those who have found themselves living in the informal settlements have had to deal with the fact that there were no schools there. Their children have been made to go to nearby areas, thus necessitating, for example, crossing some of Nairobi’s dangerous roads. Schools have also been found to be a major expense, with often scarce family income having to pay for school uniform, tuition and other fees, money for lunch when available, as well as public transport for some. One common alternative to this last point is that many students have to take walk long distances to the get to their schools. For example, the children in Mathare must make their way to neighboring Huruma or Eastleigh to get to City Council-operated elementary schools. In combination with the economics of these issues comes social pressures. Children from the informal settlements who attend neighboring City Council elementary schools in the formal residential areas are often looked down upon and even despised for being, for example, untidy. Often, they are bullied by other children usually bullied them for simply coming from the slum areas. This made learning difficult for the children from informal settlements, as I have observed in one of the largest slums, Kiandutu, located in the neighboring town of Thika (Macharia, 1980). The experience of the Kiandutu children in schools located in the formal residential area can not be seen as unique to them. Much the same has been noted for those from Nairobi’s informal settlements. This almost inevitably leads to primary and high school drop-outs or push-outs of school children in their elementary classes. In most developing nations like Kenya, education is seen as the gateway to a better life. It is also a gateway to upward social mobility through getting a formal job and building a professional career. The lack of formal education, in turn, is a more-or-less a guarantee of living the remainder of one’s life in or near poverty, something that
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many parents with children living in the informal settlements take as fact. It therefore becomes their goal to educate their children against all odds. These odds, however, take their own toll, and too many of the children from these areas end up being unable to complete school, and thus remain largely uneducated, drop-outs before they finish even primary school. Only a relative handful may make it to and through high school, despite the parent’s strong will and best efforts to educate their children. There are hopes this may change with the introduction of free primary education in 2003 as more children are brought into the system of possibility from an early age. While the jury is still out on how much free primary education will improve children’s ability to finish primary school and hopefully go on to and through high school, I argue that the problems in the informal settlement go beyond mere lack of fees. The poverty that reigns in these settlements overwhelms both parents and children to the extent that school attendance, which requires stability in the family, good health and proper nutrition, self confidence so as to withstand any challenges from teachers or fellow pupils, etc., is affected. In contrast to this, those in the higher income residential areas get better education and the life chances of their children are improved. They are indeed the ones who achieve the dream of high hopes and improved opportunities for having migrated to the city.
Poverty as a Contributor to Urban Differential in Education I have already argued that urban policy in post-independent Kenya did not change much in terms of improving life for all the city dwellers and the many new migrants who moved into the cities with the free unrestricted movement after 1963. The policies that favored the Europeans and the Asians now favored the small numbers of the new African political elite, the rich businessmen and those others who may have gotten opportunities to achieve higher education leading them to high paid positions in the white collar sector. The bulk of the country’s population, the uneducated, the jobless and the poor, have come to characterize Nairobi as a typical “Third World” city. A report on Poverty Assessment in Kenya (World Bank, 1995) estimated the poor; those living under the poverty line, were 9 million in the rural areas and approximately 1.25 million living in the urban areas, most of them in Nairobi. According to that report, poverty has been the result of a lack of sustained per capita income growth. The inability to sustain income means access to good health care and educational opportunities does not come to all, a fact that is bound to exacerbate the situation for those at or below poverty. Indeed, the urban poor with whom I am more concerned in this chapter are largely unemployed or work in the informal sector. I should qualify this point based on prior work on Nairobi’s informal sector (Macharia, 1997) by pointing out that it depends on which informal sector activity one is engaged in. There are a few, such as drum sellers and metal artisans, for whom informal work can be lucrative, and who can earn incomes comparable to those in the formal sector. But the vast majority struggle on a daily basis to find the economic means to continue living and supporting families.
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In addition to this economic differential, there exists gender discrimination. A recent UN report (UN, 2005) has shown that informal settlements, home to large numbers of people struggling to maintain life in dire poverty, very often provides only low quality educational opportunities to young girls. Indeed, by the time high school is reached, girls constitute a much lower percentage of attendees than boys when comparing within the informal settlement population. Girls are as likely to be enrolled in primary schools as boys, but drop out or are pushed out sooner than are these boys. The girls end up becoming care givers for their siblings or accompany their mothers into informal sector work. It has been noted that this seems to be especially common among food sellers who need their daughters to help them carry cooked food to the places at which they are sold – that is, primarily outside of the factories in Nairobi’s Industrial Area. The girls may also help in preparing the food, as well as washing the dishes while their mothers are serving the customers. Unemployment is seen as a major contributing factor in poverty in urban areas. One World Bank report, produced in 1995, showed that unemployment in Kenya was 11% in 1977, growing to 16% by 1986, and increasing to 22% by 1992. Current estimates as to unemployment among able bodied Kenyans now run as high as 40%. While these figures represent the whole country, the great majority, at least 30% are in urban areas, with Nairobi taking the bulk share. Poor agricultural yields, poor land yields and poor production related infrastructure all contribute to causes of poverty in Kenya, and each in turn drives pieces of the growth in urban population. All of the above listed conditions impact urban schooling. To this list should be added poor governance, mismanagement of public revenue, and widespread corruption at all levels of government, high, middle, and low, local, regional, and national. Inequality in government expenditure on social programs also differentially impacts schooling .The government and parents spend heavily on education. Two-thirds of spending on primary school education in 1992, came from government, with the poor received a greater share of public subsidies than did the non-poor. The remaining one-third of costs were expected to be covered by parents, which amounted to too high a burden for poor parents. As a result, primary schools in poor areas continue to be among the worst-off, while those in middle class and upper middle class areas remain in fine condition as parents with children at these schools have little problem raising their share of the costs. This is the reality of schools in the poor neighborhoods, and not just at the primary level. Most government funded high schools tend to be inaccessible to the majority poor, which may explain why many poor pupils drop out in primary school, since even that level is burdensome, and the vast majority or urban poor cannot afford the more expensive education offered in Kenya’s high schools. This is one reality the new primary education policy will have to address in the next few years, for what good will a primary education be if one cannot pursue it in high school and beyond? Urban poverty has led to a unique phenomenon in Nairobi and many other towns in Kenya, namely the presence of street children, most of whom are products of the informal settlements as discussed above. They pose a problem especially in how to deal with their schooling needs. In the next section, I examine how one NGO has tried to address this issue even as the government continues to examine ways to address the
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education differentials and inequalities in these poverty stricken areas. As the case of Undugu Society of Kenya will indicate, the situation calls for innovative ways to deal with these poorest of urban dwellers, some of whom are orphans, have no homes, and live lives that are far from the societal normal.
Non-Formal Education: The Case of Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) The street children phenomenon is a manifestation of extreme poverty bringing about glaring inequalities that needs special programs and action from the key actors. With an ever-increasing population in the city of Nairobi, it is the poor and unemployed especially who ended up barely eking out their lives in the informal settlements. Many of the offspring of these poor have ended up spending great parts of their day on the streets, and for some, these streets are their actual domicile – the place they sleep and call home. How does one educate such children? Will they fit in the regular school? Will they obey authority and can they be shaped into productive members of the broader society? While pondering such questions in the early 1970s, Arnold Grol, a Catholic priest working in Nairobi, formed a non-governmental organization that he called Undugu Society of Kenya. Undugu is a Swahili word that translates as “Brotherhood.” In founding and naming the organization, Father Grol almost certainly was thinking initially that the issue of the day was about boys, but eventually the Undugu Society would come to work with and care for girls living on Nairobi’s streets as well. Seeing the informal settlements most of the street youth are coming from, the Undugu Society determined that an informal education system might be what would be needed to address the plight of these young people. Their thinking seems to be that conventional education programs and curriculum may not best benefit not only the street children, but those attending conventional schools, for whom, for example, the attention level shown by street children might be less than that shown by children who regularly attend conventional schools. It can be shown to be a condition of street life such that many street children face daily or hourly survival tests, and may not have the resources necessary to wait for the kind of future returns embedded in the notions of education and schooling. For the street children, it is the present and immediate that are of concern. If they know they can wash cars at a certain time, collect garbage, shine shoes, etc. at certain times, these activities will take precedence since they must generate the money that permits their survival. It will not matter that doing such might conflict with a mathematics class, for example. Most of Nairobi’s street children are on their own, hence the emphasis on survival now rather than later. Others may have families which themselves are reliant on the earnings of the street child. This adds pressure to the street child who is forced to mature early so as to become the bread winner for the family. The Undugu Society of Kenya focused on street children initially in the streets of downtown Nairobi. The USK would eventually determine that most of those children were from the informal settlements. Since the informal settlements could not support them, the children ended up going to the downtown streets in order to survive. The
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USK was formed in 1973, with its primary mission being to “cater for street children,” (Ouma, 2004), especially their schooling needs. To do this, the USK opened non-formal schools which would give educational as well as vocational courses to children between 8 and 20 years of age, with the majority of the children tending to be between 13 and 16 years of age (Ouma, 2004). The USK has had over 5,000 learners in their schools since inception, of whom nearly 2,300 (44%) have been girls, and nearly 2,900 (56%) have been boys. Most of these children had previously attended, but dropped or were pushed out of, school. Realizing that most of the street children were from the slum areas and informal settlements, USK decided to place their schools in these areas. USK operates four schools in Nairobi, in the following areas: Ngomongo (opened in 1978); Pumwani (opened in 1979); Mathare (opened in 1979); and, Kibera (opened in 1981). In the 1980s, USK also founded two schools outside Nairobi, one in Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria, and the other in Machakos. Both schools specialize in technical training with the hope of creating an employable learner. One distinction between the USK schools and the regular city schools in Kenya is that USK non-formal schools do not require the students to wear a uniform. Father Grol had argued that the uniform, with its clear identity of one as a pupil, would be in contradiction to the lifestyle of a street child. He argued the uniform was not an important part of the learning process and “that two times two with uniform is equal to four just as two times two without uniform is equal to four!” (Ouma, 2004). This serves as an example of how USK had a way of acknowledging the situations and interests of the street children in their schools. Other ways included providing lunches, and offering free tuition, that is, no school fees. The number of children enrolled in the four USK schools in Nairobi remains small relative to the number of street children in the city (in 1997, it was estimated that Nairobi had 60,000 street children). The work is nevertheless impressive. USK has been motivated by their belief that lack of education is a violation of basic human right. Other NGOs doing work similar to that of the USK include: Tunza Dada; Kwetu Home; etc. (Ngau, 1996). USK remains the pioneering effort, however, and have remained focused on their mission for over 30 years. This is not to say there are no problems in these schools. Drop out rates are still high, and the curriculum needs to be better synchronized with the regular schools, especially for those in USK schools who may want to go beyond primary schools. The magnitude of school drop-outs and school push-outs in Kenyan schools was notable, especially after 1986, which was when the Kenyan government, through pressure from donor countries, accepted the structural adjustment programs (SAP) of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. One aspect of SAP for Kenya was the introduction of cost-sharing in schools. This had the direct impact of making education more expensive, indeed, unaffordably so, especially for the poor. This is the timeframe during which the USK really played a big role in reducing the differential in urban education between poor parents and rich parents. Just like the children of the well-to-do, street children would also like to go to school and learn in spite of the many problems they encounter that make regular schooling hard for them. Efforts by such NGOs as the USK are to be commended and one would hope the government would adopt similar strategies to cater for the urban poor children’s
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quest for education, and to level the playing field for these future leaders and labor providers. These children are eager to learn as the case of the Undugu Society of Kenya has shown. In a study carried out by UNICEF/IDC (1989) the great majority of the street children interviewed stressed the importance of the educational opportunities and appreciated the fact that they were now able to go to school. In his study of the street children and USK, Ouma (2004) found that 85.5% of the students in the Undugu schools reported a desire to receive education. This clearly shows that the majority of the street children have aspirations similar to those of children from so-called “normal homes.” If given the right opportunities, they will strive to achieve just as would any other learner. In order for the USK to achieve its goals, the Father Grol realized the need to partner with local communities. It is important to re-emphasize the fact that all the four major Undugu schools are located in the worst slum area conditions in Nairobi. Yet USK could and did form partnerships, not just in these areas, but with the Nairobi City Council as well. This last partnership was important inasmuch as it provided for land and buildings in which to physically locate the schools. An additional partnership with the government focused on the Teacher’s Service Commission, the government agency that employs teachers in the country. Out of the 30 teachers that USK schools employ, ten of them were employed directly to USK by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which meant they recruited and also paid them their salaries, thus reducing expense for USK. USK also has a partnership with foreign organizations such as DFID, the British Department for International Development, as well as some community based organizations based in Germany and Holland, all of which contribute money that is used to run USK schools. To make the students feel special and accepted in a warm learning environment that is different from the hostile street and slum environments to which the students are accustomed, the students are provided with food, an elemental need. Each student is provided with exercise books, a geometry set, a ruler and a bag. These may sound like basic materials, but they are not so easily available to these students given their economic circumstances, which is why USK supplies them. As mentioned above, the USK schools are situated within the slums so that the children can be easily reached before they become entrapped in street life. Attending a school in a neighborhood with which you are familiar, no matter how rough it is, will be much more accommodating and less intimidating than attending a school in a new environment. This addresses the issue briefly described earlier, which shows that children from Nairobi’s slum areas and informal settlements are often looked down upon when they attend schools in more established city residential estates. This is, perhaps, akin to the problems that school busing exposed in many US cities. In Boston, for example, Blacks bused from inner cities to suburban schools had a hard time adjusting and learning. Irish neighborhoods were particularly very hostile to Black students bused there (Logan, Oakley, & Stowell, 2003). USK feels its decisions to locate in slum areas remains sound. However, there is an acknowledgement that the approach has some drawbacks, one being that it limits children’s exposure to the outside world, and it could be a disadvantage when one is trying to look for a job or to make it beyond the slum.
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Beyond this, and like any sound organization, USK could improve their schools in other ways, while continuing to close the urban education differential for street children. For example, USK does not follow up with students once they leave the USK schools. Given their special investment in these students, it could well be worthwhile to institute a follow-up program to ensure their students do well after they leave the USK schools. USK also does not help in looking for employment for their students, and while one might reasonably argue that this is not a service offered even in some wellto-do schools, USK’s mission should include following through on the fuller education mission, and having a strong career services advisory staff as part of its schools. Without such follow-up, the USK students risk relapsing to what they were prior to school, and some of the good work of Undugu might be lost. More research, especially on pedagogy and street children, along with a clearer, systematized curriculum for nonformal education would be an additional contribution to improving urban education differentials. Special training for teachers ensuring they are well-versed in the backgrounds of street children would also go a long way in improving such non-formal education. Despite the free primary education introduced in Kenya by the new government in 2003, Ouma (2004) found that students were still flooding the USK schools.
A Unique School in the Informal Settlement of Kibera: The Case of Olympic Primary School Before bringing this chapter to a close, I will make some comments on a different kind of school found in the informal settlement areas of Kibera, Nairobi’s most populous slum. Olympic Primary School has been surprising many observers of Kenya education because despite the fact that it is in a slum area, surrounded by poverty, and despite that one might intuitively think it thus has a high drop out rate and poor performance. In fact, Olympic Primary School has been consistently among the nation’s best performing primary schools for the last 10 years. The school refuses to fit the stereotypes of a school in a slum area. There are a number of reasons that could explain the high performance which indeed challenge the assumption that the poor are not as interested in education as the rich. The dedication of the school’s parents and the cooperation of the teaching staff, along with the students, especially those who came after the good performance had been rooted there, indicate how each group experiences the challenge of maintaining longstanding high performance and hard work from all involved. The school’s strong performance has resulted in much positive publicity, as well as generating attention from many international donor and visitors of high repute. For example, in February 2005 the British Secretary of Finance visited the school. The lesson to take from the case of Olympic Primary School in Kibera is that it stands out as an example of how some of the differentials and inequalities in urban schools can be addressed. Olympic is one of five government schools in the heavily populated slum (informal settlement) of Kibera. With its population estimated to be close to one million, Kibera is often cited as the being the largest slum dwelling in Sub-Saharan Africa. The five government schools are only able to admit 8,500 students,
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leaving many others without schools. Privately run schools have emerged and cater for many other pupils who would otherwise be out of school (Tooley, 2005). Kibera’s private schools tend to be substandard but some parents prefer them especially if they are near the section of the slum, where the live. It is often not safe for children to walk long distances in search of government-run schools in dangerous slum environment. Olympic Primary School has become a top public school in Nairobi and its reputation of high performance in national examinations has gone beyond the city boundaries. The school boasts of a computer, a copy machine and a perimeter wall around its backyard which separates it from the slum beyond. Computers may be a basic work tool in many schools around the world, but not so in many African schools. Olympic Primary School’s ability to purchase and maintain a computer is indicative of its serious efforts. Prior to 2003, and government changes free primary education, parents of students at Olympic Primary School would pay a one-time entrance fee of Ksh. 10,000 (about $126) and an additional 300 shillings ($4) per term for ongoing costs as buying chalk and providing fresh drinking water. Many Kenyan parents, especially those in the Kibera slum, could not afford even these amounts, as most survive on less than one dollar a day. School for many was thus a luxury they could not afford. In the midst of this, Olympic Primary School has been called an oasis of hope, located where some of Fanon’s wretched of the earth dwell, yet showing itself of regularly graduating hopeful students, many of whom have gone onwards to acquire secondary and even university education, and gaining professional work afterwards (Aduda, 2002). The school boasts a very committed staff, with a strong Headmistress, and the parents of children attending this school have shown themselves to be committed to pursuing their upward social mobility. In 2005, the school had 2,200 pupils enrolled, or almost double what they had enrolled before the free education policy came into effect in 2003. It appears the dedication of the students, the staff, the teachers and the donations from such groups like DFID have boosted the morale of Olympic to continue to pursue high performance. The school has also become a vehicle through which unequal differentials in education especially in informal settlements can be leveled out, and spurred attempts to capture the “magic of Olympic” for use in other school throughout the city.
Conclusion Urban inequality in Kenya as experienced in the city of Nairobi comes in many forms. The common theme is that of mass urban poverty. This chapter discusses the socialhistorical process through which biased policies have continued to disadvantage certain sections of the city, particularly the informal settlements. The focus on differentials in education and its manifestation in the connections street children have to schooling shows how the “city of hope” that Nairobi represented to Kenya’s rural citizens, has become the city of disappointment. There are lessons to be learned from the way the Undugu Society of Kenya has attempted to address this issue. Their admirable nonformal approach shows that the poor and those living in the informal settlements, if catered for well with adequate resources, can level the educational differentials between themselves and the more well-to-do children of Nairobi’s higher status communities.
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I also have briefly discussed the case of Olympic Primary School, a crown jewel of a slum-based school that continues to excel in educating its students. It appears that the models from both the Undugu Society schools and Olympic Primary School are working. Each focuses on the need for schools to have a strong bonds of partnership between parents, teachers, school staff, and local and national government, which fund the majority of school activity. Inasmuch as education remains a singular hope for generations of the poor to make it out of poverty and into sustainable levels of future income, efforts such as the two profiled in this chapter need greater attention from both scholars and policy makers. The future of Africa relies on good training of its youth. The kind of urban differentials addressed here must be addressed and rectified before more wastage of young lives in urban informal settlements becomes the irreversible order of the day. The Kenyan government’s commitment to basic education for all (1993) and the current free education policy ( 2003), should also aim at addressing, in programmatic ways, the urban differentials that would continue leaving many poor children behind.
References Aduda, D. (September 12, 2002). Timely move to boost studies. From the Archives of the Daily Nation. http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/12092002/News/Spotlight12.html. Nairobi: Nation Media Group. Government of Kenya. (1993). Basic education for all: Jomtien country profile. Nairobi: Government Printer. Government of Kenya. (2003). Free primary education policy. Nairobi: Government Printer. Logan, J., Oakley, D., & Stowell, J. (2003). Segregation in neighborhoods and schools: Impact on minority children in the Boston Region. Available at: http//mumfordl.org Macharia, K. (1980). Poverty alleviation: The case of Kiandutu slum in Thika. B.A. dissertation: Sociology Department, Nairobi, University of Nairobi. Macharia, K. (1997). Social and political dynamics of the urban informal economy: The case of Nairobi and Harare. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Macharia, K. (2006). Social context of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya (1952–1960). Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Marx, K. ([1894], 1972). Capital 3 Vols. London: Lawrence and Wishant. Mburugu, E. N., & Adam, B. N. (2001). Families in Kenya. A monograph in http://www.sagepub.com/ upm.dat/4948_chapter1. Report to the Office of the President. Nairobi, Kenya. Ngau, M. M. (1996). Monitoring and evaluation of the five street child rehabilitation projects in Nairobi. Final Report submitted to the German Agency for Technical Co-operation. Nairobi, Kenya. Ouma G. W. (2004). Education for street children in Kenya: The role of the Undugu society. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning. Tooley, J. (June 26, 2005). “Give Africa a private schooling” in Times Online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ tol/news/articles537377.ece, London, UK. United Nations. (2005). United nations Gender Report. New York, UN World Bank. (1995). Kenya poverty assessment. (Report No. 13152-KE) Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (1998). World development indicators 1998 [CD-Rom] Washington, DC: World Bank.
11 URBAN EDUCATION IN ASIA PACIFIC: SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Allan Luke* and Masturah Ismail† *
Queensland University of Technology, Australia; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
†
The field of urban education has its origins in the nexus of urbanization, industrialization and compulsory state education in North America and Europe over a century ago. Yet its key theme – educational equality and universal provision – is relevant in other places, spaces, political economies and cultures where the “urban” has quite different histories, shapes and locations. The city is a work in progress in the Asia Pacific. The modern city tended to be located along the supply lines of empire (Innis, 1951). In the Asia Pacific, the region’s major centers were established in relation to coastlines or rivers, with the lines of kinship, capital, migration and cultural exchange, language and information flowing along communication/transportation links. Issues of centre/periphery, urban/hinterland, mainstream/minority, indigeneity/diaspora have been framed by the forces of colonialism and empire, by ongoing population movement and cultural contact, and resultant linguistic, religious and cultural heterogeneity, and, of course, by distinctive constraints of geography, space and place. Cities in Southeast Asia, for example, historically arose as colonial administrative centres, rather than manufacturing and resource sites as in the West (Ooi, 2004). In China and India, what counts as the new economic hinterland may be regional centres larger than major North American cities. In the South Pacific context that Puamau and Teasdale (Chapter 14) document, larger island villages of tens of thousands have become sites for classical urban education issues. There schools face new youth identities, generational challenges to tradition, the supplanting of traditional and subsistence economies by systems dependent on tourism and overseas aid, and new conditions of risk for families’ and individuals’ health and welfare. Across the region, as Yang’s (Chapter 12) analysis of post-1949 Chinese education illustrates, the disparities in educational funding and provision between urban and rural hinterland are a persistent problem. In the contexts of cultural and economic globalization, Australia and New Zealand, the island states of the South Pacific and the countries of East and West Asia have become focal locations for change – constituting a newer and older “new world,” with some remarkable achievements to date and major, unprecedented educational 221 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 221–230. © 2007 Springer.
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challenges. In the fastest growing economies of the world, the cities of East and West Asia are population magnets, attracting cosmopolitan professionals, migrant and guest workers, and ‘illegal’ workers in the invisible economies of black markets and trade (e.g., Cheah & Robbins, 1998; Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002). Even with economic growth and educational expansion, this situation has led to what Mak (Chapter 18) describes as “differential impacts upon different groups” and, to use Blackmore’s (Chapter 13) metaphor, “new lines of f light” for life trajectories, national identities, economic and sociopolitical futures. To frame and engage with the educational issues here require something far more than an acritical importation of categories, approaches and framings from Western educational systems and research. It underscores the need to view “urban” as something beyond just the physical space (site) of education, but as social constructions of space where educational practices and possibilities are generated by locally conceived “urban” features such as dimension, density, social heterogeneity, and information diffusion. Drawing from across the region, these ten chapters offer very different and distinctive takes on the “urban,” its new shapes and contours, and urban education. The very constructs of “Asia,” “Australasia,” and the “Asia Pacific” are imaginary collectivities – assembled and reassembled over the last century by colonizers East and West (Wilson & Dirlik, 1995), and now in the pull of the shift of economic gravity towards China and Japan, India and the Middle East. A key precursor to World War II was the search by the Japanese empire for resources to fuel its industrial, territorial, and militaristic ambitions. After World War II, with the cleaving up of the region by former colonial powers and their allies – the Asia Pacific was set out as a new sphere of economic and political influence, with contention for resources and space, fishing rights, strategic military bases, and, of course, workers. In some cases, it simply marked a shift in colonial rule, with French, American, Australian and New Zealand territories, colonies and protectorates remaining. The postwar settlement included the establishment of client states and defacto economic zones for major Western economies and regional powers, including Australia and New Zealand. These relationships are in transition with the economic growth of China, India and, of course, the longstanding influence of Japan. Educational development throughout the region was informed by historical processes of decolonization (cf. Lin & Martin, 2005). This led to various postcolonial curriculum and sociolinguistic settlements, with countries as diverse as Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji, and India reconnoitering which elements of colonial educational practices and institutional structures they would retain. In each of these countries as well, this settlement has involved the establishment of secular educational systems aiming to accommodate the complex demands of multi-ethnic, multilingual, and resilient religious communities. This has involved ongoing tensions over linguistic rights, religion in secular and non-secular states, and, in the case of Fiji, Malaysia, and New Zealand, affirmative action and compensatory programs for indigenous populations (e.g., Puamau, 2004). Events since 9/11, including successive Bali bombings, have heightened the tensions over the significance of Islam in Asia (Sa’eda & Masturah, 2007). With Muslim majority populations in states of West Asia and East Asia, and significant minorities in the western regions of China, Islamic education is a continuing focus of development and
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debate. In this volume, Sa’eda (Chapter 17) offers a current analysis of the ideological functions, educational and religious possibilities of Madrasah and Islamic education in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey. She shows how colonial-sponsored urbanization laid the ground for the marginalization of madrasah to the periphery of the states’ educational systems, a situation that persists to this day. Yet, at the same time, urban centers breathed “new life” to Muslim education by providing it the geographical and ideological space for the ongoing reform and articulation of religious education. The issue remains about the capacity of “traditional” institutions like the madrasah and religious education more generally to anchor communities and individuals in the face of urbanization and globalization. The rise of religious education further highlights the key role of education in nation building. The establishment of basic infrastructure continues apace, even and especially in the face of cultural and economic globalization. After the Vietnam war, the growth of the “Asian Tiger” economies of South East Asia was driven by American and European, Japanese and Korean multinational corporations who have looked to countries in the region both as production, financial and shipping hubs, as training sites, and as new markets. With the advent of the Chinese and Indian economic power in the region, the realignment of economies and alliances is proceeding. For example, the “internationalization” of higher education and elite secondary schools focuses increasingly on servicing and capitalizing on the Chinese market (Mok, Chapter 16). Following a century of cultural and political affiliation with the UK and North America, Australia and New Zealand have become active participants in North/South flows of tourism and migration, services and capital, resources and manufactured goods. In the last decade, an energy and resource-hungry Chinese economy has surpassed Japan and the Western states as these countries’ principal trading partner. This marks a shift in what Blackmore (Chapter 13) describes as the Australian preoccupation with “space, place, scale, and flows,” marking out new capital flows, social movement and change. At the same time, the Australian city – located on its coastlines – is the object of creative reformation. Like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Vancouver – Australian cities are vying for larger shares of creative economies, with burgeoning educational focus on the production of expertise in creative arts, digital economies, and their affiliated cultural industries (Cunningham, 2006). These developments are not without contradiction and tension. As Blackmore (Chapter 13) demonstrates, Australia’s major focus on educational equity in the 1980s and 1990s has been supplanted by a narrow economism. This collusion of globalization, marketization, corporatization, and “political opportunism” has led to what she terms a “backsliding” on historical commitments to indigenous communities, women and migrants. To capitalize on the new global flows, not only Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, but also Auckland, Vancouver, Sydney, and Brisbane are defining themselves as cultural, educational and financial hubs – hoping to attract the “best and brightest” not just from Asia, but as well from the Americas, Middle East, and Europe (Olds, 2002). This has led to regional “brain drains” of intellectual talent, corporate sponsorship and venture capital in biomedical sciences, business, engineering, information technology and the new creative industries. It has also accelerated the shift in higher education
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governance and practice. The rapid and ongoing moves towards corporatized, international, entrepreneurial universities across China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand marks out a transition from what Mok (Chapter 16) terms “statecentered” to “society centered” focus. Yet it also opens possibilities, he argues, for a reassertion of the state’s efforts to “assert and enhance policy control.” The sites discussed here include newly urbanizing environments. For example, the cities of the South Pacific described by Puamau and Teasdale (Chapter 14) are in the process of resettling and absorbing rural and peasant, substance economies. At the same time, Asia is the site of the new global terminus of capital: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Singapore exist as terminal points for the shipping of containerized goods, information and human cargo of all types. In the case of Hong Kong and Singapore, growth in private consumption has proceeded throughout the 1990s at the rate of 5–10% per annum (Brooks, 2006, p. 6). Yet as Stiglitz (2003) has pointed out, even those sites that weathered successfully the 1997 Asian economic crash have seen the growth in social class disparities of wealth. This again has placed issues of social access and economic justice on the table. Yet the responses of many countries – including Australia, New Zealand, and China have been to appropriate the Neoliberal policies emerging from the US, UK, and EU. These moves are continuing despite the impressive educational progress in areas of social equity over two decades of Australian educational reform documented by Blackmore (Chapter 13) and the improved participation of urban women in Asian education described by Mak (Chapter 18). Consider, for example, the policy-driven expansion of elite and private school provision across Asia and Australia, the proliferation of private schools in China, and the rapid expansion of the private tutoring and study sector across East Asia. Bray (2003) has documented the negative educational and socioeconomic effects of private tutoring. Many of the contributors here focus on the risk of increasing the gap between those still seeking basic education and new cosmopolitan professional elites across the region. In the face of these processes of cultural and economic globalization, there are four themes running across these chapters: 1. Educational responses to ethnic, cultural and religious, gender diversity; 2. New and persistent conditions of poverty and disenfranchisement; 3. Neoliberal policy and the role of the state in the production of new human capital; and 4. New technologies and youth cultures. To frame these issues, we offer four narrative illustrations. Narrative 1: In a forum with Singapore university students, Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong (2004), was asked about the future viability and prosperity of a city-state. The student pointed out that the city–states of antiquity, from Venice to Athens had been unable to sustain themselves as commercial, cultural and political centres beyond a century. Lee’s answer was that there were no guarantees, and that the viability of the city–state was continually on the line in the face of new and difficult economic and geopolitical conditions. Singapore is a postcolonial city/state with ongoing and unresolved issues about identity, affiliation, and a participatory civic sphere (Kong, 1999). It is also cited as the
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prototypical postmodern city, with a successful economy based on the capturing, mediating and directing of global flows of people, goods, information and capital. Its response to the conditions and contexts of postwar decolonialization, regional instability, and cultural and economic globalization has been distinctive: a strong “top down” state and a determination to define itself as a world city without resources and hinterland, as a conduit for the flows of cultural and economic globalization. In the context of major state and corporate investments in transportation infrastructure, civil engineering, bioscience, digital and creative industries, Singapore sees its future in terms of educationally produced human capital. This has led to funding in educational research, schools and higher education above that of most OECD countries (Luke, Freebody, Gopinathan, & Lau, 2005). The educational achievements of Singapore and East Asia more generally are remarkable: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have overtaken the OECD average of years of completed education, with high levels of educational investment leading to retention, tertiary participation and adult literacy levels exceeding that of many industrial and postindustrial regions in the West. These East Asian countries have consistently produced top tier results in Maths and Science on major international studies, such as TIMMS and PISA. Educational practices and outcomes are under careful empirical study (Luke & Hogan, 2006). There is further extensive work on the particular blends of pedagogic practice in East Asian classrooms, typified as “chalk and talk” and didactic pedagogy, and their ostensive cultural patterns and educational effects (e.g., Alexander, 2001; Mok, 2006; Watkins & Biggs, 2002). And finally, there is an extensive international debate on “how Chinese learn maths” in East Asian countries and China itself (Fan, 2004). A key issue facing these “successful” educational systems is the training and emergence of new citizen/worker identities, traced here by Hogan, Kang, and Chan (Chapter 19). Certainly, the new technologies and multimedia corporations have created a fertile environment for what Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke (Chapter 20) refer to as the “world kids” of Asia and the West, whose epistemologies and communities traverse borders and cultures. Digitalization of everyday life is a driving force throughout Asia, with extremely high uptake levels of mobile phone, digital gaming and online communications by urban youth in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea (Lam, 2006). Dooley and colleagues go on to argue that the expansion of multinational youth culture, spurred by ubiquitous access to digital technologies, poses both enabling conditions and challenges for schooling – as yet unresolved as teachers and curricula struggle to keep up with new competences, knowledges and identities. East Asian educational systems have focused on creating new elites and a service working class to engage with new flows of global capital and bodies, with the transnational media, tourism, financial and corporate order that is reshaping Asia. This has involved a new “edubusiness” (Luke, 2005) of international student flows, with Asia’s best students moving en masse for higher education in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – returning as “global citizens” to build networks, cultural and economic capital in the cities of the Asia Pacific. At the same time, the new cosmopolitans include the large scale movement of emigrant guest workers (including construction labor, domestic workers, and agricultural laborers) who are actually building and supporting the growth of economies in both East and West (Cheah & Robbins, 1998).
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Funds remitted from Filipinos and Samoans working overseas are a major source of capital for the domestic economies of these countries (Connell & Conway, 2000). Narrative 2: In a Singapore social studies classroom, year 9 students were going over a worksheet in a traditional teacher-centered discussion. They raised their hands and called out answers to multiple choice questions. One worksheet question asked: “What word describes Singaporeans?” Students raised their hands but couldn’t resist calling out answers: “wealthy,” “successful,” “peaceful.” The correct answer was “cosmopolitan.” Across the region, educational systems strive to build these new classes of wired, educated transnational citizen/workers. Yet the nexus between poverty and educational disadvantage persists – for the urban poor, for women, for linguistic, cultural and religious minorities, for indigenous communities. Across the Asia Pacific, debates are underway about the building and sustenance of urban cultures in the face of population movement, economic disparity and impoverishment. Rampal (Chapter 15) documents the challenges of providing basic educational provision for children in the poorest areas of Delhi. She captures the stark and dehumanizing inequalities they and their parents have to contend with at home and in school, as well as in a public system that literally bulldozes them, either out of their makeshift homes or into their makeshift schools, in the name of urban “development.” The struggle for educational equality and quality for deprived urban children continues in the legal-constitutional arena, where non-governmental organizations can be complicit with government in support of market-driven policies resulting in minimalist provision. Yang (Chapter 12) reports on the issues around the migration westward of rural Chinese to the Pearl River Delta and the educational challenges of new urban concentrations. He points to the major discrepancies in educational funding across China, despite its longstanding stated focus on social equality. The educational issues facing the cities of the Asia Pacific turn on two moves: the attraction of capital flows to cities; and the amelioration of the unequal distribution of knowledge, power, language and material resources to growing populations. This puts governments in complex and contradictory positions. In discussions with education officials in Cambodia, they spoke of “moving up the value chain” from textile sweatshops to attracting Japanese, German and Korean manufacturing from Thailand and Taiwan (Luke, 2005). The response has been the spread of Neoliberal educational policies, whose mixed effects are well documented in the US and UK (e.g., Lee, 2006; Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2005). Narrative 3: A visit to Thai Rajabhat Institutes took us to the “golden quadrangle,” where Laos, China, Burma and Thailand meet at the Mekong River. Senior Thai educators explained the significant problems facing the system: A migrant population of guest workers and refugee children, indigenous tribal peoples whose communities were at risk from warfare, disease and drugs; and a new generation of Thai kids who preferred videogames to textbooks, and shopping malls to temples (Luke & Luke, 2000). Standing on the riverbank, we discussed the contents of an Australian degree program we were preparing for teacher educators and principals. They responded with a list of contents: school based management and accountability, outcomes based
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curriculum and testing systems. The implementation of these were policies affiliated with on post-1997 International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment policies. These policies have been sponsored and supported by transnational forms of governance and aid, including the World Bank and IMF, Asia Development Bank, European Union, and national aid agencies of the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. However intentionally, they are enhanced by postgraduate training and research in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where many Asia Pacific educators receive “state of the (neo-liberal) art” training in school administration, testing and evaluation, curriculum and instruction. The parameters of these reforms would be familiar to those in the west, advocating educational governance on performance ranking, standardized testing, and the marketization of schools, development of private educational sectors, standardization of curriculum and school-based management. As Blackmore (Chapter 13) points out, in Australia these policies have marked a retreat from state-sponsored equity reforms. Further, as Mak’s (Chapter 18) analysis of the mixed improvements in the educational participation of women and girls suggests, the effects of such policies on gender equity will need to be carefully tracked. This presents a double challenge. On the one hand, many countries are building modern universal, secular state education. In Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the South Pacific, for instance, the expansion of compulsory education into secondary schools is still a central policy goal. On the other, these same systems are moving towards corporate and market solutions from the West that have mixed track records and collateral effects (on higher education, see Marginson & Rhoades, 2004). In China, this had meant that while there is an attempt to modernize and expand the state educational systems, there has been major growth of a private school sector servicing urban elites and the new middle class. For the schools and universities of the Asia Pacific, residual and emergent educational cultures sit side by side, often in points of historical tension. Traditional religious and philosophic values sit alongside the didactic pedagogies of colonial tradition; traditional authority and pedagogic relations prevail in fully wired classrooms; traditional examinations, many of which predated European colonization, are mixed with westernstyle standardized achievement tests; and the provision of basic, village education sits within the same systems that aim to produce highly specialized expertise in the new biosciences, finance and business, and digital technologies. In sum, these systems must deal with questions of modernization and persistent matters of educational access and equity, the provision of old and new forms of cultural and social capital, against a dynamic backdrop of hypercapitalist economies, technologies and cultures. We began by highlighting the challenges for Singapore, arguably the most postmodern of Asian cities and states. There educational futures sit within a nexus of questions about new material flows, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, and the stability and sustainability of governance and civil society. We stopped along the way noting the classical sociological issues of educational equity facing China, India, Australia, and the island states of the South Pacific. Our final narrative offers an extreme shift of scale and space. Narrative 4: In the mid-1990s, we discussed planning with educators in Kiribati, one of the smaller and more geographically isolated of South Pacific countries. Consisting
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of 36 remote islands, its very existence is threatened by global warming and rising sea levels, and urban crowding and poverty in the main island of Tarawa. There educators face a curious dilemma: How does Kiribati continue to modernize its educational system, using aid money to build basic primary and secondary school infrastructure, train and credential teachers, and establish curriculum? The educational focus of its aid donors has been on enhanced school-based management, outcomes-based curriculum, and assessment. At the same time, it must deal with a burgeoning religious education sector, where the fiscal and infrastructure support of multinational religious organizations exceeds that available from the state. A principal concern of the Kiribati community is the maintenance of traditional forms of life and language in the face of “world kids,” linguistic shift to English, and population shift to urban centers (cf. Burnett, 2005). Captured in microcosm, these are the problems facing urban education systems of the Asia Pacific. With the shift of economic power to Asia, to cities and to multinational corporations, it would be tempting to look for a distinctive transnational educational solution. Yet the state remains our best recourse for combating the “new planetary vulgate” of corporate and market-driven policy and for addressing persistent inequality and exploitation (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2001). Throughout the Asia Pacific, robust and better-funded state education systems remain the coin of the realm, with ample opportunities and prospects for poverty amelioration, improved health and quality of life, more equitable economic participation, political enfranchisement and expanded civic participation, and, ultimately, the bringing together of ethnically, religiously, and ideologically diverse populations. The story of urban education in these countries is unfinished. But no matter how self-same the problems may appear, there are no “off the shelf ” solutions or approaches forthcoming from the postindustrial school systems of the North and West. As these chapters show, the simple transportation of the Neoliberal educational agenda is proving at best a limiting, if not exacerbating response to the perceived limits and failures of existing systems. The authors’ preferred move is a range of locally tailored solutions driven by local, regional and national governments – each responding to the available resources and recourses within political economies, pedagogic institutions and traditions, cultures and systems in dynamic and rapid evolution and revolution. This will require rigorous empirical research, critical analysis, and a much stronger sense of what culturally, linguistically and pedagogically works in the interests of their diverse communities. The grounds are set for what Sa’eda (Chapter 17) terms a new “symbiosis of traditionalism and modernity” with postmodernity: A host of distinctively Asia Pacific educational inventions, blends and systems.
References Alexander, R. (2001). Culture and pedagogy. Oxford: Blackwells. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (2001). Neoliberal newspeak: Notes on the new planetary vulgate. Radical Philosophy, 108, 1–6. Bray, M. (2003). Adverse effects of private supplementary tutoring. Paris: UNESCO. Brooks, A. (2006). Gendered work in Asian cities. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
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Burnett, D. G. (2005). Languages and schooling: The discourse of colonialism in Kiribati. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 25, 93–106. Cheah, P., & Robbins, B. (Eds.). (1998). Cosmopolitics: Thinking and feeling beyond the nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Connell, J., & Conway, D. (2000). Migration and remittances in island microstates: A comparative perspective on the South Pacific and the Caribbean. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24, 52–78. Cunningham, S. (2006). What price a creative economy? Brisbane: Currency House. Ehrenreich, B., & Hochschild, A. R. (Eds.). (2002). Global women: Nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy. New York: Holt. Fan, L. (Ed.). (2004). How Chinese learn mathematics. Singapore: World Scientific. Innis, H. A. (1951). Empire and communications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Kong, L. (1999). Globalisation, transmigration and the negotiation of ethnic identity. In K. Olds, P. Dicken, P. F. Kelly, L. Kong, & H. Yeung (Eds.), Globalisation and the Asia Pacific (pp. 219–237). London: Routledge. Lam, E. (2006). Culture and learning in the context of globalisation: Research directions. In J. Green, & A. Luke (Eds.), Review of research in education 30. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Lee, H. L. (2004, April 5). Hopes, fears and dreams. Speech at the Nanyang Technological University Student Union Ministerial Forum. Lee, J. (2006). Tracking achievement gaps and assessing the impact of NCLB on the gaps. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Civil Rights Project. Lin, A., & Martin, P. (Eds.). (2005). Globalisation, decolonisation. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Luke, A. (2005). Curriculum, Ethics, Metanarrative: Teaching and learning beyond the nation. In Y. Nozaki, R. Openshaw, & A. Luke (Eds.), Struggles over difference: Texts and pedagogies in the Asia Pacific (pp. 1–15). Albany: State University of New York Press. Luke, A., Freebody, P., Lau, S., & Gopinathan, S. (2005). Towards research-based educational policy: Singapore education in transition. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 14(1), 1–22. Luke, A., & Hogan, D. (2006). Redesigning what counts as evidence in educational policy: The Singapore model. In J. Ozga, T. Seddon, & T. S. Popkewitz (Eds.), Education policy and research (pp. 170–184). London: Routledge. Luke, A., & Luke, C. (2000). A situated perspective on cultural globalisation. In N. Burbules, & C. Torres (Eds.), Globalisation and education (pp. 275–299). London: Routledge. Luke, C. (2005). Capital and market flows: Global higher education management. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 25(2), 159–174. Marginson, S., & Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond nation states, markets and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43(3), 281–309. Mok, I. A. C. (2006). Shedding light on the East Asian learner paradox: Reconstructing student-centredness in a Shanghai classroom. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 26(2), 131–142. Nichols, S. L., Glass, G. V., & Berliner, D. C. (2005). High stakes testing and student achievement: Problems with the no child left behind act. Tempe, AZ: Educational Policy Studies Laboratory. Olds, K. (2002). Globalisation and urban change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ooi, G. L. (2004). Future of space: Planning, space, and the city. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. Puamau, P. (2004). A postcolonial reading of affirmative action in Fiji. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 14, 109–123. Sa’eda, B., & Masturah, I. (Eds.). (2007). Special issue: Muslim education – challenges, opportunities and beyond. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 27(1), 1–113. Stiglitz, J. E. (2003). Globalisation and its discontents. New York: Norton. Watkins, D. A., & Biggs, J. B. (2002). Teaching the Chinese learner. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Wilson, R., & Dirlik, A. (Eds.). (1995). Asia/Pacific as space of cultural production. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
12 URBAN–RURAL DISPARITIES IN EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY: CHINA’S PRESSING CHALLENGE IN A CONTEXT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POLITICAL CHANGE Rui Yang Monash University, Australia
Introduction Equality has become a major goal of education around the world. The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)1 also professes its commitment to equality, and has taken a variety of steps to provide at least basic education to its citizens. At the same time, China has its own interpretation of the notion of equality. This, together with its limited ability to fund measures to work towards the goal, has had great impact especially in rural areas. Globalization is affecting China’s policy priorities in education, and has transformed the discursive terrain within which educational policies are developed and enacted. Parallel to the international situation, the effects of globalization on educational and social equality on different groups and communities vary greatly within China, creating enormous disparities among people. Indeed, accompanying China’s robust economic growth is that China has become one of the countries with the largest urban–rural gap in the world.2 The income gap between rural and urban residents has kept growing. The average income per capita of urban residents increased from 2.8 times that of rural populations in 1995 to 3.1 in 2002 (Xinhua News Agency, 2005). Moreover, the income of the urban citizens concerned does not count the welfare they have access to, including medical care, unemployment insurance and minimum living relief. Considering these factors, urban residents’ income should be easily 4–6 times that of their rural counterparts. This, however, does not tell the actual disparity between urban and rural citizens. Rural residents have to pay their educational costs, while the central government covers most of such costs for their urban cousins. A closer examination shows more fundamental problems with China’s long-practiced biased policies against rural people, leading to a widening education gap between urban and rural areas. Rural Chinese children are thus handicapped in their pursuit of educational opportunities. In order to portray an overall picture of the urban–rural inequalities in Chinese education, this chapter begins by tracing the historical roots of the concerned policies. 231 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 231–248. © 2007 Springer.
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Policy Legacies Since 1949 Policies of educational justice are a kind of social action that needs to be observed within certain social, historical environment (Dessler, 1989). China’s current educational disparities resulted from its long-term policy options. Therefore, it is necessary to review the historical developments of education equity policy since the PRC was founded in 1949. According to the Common Principles (gongtong gangling) issued on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assuming national power on September 29, 1949, the new democratic education policy should be for the masses (dazongde). This principle represented the fundamental values of education equity. The negation of the so-called “old education” stressed that education should be open to the broad masses of workers and peasants, helping them learn to read and write. However, as a country with poor financial conditions and a huge population, educational development was not only confined to the political system and ideologies, but also hindered by its socio-economic development level and limited resources. Under the guidance of the new political theories, with aims of fast industrialization, the new China was confronted with a number of dilemmas and had to make hard policy choices.
Different Educational Rights for Different Social Groups Education for the broad masses was the basis for policy-making in the newly established PRC in the early 1950s. Large-scale campaigns to eliminate illiteracy, the wide spread of the “quick method of achieving literacy,” and the popularization of exemplary successes of illiteracy elimination had unprecedented impacts. The length of schooling was changed from 6 to 5 years in order to universalize primary education, but changed back in just 1 year due to implementation difficulties. During the initial years of the PRC, many adults who did not have access to basic education before received a certain level of education in a variety of schools, including spare-time and evening schools, accelerated courses for workers and peasants, political schools and training classes for cadres. Since 1950, some new secondary schools were established with shortened length of schooling, that is, 3 years. These schools admitted cadres and workers with at least 3 years of working experience and prepared them for university studies. This became the access to higher education for workers, peasants, and cadres. However, as an institutional arrangement, such practice started to create issues of justice in educational opportunities in two aspects: firstly, some special privileges for a few highly selected social groups appeared. A typical example was the popularization of schools for children of high government officials only. These schools even caught Mao Ze-dong’s attention. He commented on July 14, 1952 that “children of cadres should be treated all the same without further differentiation among them; also, these schools for the aristocracy only should be abolished, they should merge with all those for children of the masses” (China National Institute for Educational Research, 1983, pp. 78, 144, author’s translation). Consequently, the Central Committee of the CCP approved a report by the Ministry of Education in October 1955 and decided to close all these
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schools, making them open to children of both cadres and the masses living nearby. Nevertheless, the privilege of the special social groups remained in other forms. Secondly, it is important to point out that within the process of expanding people’s educational rights, the definition of the people gradually changed, with clear distinction between laboring and non-laboring people, as well as the exploiting classes and “reactionary elements.” According to the then prevalent class-struggle theory, there was a need to foster proletariat intellectual force and exercise cultural dictatorship over the capitalist class. Within a context of “The Class Struggle is the Most Important Thing” ( jieji douzheng wei gang), family origin became a crucial benchmark to measure one’s political progressiveness. This evolved into a highly institutionalized policy, “class line” ( jieji luxian). Treatment would be different in enrolment, graduate job assignment and employment, selection for training overseas, and promotion, based on the class status of their families. Limits were set to stop those from the exploiting and non-laboring class family backgrounds from receiving higher education and upward social mobility. Therefore, although the written policy rhetoric was that everyone was equal before examination marks, “class line” must be implemented throughout the entire admission process. For example, the guidelines of university admission in 1965 clearly stated that “for those who are qualified in all the three political, academic and health aspects, selection should be first classified into different groups and then enrolment be based on their preferences and marks. Within each group, the first priority should be given to politically outstanding candidates. Among this year’s senior secondary school graduates with good political minds, the combination of recommendation and examination marks will no longer suit student leaders and the children of workers, peasants and martyrs. If these students score closely to others, preferences should go to them” (China National Institute for Educational Research, 1983, p. 380). There were two kinds of criteria, political (“Red”) and academic (“Expert”)3 in the assessment of both the qualification for and the capacity of higher learning. Their relationship then became a highly contested political and theoretical issue in the educational circle. While such policies have been officially terminated, their legacy – different educational rights for different people – has survived, even further rooted in the Chinese society despite the fact that winners and losers have changed dramatically, with those in power remaining at the top, working classes back to disadvantaged positions, and rural people at the bottom.
Mass Education vs. Elite Education In addition to the expansion of working people’s educational rights, another urgent task of the new PRC was, through formally institutionalized establishments, to train professionals badly needed by economic development and national defense. The dilemma faced by education which was supposed to be open to workers and peasants was, and for a long time, vacillation between equity and efficiency. In the then official language, this was the relationship between “popularization” ( puji) and “the raising of standards” (tigao). This, in fact, was a matter of mass or elite education. The choice was to decide which was more important for the nation: the improvement of citizens’
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general quality, or providing selected people with full education in order to train some with outstanding abilities. In daily practice, this meant a choice between an elite or mass education oriented to the some selected groups and the majority respectively. This also had implications for educational policy making in deciding the priority between basic and higher education. During the developments in the 1950s and 1960s which centered on implementing the 5-year plans of national economic building and the Soviet-model industrialization, China’s actual policy opted for elite education. National investment concentrated in higher education, whose recipients enjoyed tuition fee waivers, living stipends and free medical care. Accordingly, the distribution of higher education institutions and disciplinary structure were heavily imbalanced with particular emphases on major capital (industrial) cities and science and technology subjects, linking directly to heavy industry and national defense. A number of institutions were selected by the government to invest focally. They were designated as key-point institutions, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education or other ministries. There was strict selection at every level within the system, in order to secure the best quality of students. Looking back on such a policy choice, its pros and cons become evident. The most obvious advantage was to provide strong intellectual and personnel support for industrialization and national defense building. Its major problem was the extremely imbalanced distribution of educational resources, leading to longstanding ignorance of basic education, damage to the majority people’s educational rights and a huge education gap between urban and rural areas. With its focus on higher education, China prioritized efficiency (although whether or not Chinese higher education was efficient remains questionable). The instrumental value of education became dominant. Within a planned system, education resources were distributed based entirely on the national development goals, with little consideration of local needs, causing regional disparities. A telling example was the shortage of national key-point higher education institutions in the central and western regions. The monopoly of educational resources by and the limited financial capacity of the central government determined the unfortunate combination of stress on higher education and weak rural education. The legacies of this policy option are serious damage to equality in education and limitations on contemporary nation building imposed by the low level and poor quality of the education that most Chinese citizens have received. The option has by no means proven effective.
Various Paths to Educational Development During the initial days of the PRC, the broad masses of workers and peasants were granted educational rights directly by political revolution. The way to eliminate illiteracy and to universalize education was also in a form of revolution-strong political campaigns plus large-scale mass movements. There was an idealistic expectation that popularization of education would rapidly change the educational outlook of Chinese workers and peasants.4 These emphases on basic education for the majority immediately contradicted the goal to train specialists to develop heavy industry. As the comprehensive learning from the Soviet Union went further, the Soviet model of planned economy and a highly
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centralized higher education system were established. China’s higher education entered into a new stage of institutionalization. The quest for quality and higher standards led to cancellation of speeded-up secondary schools for workers and peasants. In July 1955, the then Ministries of Education and Higher Education documented that the quick methods of learning had not worked in practice (Gao, 1996, p. 22). Meanwhile, the practice of selecting cadres from workplaces to be sent directly to universities was also terminated. The stresses on higher standards stopped children of workers and peasants from going to universities and even schools. Kairov’s pedagogical theories and the Soviet school system dominated primary to higher education. A strict, highly complicated teaching administration system resulted from the indiscriminate imitation of the Soviet experience and “proletarian dogmatism” (China National Institute for Educational Research, 1983, p. 221). Mao Ze-dong strongly opposed such formal, highly institutionalized Soviet-style education, and never tried to hide his criticism. He initiated “educational revolutions” in the 1960s based on his educational ideals and values. Maoist educational revolutions had multiple dimensions, one of which was to stick to equity. In contrast to the prevalent policy with foci on senior secondary and higher education, Mao’s main attention was to basic education for the majority Chinese, especially in rural areas. He stressed the educational rights of working people’s children, and tried to achieve these goals by doing away with examinations and shortening the length of schooling. The first approach was epitomized in the 1958 educational revolution, which relaxed the limits for university entry and set a precedent for recommended enrolments. The second approach was to devolve administrative power to lower levels of government and to utilize multiple sources and methods to develop education. Mao’s thoughts and efforts to reform education continued well into the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Many phenomena that were popular during the period in fact emerged much earlier. For instance, when the Ministry of Education organized technical secondary school admission and job assignment in 1963, selection was required to be based on a combination of examination scores and recommendations from “people’s communes.” Meanwhile, various regions implemented a new policy in secondary schools of agriculture, forestry, medicine, and teacher training to send graduates back to where they came from. In 1964, an experimental class of on-service workers was set up at Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel. The entry criteria required students to be politically progressive, with an equivalent of qualification for senior secondary graduation, in good health, under the age of 27, and with at least 3 years of working experience. Admission was based on both examination results and recommendations. Students were required to go back to their previous work units upon graduation, a more developed form of the widely practiced university admission policy during the Cultural Revolution to enroll students directly from workers, peasants and soldiers on the basis of political recommendations only. In retrospect, despite Mao’s great concern for educational justice, especially the rights of average workers and peasants, his revolutionary way to break and even surmount the accumulation of cultural capital in order for the disadvantaged to achieve dramatic changes was far from successful. Mao rejected the relatively reasonable examination approach entirely but did not propose anything that was more effective. During
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the Cultural Revolution, the recommendation approach evolved into political deals, and justice was completely suppressed and wiped out. Its actual effect was great damage to the majority people’s educational rights. Moreover, Mao’s personal obsession with family origin led to wide-ranging deprivation of non-working class people’s educational rights, and thus created injustice of other sorts. The detriment of Mao’s approach to educational revolution by attacking established social institutions has been well documented. One lesson we learn from such history is the possibility of using the institutionalized power of the state to promote justice in education. One way is through compulsory education. For the Chinese people, after striving for an education that is open to the masses, the belated Law of Compulsory Education5 in 1986 was more a fortune for its final birth than a pity for its lateness. From a historical point of view, the dilemmas faced in the 1950s and 1960s linger on. Chinese education is still confronted with difficult choices between education for the elite or masses, with focus on basic or higher education. One particular issue that has never been settled is the balance between education in urban and rural areas.
Urban–Rural Disparities in Primary and Secondary Education Urban–rural disparity in education is manifested in almost all aspects of basic and secondary education. It is especially pronounced in educational opportunities and resources.
Disparities in Educational Opportunities Inequalities in educational opportunities are epitomized in the gap between enrolment and admission rates at various stages of schooling. The gap widens as the level of education is higher, taking a shape of an inverted pyramid. By 1986 when the Law of Compulsory Education was passed, primary and junior secondary education had already been universalized in urban areas. However, in rural areas, the enrolment rate of schoolage children was below 95%. On average, only 65% of primary school graduates continued to receive secondary education, and 13 provinces had a percentage lower than this. Among them, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Tibet were below 50%. In 1999, the rural secondary education enrolment rate increased to 91%, with 15 provinces below 90%, and Guizhou, Guangxi, and Tibet were respectively at 72.4, 75.7, and 38.1%. Nationwide, 1.3 million primary school graduates entered society. In the late 1980s, more than 4 million left primary school, and by 1999, the number was still high at 1.12 million. From 1980 to 2000, 3.8 million primary school students failed to complete their primary education. By 2000, senior secondary education had already been universalized in most urban areas, while the nine years of compulsory education still had not been universalized in 10% of rural areas by 2004. Among them, some had not even universalized primary education. China now maintains an enrolment rate of 99.1% of its school-aged children, but due to the size of the population, the remaining 0.9% means that at least 1 million school-aged children are not enrolled. National statistics show that 121.6 million
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children were enrolled at primary schools in 2002, which was 98.52% of the national age cohort. This means 1.75 million school-aged children were not enrolled. Compared to the disparities in primary education, those in junior secondary education are even more evident. By 1995, the 9 years of compulsory education had been universalized in China’s large and medium-sized cities, but only 78.4% rural areas had achieved this. Since then, there has been a 10% gap in the popularization of compulsory education between urban and rural areas. According to Zhang Yu-lin (2004), about 150 million rural children lost their opportunities to receive junior secondary education from 1986 to 2000. Among them, 32 million were deprived of primary education, 50 million stopped schooling after primary education, and 30 million dropped out during their junior secondary education. A survey of six representative counties in late 2002 showed that the dropout rate of rural children in junior secondary education was serious. All the six counties crossed the bottom-line of 3% dropout rate in junior secondary education set by the Ministry of Education, four of them were higher than 20%, two were even higher than 30%, and one was more than 50%. In 2001–2002, only 75–76.6% of the 15–17 age cohorts actually completed nine years of compulsory education. Seven provinces were below 60%. Although primary school enrolment rate reached 99%, only 89% graduated. In junior schools, the enrolment and graduation rates were 90 and 76% respectively. Every year, there were 5 million schoolaged children who did not complete their junior secondary education. From 1987 to 2002, 30.6 million students discontinued their junior secondary education. The overwhelming majority of them were in the countryside. In some regions in the far northwest, the percentage was as high as 50%. Educational disparities in senior secondary education are even more obvious. The urban–rural disparity widens further in senior secondary education. By now, senior secondary education has been universalized in China’s developed urban areas, while many rural areas are still struggling with implementing the 9 years’ compulsory education. The admission rate to senior secondary schools increased from 40% in 1985 to 55.4% in 1999 in urban areas, but decreased from 22.3 to 18.6% during the same period in rural areas. Among China’s 31 provinces, 15 had an urban–rural gap of more than 300%, with five higher than 400%. Shandong and Henan, two provinces with large population sizes, were 440 and 450% respectively. Inequalities in senior secondary education are closely related to the increase in education costs, the scarcity of educational opportunities caused by the shortage of senior schools in rural areas, and the poor quality of primary and junior secondary education. However, the longstanding urban-biased enrolment policy should not be ignored. This was related to the key-point school system that copied the practice in higher education. For example, there was only one key-point senior high school, Jiayu Number One Middle School, at Jiayu County in Hubei province by the 1990s. The minimum entry score set by the local education authorities for rural applicants was 50–80 marks higher than that for those living within the county town. The result of such arrangements was that 70% of those enrolled at the school were from the county town, whereas the population of the town was only 20% of the county.
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Similarly, the score for entry into technical secondary schools/polytechnics at Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, was always set higher for rural applicants – 532 and 376 for rural and urban students respectively in 1998. Such policies have long been practiced, on the basis that they aim at “relaxing employment pressure in cities” and “reducing factors causing instability.”
Disparities in Educational Resources Disparities in educational resources demonstrate well the urban–rural gap. They are clearly shown in the announced educational expenditures reported by the Ministry of Education, and are particularly reflected in primary and junior secondary education, as illustrated by Table 1 below. When only a handful of people benefit from unequal distribution of educational resources, the majority are necessarily subject to the damage they cause. In primary and secondary education, an example of such damage is the fact that local governments have been prevented from meeting salary obligations to teachers, depriving many children of their education rights. This resulted from recent reforms of fiscal decentralization, leading to the devolution of responsibilities over both revenue collection and public expenditures to lower levels of government – the province, county, township, and village. Such a decentralized system hampers efforts to meet goals of distributional equity. Given overall budget scarcity, it is not surprising that this led to increasing inequity in the provision of public goods and services across regions through much of the reform period. In many poor areas, in particular, the lack of local government revenues or subsidies from upper levels of government has led to a fiscal crisis. Local governments are therefore not able to finance high quality public services such as education (Park, Rozelle, Wong, & Ren, 1996). Beginning in 1988, the Chinese government promoted the diversification of educational financing, with the state budget as the main source, supplemented by a variety of avenues for channeling financial resources towards education. Formalized into
Table 1. Year
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Educational expenditures per student, 1997–2003 Primary education (Chinese yuan)
Junior secondary education (Chinese yuan)
National
Rural
Disparity
National
Rural
Disparity
333.8 370.79 414.78 497.58 645.28 813.13 931.54
275.06 305.62 345.77 418.97 550.96 708.39 810.07
58.75 65.17 69.01 78.61 94.32 104.74 121.47
591.38 610.65 639.63 79.81 817.02 960.51 1052.00
468.06 478.25 508.58 533.54 656.18 795.84 871.79
123.32 132.40 131.05 146.27 160.84 164.67 180.21
Source: China Education and Research Network (2005).
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Article 53 of Education Law in 1995, this reform in part was a response to the growing scarcity of fiscal resources, which made diversification attractive as a way to stabilize educational financing. These changes have had a pronounced effect on the equity of educational expenditures. The highest provisional primary educational expenditure per student in Shanghai is now ten times greater than the lowest, and this ratio has roughly doubled in the past decade. Studies have found very large differences in educational expenditures within provinces, and even within counties (Tsang, 2002). There is an urgent need to recognize the policy importance of reversing these trends, allocate targeted funds to reduce growing inequities, and pay teachers’ wages. Rural teachers began to be in arrears with their salary since the late 1980s, soon after the Law of Compulsory Education was issued, when education was decentralized. By April 2000, the default reached 13.56 billion yuan covering 27 of its then 30 provinces including Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Tibet. According to the Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, 12.7 billion yuan teacher payment was to be materialized by July 2002. This was the part that was supposed to be guaranteed by the central government. Another part which occupied 30–50% of teacher payment classified as local government allowances became legitimately defaulted because its distribution was set to be dependent on the local budget situation. In addition to the failure to materialize the guarantee and allowances respectively promised by national and local governments, two other groups that warrant the attention of researchers are minban (those hired to teach in rural schools but do not receive regular salary from government) and daike (substitute or temporary) teachers (Andreas, 2004; Sargent & Hannum, 2005). The central government was once required to “solve minban teachers’ problems completely” by the end of the last century. Yet, China now still has a few hundred thousand of them, and their salary can hardly keep their families alive. The total number of daike teachers is even larger, and their treatment has been worse. For example, at Xuzhou, a reasonably developed city in Jiangshu province, the monthly salary for daike teachers was 150 yuan in 2004, an amount with absolutely no consideration for basic survival, which could not vindicate the least the dignity of any rural school teacher.
Urban–Rural Disparities in Higher Education As an even more scarce resource and watershed for social mobility, competition for higher education in China is far tougher. Those who are politically, economically and culturally advantaged are endowed with much more power to win such a competition. The urban-rural inequalities in higher education are thus more pronounced.
Opportunities for Receiving Higher Education The unequal opportunities in higher education are firstly an accumulative result of those in primary and secondary schools. The disparate urban–rural compulsory education system positions rural children very unfavorably from their first day of school in the race for academic success. In the context of education funds shortage, rural
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residents cannot rely on their own resources to shoulder the burden of compulsory education, and their children are often eliminated in junior secondary or even primary schools. This leads to the fact that 80% of rural school-aged children cannot have the opportunities to compete for university entrance examination. Thus, few rural students win the opportunity to receive higher education. Moreover, opportunity for higher education remains highly controlled by the central education authorities and their distribution has been extremely imbalanced. These, together with the corrupt redistribution by the advantaged social groups, determine and further widen the gap in higher education opportunities between urban–rural populations. For decades, as a result of the planned economy and the policy-makers’ immediate interests, the planned enrolment figures of higher education institutions are distributed according to regions, with privileges to Beijing and Shanghai nationally, while within provinces, privileges go to the capital cities. Tsinghua University, the most prestigious Chinese university in Beijing, serves as a good example here. Within the past 20 years, the number of local Beijing students it has admitted was four times more than the sum of those from Jiangshu, Anhui, Hubei and Sichuan. In 2001, 18% of students enrolled at Tsinghua were from Beijing, while Beijing’s population was only 0.9% of the national. The enrolment rates in various regions differed dramatically. A score that could safeguard a place at Tsinghua or Peking universities for local Beijing students would not be high enough for students from outside Beijing to enter other national key-point universities, while a score for local Beijing residents to enter other national key-point universities was usually far below the required for students in other regions to enter average universities including local ones. In 1999, a local Beijing student could be admitted to universities if she/he scored an average of 43.6% in all subjects. University enrolment rate in Beijing was 72.6% in that year, even reaching 78.9% in sciences, in marked contrast to 30% in most other provinces. Within provinces, the contrast has been equally sharp. Taking Shandong as an example, the entry score to non-key-point universities in 2000 was substantially lower for students from Jinan, the capital of the province. Compared to the highest entry score, the difference was 63 marks. Consequently, children from disadvantaged agricultural areas were left far behind. If we see higher learning institutions enrolment as a preliminary distribution which clearly favors children in the national and provincial capitals, the redistribution in the admission process further privileges those who are in power and can exert their influence on the process. The fact is, applicants reaching the entry score always outnumber the actual enrolment. This creates much “flexibility” for those with a variety of special backgrounds, ranging from parents working in higher education [university staff are usually protected by the so-called “professional welfare” (hangye fuli) and enjoy the priority to select institutions and majors first], to clearly specified “flexible quota” ( jidong zhibiao), “recommended students” (baosongsheng), and those admitted on the basis of their specialties (tezhaosheng). None of these special considerations have much to do with rural children. As a matter of fact, the special considerations pave the way for corrupt behaviors that have been witnessed for decades, but particularly intensified within recent years,
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as shown by some widely reported instances including the fraudulent practices of recommended students in Hunan, the shady enrolment deal at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and the wide-scale malpractices of students admitted with specialty in sports in Xi’an. These examples are truly dire, as corruption in Chinese higher education is also rife. Corruption contributes much to furthering the urban–rural divide. Inequalities in higher education have been repeatedly confirmed by surveys especially since the 1990s. A large-scale study undertaken jointly by the World Bank and the Chinese Ministry of Education in April 1998 surveyed 70,000 students enrolled respectively in 1994 and 1997 at 37 universities at various levels (Zhang & Liu, 2005). It helped us build an overall picture: on average, the difference of educational opportunities between urban and rural areas was 5.8 times nationwide, with 8.8 and 3.4 times respectively in national key-point and provincial universities. This was bigger than the income disparity of 2.8 times. It also showed the disparity became more striking from 1994 to 1997. As early as June 1982, some scholars found that 22.7% of students enrolled at Nanjing and Nanjing Normal Universities were from rural family background, while the proportion of rural population in the province was 80.3% at that time. That is to say an urban child’s chance to receive higher education was 14 times bigger than her/his rural peers. In the 1990s, some scholars conducted surveys of students from different family backgrounds at a variety of universities including Harbin Institute of Shipping Engineering in the far northeast, Wuhan and Zhengzhou Universities right in central China and Xiamen University in the costal southeast. They found that the proportion of rural students in these institutions was slightly higher than 25%. Another survey conducted in Chongqing when it was still the capital of the southeast Sichuan province found the proportion was 39.2%. The 13.8% difference was mainly due to the lower status of the institutions in Chongqing. Only two of the eight universities were in the national key-point category. These findings demonstrate that the gap in higher education opportunities between urban and rural students is much more dramatic in the relatively more prestigious universities, and tends to reduce a bit in provincial higher education institutions (Zhang & Liu, 2005). Zhang and Liu (2005) reveal the inverted pyramid shape of the disparities among different social strata in Chinese higher education. They collected data at the two most prestigious Peking and Tsinghua Universities. Table 2 below shows the sources of the undergraduate students at the two universities in the 1990s. The percentages of students from rural backgrounds were lower than those at the institutions in Chongqing, and those at Wuhan and Xiamen Universities too. This further confirms the trend: the more prestigious the institution, the lower the percentage of rural students. To illustrate, in the most prestigious Peking and Tsinghua Universities which pull together the best national higher education resources and produce “the elite of the elite,” the urban–rural disparity is even more striking. The two institutions together recruited 5,080 undergraduate students. Among these, 17.8% (902) were from rural areas, while the proportion of urban population was 70%. Zhang and Liu (2005) also point out that children from family backgrounds of factory workers, civil servants and professionals were respectively 5, 25, and 37 times more likely to receive higher education at eight institutions in Beijing in 1980 than their
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Table 2.
Student sources at Peking and Tsinghua Universities
Year
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Peking University
Tsinghua University
Total enrolments
Rural students
Percentages
Total enrolment
Rural student
Percentage
– – 1810 910 – 2089 2164 2211 2240 2425
– – 403 168 – 436 425 420 415 396
– 18.8 22.3 18.5 20.1 20.9 19.6 19.0 18.5 16.3
1994 2031 2080 2210 2203 2241 2298 2320 2462 2663
433 385 381 352 407 451 431 452 510 506
21.7 19.0 18.3 15.9 18.5 20.1 18.8 19.5 20.7 19.0
Source: Zhang and Liu (2005).
peers from the countryside. By the same approach and related to the aforementioned studies of institutions at Harbin, Wuhan, and Zhengzhou, they conclude that compared to workers, civil servants and professionals, the ratios for a peasant to be able to send her/his children to go to Harbin Institute of Shipping Engineering in 1990 were 1:3:26.8:22:5 respectively, to enter Wuhan University in 1995 were 1:3.7:32.7:21.1, Xiamen and Zhengzhou Universities were 1:2.9:30.3:14.4, and the eight institutions in Chongqing were 1:2.3:13.9:6.4.4 respectively. Based on the data from the 37 institutions, they found that on average the opportunity ratios for peasants to send their children to ordinary Chinese universities in comparison to workers, civil servants, businesspeople and professionals were 1:2.5:17.8:12.8:9.4. The ratios turn into 1:4:31.7:22.6:17.4 for the first tier national key-point higher education institutions. Generally, rural children are 5.6 times less likely to be able to receive higher education than their urban counterparts. A further scrutiny shows that even if rural students are admitted to universities, they are more likely to study the least popular subjects. A study of Wuhan University first-year undergraduate students in 1995 found students from the countryside concentrated in majors that received little attention while students from family backgrounds of civil servants and professionals occupied 59.4% of majors in computer science and 80% in international trade and banking. This finding was confirmed by the survey of the eight institutions in Choingqing, which found 24.8% of those enrolled in the most popular subjects were rural students whose presence in the more traditional subjects was 54.8%. Their findings have been confirmed by a number of more recent studies.
Enrolled Students from Poor Rural Families The issue of university students from impoverished rural areas began to catch people’s attention since 1997 when Chinese universities began to charge students tuition and
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accommodation fees. University fee policy does not favor those living in rural areas with little money. Rising tuition fees have substantially increased the difficulties of poor rural families in sending their children to universities. Even for the already enrolled, it is extremely difficult to finish their university education. According to the statistics collected by Jiangxi provincial education commission, 10.5% of the total student population within 32 higher education institutions in the province was from poor families, of which 5% of these totally lost their capacity to support their children. Similarly, statistics from Helongjiang province show that 11.8% of the students on 27 campuses in the province were from poor families in the countryside, and 4.9% of the student population was from families in absolute poverty. Such students occupied 10% of the total national university student population. By the late 1990s, when student fees were considered relatively low, a student needed at least 10,000–10,500 yuan annually for a 10-month academic year. Such an amount was already astronomical to many rural families. According to a survey in Shandong province, only 8.01% of students’ families could cope with the whole amount on their own, 22.43% could only manage half of the amount, 43.68% could afford less than one third, and 10.2% of students felt absolutely helpless with the amount. Without sufficient financial support, these students’ academic careers are under threat. According to a survey in Hubei Province in 1995, 40% of students had to limit their expense below 150 yuan monthly, and 10% less than 100 yuan, while a university student would normally spend nearly 200 yuan monthly at that time (Yang, 2003). The straitened circumstances exert strong impact on students’ spiritual and social life. Some are often under mental pressure. The Chinese governments at various levels and higher education institutions have worked together to have some policies on stage. Yet, within a globalized context of competitive culture, corporate managerialism, efficiency and accountability in higher education worldwide, “efficiency” has been given the highest priority in China (Yang, 2004). Such a policy orientation seems to be justified in a context where central governments devolve authority to lower levels in the hierarchy, a response to calls for flexibility that was absent in the old system, but is also a mechanism for “passing the buck.” The central authority finds itself acutely short of resources and decides to hand responsibility to other tiers and new actors, especially individual institutions and local governments. University students from poor rural families will thus continue to be a knotty issue into the coming years.
Concluding Remarks: Calling for Institutional Reforms Educational gap is only part of the overall picture of urban–rural disparity in China. Many of these disparities resulted from China’s institutional arrangements. The longstanding dual structure of economy and social system featuring a great divide between cities and the countryside is the social and institutional reason for urban–rural educational disparities. The city-countryside duality was an institutional arrangement in the planned system. It might have worked to some extent under specific times and places. It set clearly defined boundaries between cities and countryside and their residents. For more
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than half a century, China’s policies have followed the mantra “agriculture feeds industry and countryside supports cities.” Heavy industry has been high on the government agenda. Cities and their residents have thus benefited from such a policy choice, at the expense of the countryside and rural population. The very strict permanent residence registration policy practiced in the planned economy effectively prevented rural residents from moving into cities. The gap between urban and rural populations was institutionally legitimized and further enhanced as time went on. The urban–rural duality has had huge impact on education. First, the imbalanced and differentiated economic structure prioritizing urban economy over the countryside has led to different economic development levels and differences of affluence between urban and rural people, which in turn determined the disparities in educational opportunities and resources. As noted above, the 9 years of compulsory education have not been universalized in some of China’s remote rural areas. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that financial shortage is the major reason for rural children to drop out. Moreover, due to the dualistic structure, current education system is oriented to cities. Educational resources from governments favor urban education. While the best resources are always in capital cities, the best resources from rural areas have gravitated towards cities too. Furthermore, the dualistic society has helped to shape different educational values among urban and rural people, which further enhance the existing disparities. Urban parents have much higher expectations and more concern with their children’s education success. There are multiple reasons within the education system as well. While the 9 years of compulsory education is a historical event in Chinese history of educational development, a close scrutiny reveals a clear tendency to prioritize urban education. In fact, many local education policy documents state explicitly “cities first, countryside second.” In other words, these policy arrangements acknowledge that urban compulsory education is more important than that in the countryside, although compulsory education by nature represents an ideal of equal rights and responsibilities. They also recognize that urban children have the priority to obtain their rights to receive compulsory education before their peers in rural regions. Other factors with the education system also deserve special attention. Key-point schools, for example, are China-specific. Seen especially from its effect, it is a typical urban-biased policy. Geographically, at least 90% such schools are located in cities. This contrasts sharply to the fact that major work of China’s basic education should be in rural areas. Key-point school system ranging from basic to higher education strengthens the imbalanced distribution of educational resources, creates a handful of winners and many losers, and facilitates the existing urban–rural set up. Another factor is that China has been practicing a discriminating university student admissions policy, which gives preferences to students from major cities. This was originally designed to ensure that the best students in underdeveloped areas could have a chance to attend key institutions and enjoy the same quality of education. However, in practice it widened the urban–rural gap in higher educational opportunities (Yuan, 2003). Meanwhile, there has not been much difference in tuition fees charged by national key-point and average provincial universities. Rural residents thus have been doubly discriminated: pay higher fees to receive education of lower quality.
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It goes without saying that in the past 56 years, China has made great progress in educational development, expanded its educational system rapidly, and reached out to more people of all ages than in any previous period in history. It has attempted to mobilize the entire population to achieve universal literacy over a relatively short period and has devised new ways to expand and deliver all levels of schooling to its citizenry. This has been achieved in a context of financial stringency, huge population base, strong central state and frequent political twists and turns. The primary goal of compulsory education has, however, yet to be accomplished in rural and remote areas. China’s recent spectacular economic growth provides sound basis for further educational development. However, most rural residents in China have not shared the prosperity enjoyed by the urban population in coastal regions. The educational gap among urban and rural segments reflects both the widespread disparity in the level of economic development and the longstanding historical and socio-cultural differences between cities and countryside. The inequality of education in China is even more serious for certain rural populations such as women, the handicapped and members of ethnic minority groups. The combination of these could further aggravate educational problems. For example, a very high percentage of rural disabled children who need special education programs have never been able to go to elementary school. Most regular schools are not equipped or prepared, pedagogically or emotionally, to teach them. The existing institutional arrangement for budget formulation enables the budgeting process to involve few participants. The separation of demands of citizens from the spending priorities of county government has resulted to some extent in the lack of social equity in the provision of public services, and the most serious problem is that the needs of the poorest and the most needy citizens are overlooked. Because of this separation, citizens have to be self-reliant in solving the problems outside the purview of government budgeting. The spending priorities of county governments have to be changed and the political configuration behind such priorities has to be challenged. As economic reform has exacerbated the unequal distribution of educational investment and further increased inequality in educational opportunity and attainment, social policy becomes more important. There is an urgent need for changes to established institutions. Researchers are duty-bound to alert policy makers to the existence of widespread educational discrimination against rural people and the pervasive residencebased inequality. This becomes an even more arduous and pressing task in the context of globalization, a discourse always used by the Chinese leadership to legitimize its emphasis on economic growth over the development of new social relations, including more equal distribution of goods and services and educational opportunities. Internationally, literature on the politics of globalization has brought to light how the discursive terrain within which educational policy is developed and enacted has been reconfigured, and how this reconfiguration has undermined the goal of equality and social inclusion in education. The hegemonic neo-liberal conception of globalization has become dominant in China, where social efficiency goals of education rule over traditional social and cultural concerns regarding the development of the individual and needs of the community. Current policy shift towards privatization has compromised the goals of access and equality and has widened inequalities.
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All hope, however, is not lost. Globalization need not necessarily be interpreted entirely in neo-liberal terms. Responses to globalization require imaginative actions locally and globally. In order to tame the excesses of the market and work with globalization, China’s education policymakers need to be both creative in the way they think and committed to the potential that education has for building democratic communities. Effective actions are badly needed to narrow the urban-rural disparity in education. This requires some fundamental institutional changes in many aspects of education policy in particular, and more generally in some core parts of China’s social and economic policies.
Notes 1. I use “People’s Republic of China” and “China” interchangeably throughout this chapter for ease of expression. The situations of educational equalities in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are not included in this chapter. I recognize that, in constitutional terms, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are all parts of China. 2. According to the Xinhua News Agency survey, in 2002, the top 1% of people with the highest income owned 6.1% of the total income of the society, 0.5% points higher than 1995. The top 5% of people with the highest income have nearly 20% of the total income of the society, 1.1% points higher than 1995. The top 10% of people with highest income have 32% of the total income of the society, 1.2% points higher than 1995. While striking disparities also exist within urban residents, nationwide, the imbalanced wealth distribution is particularly reflected by an ever-increasing urban–rural disparity. 3. “Red” and “Expert” were the terms coined in the Mao era to refer respectively to strong political conscience and professional and academic excellence. 4. In 1955, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China issued its decision to eliminate illiteracy nationwide among young people within seven years. In 1956, the National Labor Union passed its decision to achieve this among workers within three years. Also in 1956, the CCP Central Committee required in its outline for agricultural development during 1956–1967 that “illiteracy should be eliminated within five to seven years based on local conditions,” and “primary compulsory education should be universalized within seven to twelve years.” In 1958, the CCP Central Committee required that illiteracy be eliminated nationwide and primary education universalized within 3 to 5 years, and within about 15 years, young people and adults who were willing and qualified were able to receive higher education. 5. In China, compulsory education consists of 6 years primary and 3 years junior secondary education.
References Andreas, J. (2004). Leveling the little pagoda: The impact of college examinations, and their elimination, on rural education in China. Comparative Education Review, 48(1), 1–47. China Education and Research Network. (2005). National educational expenditure announcements. Retrieved on October 6, 2005, from http://www.edu.cn/HomePage/zhong_guo_jiao_yu/jiao_yu_zi_xun/shu_zi/ jiao_ yu_jing_fei/index.shtml (in Chinese.) China National Institute for Educational Research. (1983). Chronicle of educational events in the People’s Republic of China. Beijing: Educational Sciences Publishing House (in Chinese). Dessler, D. (1989). What’s at state in the agent-structure debate? International Organization, 43(3), 431–473. Gao, Q. (1996). Educational Journal of the New China. Wuhan: Hubei Education Press (in Chinese). Park, A., Rozelle, S., Wong, C., & Ren, C. Q. (1996). Distributional consequences of reforming local public finance in China. The China Quarterly, 147(September), 751–778. Sargent, T., & Hannum, E. (2005). Keeping teachers happy: Job satisfaction among primary school teachers in rural northwest China. Comparative Education Review, 49(2), 173–204.
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Tsang, M. S. (2002). Financing compulsory education in China: Establishing and strengthening a substantial and regularized system of intergovernmental grants. Harvard China Review, 3(2), 15–20. Xinhua News Agency. (2005). Urban–rural income gap larger: Survey. Retrieved on September 26, 2005, from http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/88528.htm (in Chinese). Yang, R. (2003). Progresses and paradoxes: New developments in China’s higher education. In K. H. Mok (Ed.), Centralisation versus decentralisation: Educational reforms and changing governance in Chinese societies (pp. 173–200). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Yang, R. (2004). Toward massification: Higher education development in the People’s Republic of China since 1949. In J. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 311–374). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Yuan, Z. G. (2003). China’s educational policies in the phase of overall construction of a well-off society. Educational Research, 24(6), 15–21 (in Chinese). Zhang, Y. L. (2004). Blue book of China’s educational inequalities. Retrieved on February 12, 2005, from http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wkgb.asp (in Chinese). Zhang, Y. L., & Liu, B. J. (2005). Professional strata and higher education opportunities in China. Journal of Beijing Normal University, 3, 71–75 (in Chinese).
13 EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION SYSTEMS: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT Jill Blackmore Deakin University, Australia
Space, place, scale and flows are central in the formation of Australian national identity; marked by iconic landmarks and landscape. Australia’s positioning in relation to global West/East and North/South binaries is constantly re-defined with shifting alliances. Australia, despite its outback image, has been a highly urbanized nation state since settlement. In 2005, over 50% of its 20 million population are concentrated in five cities clinging to the coastline. Mythologies circulate around egalitarian traditions of mateship originating in convict anti-authoritarianism and war, but also the success of multiculturalism marked by the lack of overt racial conflict as in the USA and UK. But national identity has been forged on masculinist and racialized traditions including women as the complimentary to the masculine norm, and excluding the “racialized other” – both the indigenous population and Asian immigrants. White Australia in 1945–1975 underwent a period of relative prosperity under the paternalistic welfare state, with a reducing gap in income between men and women, and between rich and poor, creating a “surplus of hope” (Hage, 2003). But in 2005, there is widening gap in incomes between rich and poor, between men and women, non-indigenous and indigenous. Under the post welfare state produced by neo liberal reforms, there is a “scarcity of hope.” Feelings of intensified risk produce a form of “paranoid nationalism” (Hage, 2003) and a flight to “individualism.”
A Surplus of Hope People flows in have been more through migration due to imperialism, wars and famine than travel out due to work. Australian national identity has been shaped by waves of immigration after the initial invasion by English colonizers and successive flows of English, Irish, Scots and other Europeans. This homogeneous whiteness was intensified by waves of post-war refugees from Central Europe (Jews, Catholic Italians and orthodox Greeks) disrupted only after 1972 with the influx of Laotian, Vietnamese, 249 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 249–264. © 2007 Springer.
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Cambodian, Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Christian and Muslim Lebanese, Africans, and more recently, Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. Immigrant populations constitute 98% of the population, overwhelming the indigenous traditional owners. Each successive wave of newcomers after settlement met with discrimination from established immigrant groups based on cultural, linguistic, religious and “racialized” differences. By 1985, nearly a quarter of Australians were born overseas and only 70% of Anglo Celtic origin compared to 90% in 1947, with most immigrants settling into inner city Melbourne or Sydney. In 2005, 41% of the population now have at least one parent born overseas. Whereas issues of race have dominated the USA and UK for a long time, “with its history of migration, the White Australian Policy and more recent policy of multiculturalism, ethnicity has (only now) received much more attention in Australia” (Tsolidis, 2001, p. 4). Place and space dominate Australian mindsets. Viewed by eighteenth century imperialist planners as an outpost of Western culture and trade, located in, but marginal to, the Asia Pacific, Australians know “themselves” relative to “the other.” Australia has been both colonized (economically, politically and culturally by the UK and then USA post-1945) and colonizer (e.g., of New Guinea), complicit in maintaining the British Empire. This produces multiple, often conflicting, legacies and loyalties shaping Australian identity, further confused by the increasing pressures of the latest phase of “globalization.” Old loyalties dissipate due to both collapse of time/space and new ones emerge due to changing relativities of place. While England and the USA are geographically distant, past bonds are now confused by new regional loyalties with NAFTA and the EU. Meanwhile, Australia’s presence in Asia-Pacific alliances is tenuous, and politically and culturally ambiguous. Yet Australia is now more economically dependent on Asia and South East Asia than the USA or UK, an interdependency recently strengthened, paradoxically, by international terrorism, which also has, ironically, reinforced old racialized alliances and prejudices (Rizvi, 1996). Australian relations in/towards the Asia-Pacific region are clouded by both colonial legacies of empire and post-colonial legacies of nationhood. Prior to 1900, white settlers had, through treaties, force of arms and settlement, possessed much of the land of the 500 or more indigenous tribes. Federation in 1900 removed Aboriginal constitutional rights through the doctrine of terra nullius, that is, Australia was “empty” at the time of occupation. The rightful ownership of the indigenous was returned with the 1992 Mabo High Court decision, only to be challenged and modified. Australian Federation in 1900 was also motivated by the need to move outside England’s protection, and to unify the colonies into a democratic nation due its distance from the “mother country” and proximity to “the other,” the “Yellow Peril,” to the North. This racialized fear was internalized through the White Australia Policy in 1902, entrenched with Japanese imperialist desires in World War II, then readily converted into fear of the “red peril” with rise of communism in Asia and South East Asia during the 1950s. Finally, the residual welfare state after Federation of the colonies in 1900 built on the state colonial government bureaucracies to protect white male jobs and local industries through centralized industrial and administrative regulation. A sense of security, solidarity and unity was gained through state protection reinforced by the integral role of the trade union movement to formal politics (and the Labor party) with Federation.
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This social liberal consensus was driven through adherence to particular norms around family, nationhood and community. Australia’s social experimentation, just like New Zealand’s, meant women led the world in gaining the vote in the 1890s. But women (as children) were defined by the modern state as dependent on the male wage earner, perpetuating the colonial white patriarchy. The doctrine of equality was never “intended to equate the Englishmen to the Chinaman” (Prime Minister, quoted in Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 36). While New Zealand institutionalized biculturalism through the Treaty of Waitangi, Australia assumed a “natural process of extinction” would occur via assimilation of its Aboriginal peoples, already largely decimated through white settler expansion and border wars (Reynolds, 1999). These narratives were embedded in schooling. Centralized, free, secular and compulsory public state-run schools for students to 14 years formed the infrastructure of the Australian welfare state. In the 1870s, colonial education systems were developed by the petit bourgeoisie to educate the new male citizens of the propertyless classes. After 1900, education was linked for the first time to the national economy. The secular public systems (over 70% of students), obligated to take all students, provided one teacher for rural, technical, domestic and agricultural as well as academic high schools, reproducing a differentiated class and gender-based educated workforce. A white male working class blue collar elite was reproduced through technical education, while church-run elite high fee private schools, the legacy of the colonial period with about 8% of students, reproduced middle class business leaders, many of whom constituted the 3% of students who attended university until the 1960s. Over 20% of students attended Catholic low fee systemic schools. Sectarian politics between Catholics and Protestants divided school systems, society and politics well into the 1960s. New immigrants attended mainstream public schools, with no specific language or transition programs until the 1970s. Aboriginal students received basic literacy and numeracy on mission schools on the reserves where they were “protected” by the state. This “protection” extended to the state “removing” mixed blood children to be educated in white homes and public schools, most destined to work in towns and on farms as cheap labor, a “stolen generation” who lost contact with parents and kin. But educational certification was not always necessary for employment in a prosperous economy of primary industries with a small manufacturing sector. Unskilled male workers could comfortably support “the nuclear family” of wife and children until the crash of 1974, and women teachers were a source of cheaper part time and full time workforce to foster expansion, given there was no equal pay until 1970. Schooling therefore promoted individual social mobility, but reproduced inequalities based on class, gender, race and ethnic difference, a sorting function at odds with equity. Equity prior to 1970 was understood as access to differentiated forms of schooling to geographically dispersed student populations. Women, children and indigenous were constructed as dependents on the male wage earner. Women’s political rights were based on an implicit sexual contract, their role, interests and needs being as mothers and wives. White Australia therefore enjoyed “relative equality” until the 1970s, due to natural wealth and social mobility, but also “the product of a particular set of public policies developed over time,” including strong and centralized state education systems, industrial relation systems and unions (Thomson, 2001, p. 27). Australia’s cultural
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isolationism and separatism dissipated during the 1930s. Immigration for economic growth was promoted during the 1950s and 1960s based on the assimilationist assumption that, with time, shared experiences through trade and travel would make cultural differences disappear within a unified culture. “Assimilation” assumed that immigrant groups and indigenous could “live with us” so that in time they would “become like us” (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 37).
Lines of Flight: Educational Progressivism During the 1970s–1980s Lines of flight are indicative of “movements of transmutation and change” in societies created out of historical conditions but creating new possibilities (Patton, 1995, p. 154). Lines of flight that disrupted the social order of the 1950s were the rise of a professionalized educated middle class, “new” social movements (peace, women’s and environmental) in the 1960s and 1970s, the multicultural movement of the 1980s, and the post-Mabo reconciliation movement (Patton, 1995). These “becoming” events, together with increased cultural diversity and labor market instability arising from increased rapidity of global flows of money, goods, people, ideas and images of globalization, produced conditions for radical change after 1974 (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997; Pusey, 2003; Yeatman, 1990, 1998). The social movements of the 1970s disrupted dominant political and epistemological assumptions, challenging not only the elites (largely white middle class males), but also ways of knowing and explaining in universities and schools. This was a period of political and policy activism in the fields of education, health and welfare as different interest groups made their specific claims upon the state (Yeatman, 1998). Education was, during the 1970s, also a site of student activism, feminist challenges epistemologically and politically, as well as an emergent multicultural movement. Educational inequality based on class and redistribution became a focus in Australia in 1972, whereas issues of class and race were interlocked in the UK and USA, for example, with the Great Reforms. While schools were a state domain, the federal Labor government 1972–1975 sought to develop more equitable systems, given the decline in Catholic parish schools with high staff-student ratios and poor quality buildings. The Schools Commission established in 1973 recommended the historic decision for the state to fund church schools based on a formula that meant most funding went to the poorest schools, and little funding to the elite. This decision was based on a government’s responsibility to provide a minimum standard of education for all. Educational progressivists during the 1970s also opposed the selectivity and streaming of students by schools, and pushed for comprehensivization of secondary schools to promote greater choice and equity, operationalized through zoning policies allocating students to local public schools. The Schools Commission also created the Disadvantaged Schools Program that focused on the school, not the neighborhood as in the UK or the family as in the USA, an ambitious and relatively successful approach that focused on comprehensive curriculum, positive school-community relations, parent participation, participative decision making, and sensitive student-teacher relations.
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Education was seen to be a force for social change and participation was an educative process. Most federally-funded innovative educational programs of the late 1970s and early 1980s emphasized localized policy formation, for example, the Participation and Equity Program 1983–1989 (Connell, Johnston, & White, 1991). This Labor federal government was progressive and reforming, working within a social democratic frame. With pressure from Women’s Electoral Lobby, representatives of “interest” groups were incorporated into/by the state, installed in specialist units and onto advisory policy bodies. Feminist bureaucrats (femocrats) were positioned within the state, to work both for the state and in the interests of gender equity broadly. The femocrats were accommodated, despite their loyalty to feminist principles, and not without internal resistance from a masculinist culture, by bureaucracies themselves under reform to improve their service orientation. Education femocrats sought to improve the position of women in teaching, as signaled by their increased representation in leadership positions and equal pay, and the education of girls to be more equitable (Kaplan, 1996). The femocrats developed anti-discriminatory and affirmative action legislation (Sawer, 1999). In 1974, a women’s budget was developed to monitor the outcomes of budget decisions in cabinet, a process now utilized in many developing nations and by UNESCO. Gender equity reform was institutionalized through consultative processes for policy production. This model permeated down into state bureaucracies and schools. The New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act (1977) required all state governments to prepare an EO management plan to be sent to the Director of EEO in Public Employment, including universities and Technical and Further Education Colleges in 1983. These included a statistical analysis of the workforce, a review of personnel practices and a set of strategies to eliminate discriminatory practices. Targets were set without positive discrimination. Gender equity units in education bureaucracies and education policies increasingly included anti-racism and multiculturalism, working with social justice units on Multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Education. At the same time, this process of incorporation also “domesticated” opposition. Policymakers and femocrats were also informed by grassroots activists through formal consultations, lobby groups, local and state union, and feminist academic networks. The unions, bastions of masculinity, also under pressure from education feminists within, formed women’s branches and established women’s officers. Australian feminist academics therefore theorized the state as a site of contestation and not entirely masculinist and oppressive, whereas English and American feminists had a more oppositional view. Policy was a product of contestation that in turn produced new discourses that could be adopted, adapted or rejected by practitioners. Gender equity reform exemplified a dialogical process of articulation and re-articulation within/ between the bureaucracy, feminist and academic networks and schools. Each iteration of national policies for girls and action plans for women teachers, for example, reflected the theoretical shifts and practical politics of gender equity reform. Thus in 1975, the National Policy for the Education of Girls, framed by liberal feminism and informed by theories of socialization and sex roles, focused on individual girls, treated girls from NESB and Aboriginal backgrounds as “special needs” groups suffering
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multiple disadvantages because of “traditional cultures” in a cultural deficit model (Yates, 1995, p. 44–45). The strategies focused on changing women and girls to enter non-traditional areas of work, to gain self-esteem and confidence, and to acquire leadership skills (Kenway, Willis, Blackmore, & Rennie, 1998). By 1983 there was a shift, informed by cultural feminism, from notions of girls and women being passive victims of their socialization to celebrating their femininity as a positive force for change. The policy focus moved towards women- and girl-friendly cultures and inclusive curriculum. The dual strategies were to remove sexist and racist assumptions in curriculum and leadership, and acknowledge the life experiences and contributions of males and females. Women and girls were seen to bring different knowledge and talents to leadership and learning, for example, interpersonal and communication skills, and caring and collaborative approaches (Blackmore, 1999a). But this celebration of difference treated recognition superficially through the inclusion of stories about women scientists, female role models in business and engineering, while accommodating or appropriating women’s styles of leadership as being caring and sharing, The association of different knowledge/power relations went unchallenged. This add but do not stir strategy did not require the mainstream to reflect on its dominance, but did provide powerful discourses for individual women and girls. The 1987 National Policy on the Education of Girls, passed after long community consultation, was significant in its recognition of difference amongst boys and girls. Informed by feminist poststructuralist notions of gender and subjectivity, its focus was on gender identity in terms of the production of female and masculine identities in relation to each other, on migration and systemic racism rather than NESB backgrounds. ATSI girls’ education was separately located within broader discussions of land rights and self determination (Yates, 1995). Mature aged women were also the major beneficiaries of the abolition of university fees in 1972, whereas working class students favored the newly created Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector. But it was ultimately middle class white women and girls who benefited most from these discourses, as they competed with white middle class males in traditional masculine areas of leadership and science (Tsolidis, 1993). With the Whitlam government in 1972, the notion of multiculturalism was first mobilized. Again, lobby groups (Australian Ethnic Affairs Council) worked to pressure government for representation in the policy process on the basis of social cohesion, cultural diversity and equal opportunity. Multiculturalism became official government policy in 1978, but cultural diversity was to be recognized only to the extent that it did not alter existing social, political and economic arrangements, although it was accepted that multiculturalism meant that commitment to the public good did not “impose a sameness” on the outlook of everybody. Government reports during the 1980s emphasized the need to celebrate ethnic diversity and identify the special needs of ethnic minorities in education, thus recognizing difference rather than focusing on assimilation, exemplified in Ministerial portfolios and a separate television station. Multicultural discourses expressed a tolerance of others, celebration, of respect, equal access and social justice. Multicultural education was framed not only with discourses about recognizing diversity, but also creating social cohesion through inculcating a multicultural attitude,
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for example, interethnic tolerance. McCarthy (1998) identifies three discourses of multiculturalism in education – those emphasizing cultural understanding and sensitivity, those institutionalizing curriculum recognition of cultural competence so students can live comfortably in a culturally pluralistic society, and those which are emancipatory, radically altering the life chances of minority students. Australian policy focused on cultural understanding foremost, less so cultural competence, but without any emancipatory intent. Teachers and principals were expected to be aware of ethnic minorities, develop policies, take into account different religious requirements, review curriculum of ethnocentricity, and provide courses in ethnic cultures and community languages to promote a “multicultural attitude” (Rizvi, 1996, p. 3). English as a second language developed as a major area in community education, and neighborhood houses, learning centres and TAFE provided an educative and participatory approach to literacy for NESB women. But multicultural education, in recognizing Australia’s cultural heterogeneity, did position migrants as active subjects. Immigration became the focus of educational research, and ethnicity was included in relation to other “categories” of disadvantage (Rizvi, 1996). But in school practices, multiculturalism assumed a preservationist view, highlighting traditional cultures, customs, and associations with particular religions. And as Tsolidis (2001) argues, in education, this positioned NESB girls as being disadvantaged by their ethnicity (equated to traditional and patriarchal). “Mosaic multiculturalism” assumed that each cultural group should contribute equally and fully in Australian society and that cultural difference would not disappear but “fit” together, while rejecting the possibility of homogenous cultural unity. But mosaic multiculturalism also assumes culture is homogeneous, fixed and static, with clear boundaries that are as much about inclusion/exclusion as they are about recognition. Furthermore, the assumption was that each culture has a moral right to be recognized and that the state (or education systems) should not be judgmental, that is, cultural relativism. The unproblematic utilization of the notion of ethnicity in this value-free and apolitical sense (that ignored ethnicities cultural distinctiveness and historical origins, and indeed why there was a need to maintain ethnic identity) also allowed class and gender to be ignored (Rizvi, 1996; Tsolidis, 2001). Migrants saw themselves, and were perceived, as distinctive, but within class relations of inequality where most acted as a reserve army of labor generating post-war economic growth. And the most ardent advocates of cultural relativism, and indeed multiculturalism, were often those who benefited most because of their already advantageous class and gender position, that is, an emergent male ethnic middle class. Australian critical theorists have argued that with the absorption of race within the frame of multiculturalism, the concepts of race through which Australians understand themselves as a nation have been rendered invisible. The languages of multiculturalism and race have become confused. This movement for social justice in education developed a logic that enabled it to expand to encompass more and more equity groups (ATSI, cultural and language diversity, disability, educational risk, geographic isolation, gifts and talents, learning impairment and low socio-economic background). State bureaucracies reflected this. Queensland had an Equity Directorate and Language and Cultures Unit working with
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a Social Justice Strategy plus state-wide support centers and personnel. Victoria institutionalized Equal Opportunity positions through industrial agreements in all schools. Action Plans for women teachers existed in most states, with targets set, monitoring and reporting requirements. Approaches to social justice meant that we think through economic issues from the standpoint of the poor and not the rich. We think through gender arrangements from the standpoint of women. We think through race relations and land questions from the standpoint of indigenous peoples. We think though questions of sexuality from the standpoint of gay people. (Connell, 1993, p. 43) This was a needs based approach, underpinned by the view that everyone had the right to an equal education. While equity policies provided legitimacy to act in schools, critical feminist and post colonial theorists critiqued the notion of gender, race and ethnicity as “fixed” categories, arguing that ethnic and gender formation were interconnected and contradictory, cultures worked on the basis of inclusion/exclusion, and there were significant power and material inequalities (Yates, 1995). Certainly, many white middle class girls benefited, but dominant white masculinities in schools remained the norm (Blackmore, 1999a). Yet, most equity strategies focused on recognition superficially without changing social and economic power relations, that is, greater representation of women in leadership and “fashion and food festivals.” These policies of inclusion were readily contained within social liberalism. Recognition of group interests took over in Australia as in other Western democracies from redistribution (Fraser, 1997).
Shifting Trajectories: Equity and/or Efficiency and Effectiveness Labor was back in power federally from 1983 to 1995. Public sector reform in Australia during the 1980s was informed by two major ideological pushes: to develop more responsive, transparent and accountable bureaucracies with employment reform based on affirmative action and EEO, recruitment based on merit not seniority, lateral recruitment of senior executive service on contract, corporate planning and program based budgeting, plus audit reviews and performance monitoring. The second impetus came from the emerging force of economic rationalism in the federal bureaucracy informed by public choice theory that argued that individuals sought to self maximize and that bureaucrats and professionals sought merely to protect their own interests, not govern for national interests, that is, producer capture. Therefore bureaucrat policy and regulation were separated from program delivery, now undertaken through contractual arrangements with public and private agencies on a competitive basis for increased efficiencies. This was fertile ground for neo-liberal reforms. Federal Labor, after the global financial crash of 1987, was also under significant pressure by international monetary markets and economic orthodoxies to restructure its industrial relations and workplace arrangements. Structural adjustment meant small government, reduced
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public expenditure on health, education and welfare, deregulation of financial and labor markets, and devolution in governance. Labor’s corporate managerial approach was now premised upon an alliance between government, big business and big unions, sidelining educational unionists and other lobby groups. State Labor governments adopted similar strategies. Under pressure, Labor sought to balance efficiency and effectiveness with equity by linking social justice policies in education with goals of international competitiveness and economic development. Higher education reform after 1987 exemplified new public administrative trends. Access was increased through massification of Higher Education (HE) by creating a unified system amalgamating colleges of advanced education and technical institutes with universities. Efficiency was achieved through the higher education contribution scheme (HECs), a deferred tax on students. But as economic rationalism came to dominate, equity discourses were marginalized. Education policies were increasingly informed by neo-liberal versions of human capital theory promoting user pays, the premise being that higher education produced individual as well as national benefits. As with NPA in the UK and New Zealand, there was a shift from government (controlling the daily administration) to governance (steering from a distance). Education was politicized with increased ministerialisation of policy making (at federal and state levels) with externally recruited policy advisors and contracted senior executive managers replacing public servants. Loyalty shifted away from citizen and up to political “master.” This new contractualism shifted relations between citizen and state to one of client and provider. Meanwhile, the new managerialism meant responsibility (and risk) for decisions were devolved to local semi-autonomous units that competed with each other for resources, governments steered from a distance through a cycle of policy, financial contracts, and accountability feedback mechanisms focusing only on outcomes. This centralized decentralization was the model for state government, education systems (with a move to self-managing schools funded on enrolments), and educational organizations (where local budget centers competed for a decreasing global budget). The new managerialism was exemplified in the notion of a generic multi-skilled manager who managed regardless of expertise, as knowledge and commitment implied self interest. The focus was on the performative, that is, what could be measured, such as performance management and indicators. In this context, equity was mainstreamed within human resource (HR) management and devolved as a responsibility to individual managers who lacked the commitment, knowledge or resources. While this weakened its strength, EEO practices had become embedded within management and HR discourses. But as efficiency dominated, equity was increasingly perceived to be a luxury and a cost. Thus EEO policy was often treated symbolically, existing in policy but and not bedded down in practices of selection, promotion or curriculum, neither advocated nor resourced, and often undermined. Equal opportunity … came to be reframed in terms of what it can do for management improvement, not in terms of what it can do to develop the conditions of social justice and democratic citizenship in Australian society. (Yeatman, 1998, p. 15)
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Capitalizing on Choice and Diversity During the 1990s: Reconciliation, Republicanism, Resistance and the Right Whereas the 1970s and 1980s would appear to be the logical culmination of particular progressive tendencies of social liberalism within Australian society, the 1990s stand out as a moment of disjuncture or rupture with the past, due to the fundamental restructuring of the relations between the individual, “interest” groups, social movements and the state with the rise of neo liberalism (Blackmore & Sachs, 2006). The 1990s was a period of radical restructuring of political systems worldwide with the fall of communism, increased rapidity of globalizing flows of capital, people, images, ideas and goods, changing work orders and familial structures. Under Keating’s Labor leadership until 1996, Australia was looking to new alliances and orientations towards South East Asia and Asia economically, culturally and politically. Such a re-orientation supported notions of productive diversity, a discourse mobilized widely by progressive employers “to work effectively with an immigrant workforce and putting a positive economic spin on multiculturalism … as a pragmatic response” and “a distinctively optimistic and ingenious Australian idea, born of an irreducible diverse society of immigrants and indigenous people and an economy that must be export oriented” (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997, pp. iv, ix). This notion was rearticulated in education and government as a discourse of managing diversity. At the same time, the Mabo (1992) and Wik (1994) legal decisions that recognized indigenous land rights were indicative of wider moves towards reconciliation, matched by a renewed interest in republicanism. The Enlightenment’s universal citizen and abstract subject was under review as women, indigenous and ethnic minorities made new claims upon the state, and the state itself was under review. It was also an era of radical restructuring, linking education more tightly to national economies in most Western nation states due to an increasing reliance on international competitiveness and innovation. Schools were similarly linked more tightly to the economy with increased influence of business and blue collar unions through three key national reports in the early 1990s, pushing for the vocationalization of education through competency based education that aligned well with outcomes based education. Educational work in universities, schools and TAFEs was intensified, commodified, and corporatized, achieved through the twin neo-liberal strategies of new managerialism and marketization, the policy orthodoxies of global policy communities during the 1990s (e.g., OECD, World Bank, and IMF) (Henry, Lingard, Rizvi, & Taylor, 2001). In education and the public sector generally, reduced expenditure accompanying devolution meant downsizing, outsourcing and casualization of educational labor. The move to enterprise bargaining – Labor’s labor/industry compromise after 1989 – had already effected a decline in union membership (women’s membership decreased from 50% in the 1960s to 31% in 1997). Women’s weaker bargaining capacity led to trade offs of pay for family flexibility, although teacher unions have the majority of teachers as members, and compared to other public sector unions, were more woman-friendly. Thus the material conditions and the nature of educational work were being re-structured. After 1996, John Howard extended Labor’s reforms, but within neo-conservative social policy and radical market policy frames. Policies promoted the privatization of public education by mobilizing discourses of choice, without mention of equity.
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Equity programs (e.g., DSP) and the Office of Multicultural Affairs were abolished, the Affirmative Action Agency was reviewed and downgraded and reporting was “voluntary.” Childcare support was reduced. ATSIC was created to manage indigenous services. Government expenditure on public education (universities and schools), already decreasing since 1989, now rapidly declined (from 4.3 to 3.8% of GDP). Universities in particular, but increasingly TAFE, sought fee-paying international students to replace reducing government funds. During the 1990s, most school education systems (under state government control) increased parental choice by abolishing zoning, and increased competition between schools by funding regimes based on enrolments with targeted equity funds while federal funding policies support a flow of those who could afford to private schools. Parents, it was argued, would choose the most effective schools, and failing schools would close. Ironically, in Victoria where the move to self-managing schools was most radical, and where parental involvement had historically been politically strongest and parent and teacher representation on policy committees greatest, the neo liberal government excluded parent and teacher union organization’s representation from school councils. Parents were re-positioned not as citizens with a constituency of parents, but as individual active choosers/consumers without responsibility to others, while teachers were positioned as providers. Markets are now the means by which to distribute educational provision. Any inequitable effects are blamed on individual schools and/or students. This rights oriented approach pays little regard to needs and ignores how individual choices impact on the collective, or how the few have more choices than the majority. It also denies responsibility of both government and individual citizens to “the other” or indeed “the public.” Meanwhile, government now controls “self managing” universities, TAFEs and schools, teachers and academics educators more than ever before. National qualifications frameworks promote seamlessness between sectors and professional standards seek comparability between institutions on the one hand, yet produce competition and conformity towards the norm of market images of success and managerial outcomes rather than increased differentiation to address client diversity or creativity. This occurred in the context of a discursive backlash against feminism, multiculturalism and reconciliation, generated by conservative discourses that condemned “black armband history” for producing guilt, feminism for putting masculinity at risk, multiculturalism as divisive and a failure, and the recognition of difference as against the national interest (McLeod, 1998). These assimilationist discourses appealed to marginalized electors, many blue collar worker males, disaffected by increased economic insecurity, and radical changes in the nature of work and gender relation in the family. Indeed, in education and health, discourses of masculinity in crisis have been mobilized by government, small but vocal groups of men, and some male academics. In Victoria after 1993, gender inclusive curriculum and other strategies focusing on girls were seen to be unfair to boys, and “strategies for the education of boys” were recommended to restore goodwill. The subtext was that teaching and schools had become too feminized. But addressing equity (for girls and boys) was left to voluntary choice by individual self managing schools and not centrally prescribed. The government’s national discourse of “recuperative masculinity” has focused narrowly on boys’ underachievement in literacy in an essentialist way. It has ignored feminist advances in gender
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equity that now consider which boys and which girls (due to the intersections of class, indigeneity, location, and language) are disadvantaged (Lingard, 2003). Howard’s populist politics after 2000 fed off two discourses of protection: protection against refugees (defined by government as “illegals” and “queue jumpers”) and terrorists (equated to Muslims) after 9/11 and subsequent bombings. The “success” of multiculturalism is now contested by the conservative press. Suggestions are that the extension of post-war immigration policies to non-Anglo immigrants after 1970 did not consider the impact of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Post-welfarism criticizes dependency cultures and promotes self-help and voluntarism, not state assistance. This is now central to debates amongst indigenous leaders as to whether mutual obligation embedded in welfare (e.g., where welfare funds are removed if children are not sent to school) is revived paternalism or restoring community. The Howard government has pushed through legislation to replace the industrial relations system of the past 100 years with minimalist awards that favor employers. The connection between wages and social justice has been severed. The gap between rich and poor, male and female wages, indigenous and non-indigenous, dual- and single- income families, urban and rural has increased. High level concentrations of poverty, poor health, unemployment and low educational achievement are geographically concentrated in a few postcodes (Teese & Polesel, 2003). In education, conservative media challenges to educational progressivism (e.g., critical literacy) are underway. Federally-funded elite and selective, as well as fundamentalist, religious educational institutions are not held accountable for equity in terms of who and what they teach, or how. Yet, public schools with a greater social mix (linguistic, ability, racial) operate under strict accountabilities to improve the outcomes of equity groups. They are disadvantaged in the market where parents seek to choose schools (and social networks) where students are “more like us.” The role of schools, TAFE colleges and universities with regard to the equity outcomes is being restructured. A number of shifts during the 1990s have changed the nature of the conceptualization of equity: (1) Policies are now based on individual rights, not group interests (recognition) or need (redistribution). Any claims upon the state are now judged against “the national interest” and must benefit everyone. This ignores the conditions that can impact on opportunities. (2) The discourse of equal opportunity that implied a form of group entitlement has been supplanted by an individualizing discourse of managing diversity that equates all forms of difference (e.g., learning preferences the same as race, class and gender). Diversity is a problem to be managed. The individualization of disadvantage means individuals bear the brunt of both the risk and responsibility, yet has to show agency to change, thus localizing victimization and individualizing the solution. The individualizing nature of rights discourses are readily mobilized to the advantage of the privileged (e.g., equal rights mean that everyone has the same treatment). (3) Governments have devolved equity down to the local where various equity demands compete for reduced resources without systemic support, and where equity is not mandated, that is, devolution of responsibility.
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Making Hope Practical This retrospective analysis helps us consider the prospects for the future of equity reform in different times. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a particular momentary convergence between a reforming state and emergent social movements that gave rise to intelligent opportunism in terms of promoting social justice. Structural reform did not in itself change practices. Centralized decentralization, with the dispersion and individualization of responsibility, risk and results on the one hand, and expectations to be a self-managing performative entrepreneurial educator on the other, has contributed to an intensification of labor, another form of managerial control. But policy shifted values and priorities within education systems away from comprehensiveness, equity, collegiality, cooperation, and towards competition, individualism, and compliance. Competition, contractualism and performance management altered relations between workers, workers and managers, students and teachers, between institutions and between individuals and the state, generally increasing government control over teachers and academics. Organizational processes, symbols and cultures are also racialized and gendered, porous to wider societal discourses. Providing role models and celebrating difference are often only symbolic, and focus on a traditional false view of culture or gender that reinforces categories and stereotypes. To only recognize difference, and encourage the self-esteem of ethnic children or girls do not alter those structures, cultures and processes that are biased towards white middle class males. Racism, like sexism, are not rational ideologies, but “constructed around certain structures of feeling and with a socio-emotional dimension” that do not alter with knowledge of inequality or an experiential encounter with “other” cultures (Rizvi, 1993, p. 209). Changing race and gender relations/attitudes is not just about informing people about patterns of discrimination, encouraging them to empathize with those who are discriminated against, or even experiencing discrimination. Equity reform is about identity work for teachers and students. Individuals have considerable investment in their gendered and “racialized” identities, some more than others because of unequal power relations, where privileges accompany class, whiteliness and masculinity (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). Racism is equally the problem of all groups. While dominant racist ideologies are white, whites can be victims of racist violence, and racist discourses are also mobilized between non-Anglo immigrant groups, and linked to sexism, that is, “gendered racisms” (Castles, 1996, p. 23). Anti-racism (like anti-sexism) is a “vital developing and changing combination of activism and opposition that must continually involve diverse groups and be sensitive to its own limitations in visions and action” (Gillborn, 2004, p. 43). Studies of both anti-racism and gender equity reform indicate that gender equity and anti-racism reforms are most successful when there is a dialogue between bottom-up activism and top-down policy that legitimates and provides a language of reform, as well as resources and infrastructure (Taylor, 2001). An institutional approach in both policy and practice is critical. Often, reform begins small, with a few advocates, or by working in partnership with supportive communities (Gillborn, 2004; Kenway et al., 1998). But schools themselves must seek to encourage meaningful participation by all students in this process. Moreover, equity reform is uneven, not chronologically
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progressive; it works at multiple levels, and often in contradictory ways in different contexts (e.g., responsive or corporate bureaucracy). Past successes do not disappear with the next reforms. State government education policies continue to use Action Plans as a strategic tool. Equity has to some extent been discursively accommodated, and equity practices partially integrated, but often without the same commitment or political will. Successes are equally quickly eradicated through restructuring, value shifts informed by policy, and changed conditions of work. Thus marketization and managerialism meant old bureaucratic masculinities were supplanted by managerial and entrepreneurial transnational masculinities. So what are the prospects for equity work with the shift in the socio-cultural and economic context, the rise of economic globalization and neoliberalism? One is to utilize the tools of performativity. The state now mediates globalized education markets (students and teachers) and education has become integrated with the development of an innovation economy. Within market-oriented education systems, the discourses of equal opportunity, equity and diversity are being mobilized differently. Currently, with internationalization and labor shortages, equity has niche market appeal – for international students, and for attracting and retaining quality academics and teachers. But now equity is increasingly reliant on market conditions and employer goodwill, not mandated through policy. In response to the lack of political will on behalf of government, grassroots oppositional social movements, community organizations and coalitions have emerged to support reconciliation, refugees and public education. Women’s and other non-government organizations continue to lobby government, usually unsuccessfully. They also strategically name and shame the federal government for the inequitable outcomes of neo-liberal policies, and poor record on human rights, by appealing to international bodies (e.g., International Labor Organization, UNESCO Women’s Committee). These global policy communities struggle with the tension between postmodernist cultural pluralism and modernist universal human rights through developing more equity-driven performance indicators to monitor any nation state’s level of stability, economic growth and social development (and therefore a good investment opportunity) (Blackmore, 1999b). Australian indigenous educational, health and employment outcomes stand out starkly on such global measures. But the tension between modernist and postmodernist consideration about equity, that is, to reconcile individual agency and cultural relativism with universal human rights, are not readily resolved. As indicated in this narrative, the politics of recognition dominated the 1980s and 1990s, readily captured by neo-liberal discourses of choice that facilitated individual mobility and a sense of group collectivity in the face of social fragmentation. Fraser (1997) argues that social justice has to address recognition and redistribution together. Focusing on recognition of cultural, racial or gender difference alone ignores equally significant issues of class and unequal distribution of resources. This means governments have to address both recognition (e.g., representation and voice or interests) and also redistribution (i.e., address needs). But past equity categories (gender, race, class, ethnicity, disability) when treated as discrete, do not necessarily work effectively as policy categories. Racial, ethnic and class differences overlap, but do not necessarily coincide. And gender confuses all this. Girls and women overachieve educationally,
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but are under-rewarded in workplaces because of their responsibility as primary carers of the young, aged and sick, their location in traditional women’s work, and their concentration lower down or on the margins of organizations. Then there are cultural and religious traditions with their various hybrid forms positioning women, a multiplicity of gendered racisms. Policy has to ask the question: which girls and which boys, which women and which men, are currently disadvantaged? “Educationally … difference is both an opportunity and a problem” (Burbules, 1997, p. 97). An opportunity to understand ourselves better through dialogue, view alternative visions, and learning to live in a democratic civic culture. But difference is a problem because “some differences are not neutral, but imbued with power differentials that divide us.” Educators always struggle in their daily practices between sameness (make us all alike, impose a national curriculum and standardized tests) and difference (different learning styles and needs). Educational discourses have been dominated by “the common.” The challenge presented by feminist, critical race, multicultural and post colonial theorists is how to recognize difference than is not merely defined in relation to that norm, that is, compliance to conform with a dominant set of standards. Sameness and difference are not necessarily antithetical. Tsolidis (2001, pp. 114–116) argues that as educators, we are working with first, diasporic identities that are also gendered, identities that are the product of interlocking histories and cultures that need to trouble each other and second, diasporic communities arising from an interrelationship between the economic and the cultural, sites of cultural (and economic) production. Education provides the site for counter-hegemonic work that troubles the binaries.
References Blackmore, J. (1999a). Troubling Women: Feminism, leadership and educational change. Buckingham: Open University Press. Blackmore, J. (1999b). Globalization/localization: Strategic dilemmas for state feminism and gender equity policy. Journal of Education Policy, 14(1), 33–54. Blackmore, J., & Sachs, J. (2006). Performing and reforming leaders: Gender, educational restructuring and organizational change. New York: SUNY Press. Burbules, N. (1997). A grammar of difference: Some ways of rethinking difference and diversity as educational topics. Australian Educational Researcher, 24(10), 97–116. Castles, S. (1996). The racisms of globalization. In E. Vasta, & S. Castles (Eds.), The teeth are smiling: The persistence of racism in multicultural Australia (pp. 17–45). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Connell, B. (1993). Schools and social justice. Sydney: Pluto Press. Connell, R., Johnston, K., & White, V. (1991). Running twice as hard: The disadvantaged schools program. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (1997). Productive diversity: A new, Australian model for work and management. Sydney: Pluto Press. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge. Fraser, N. (1997). Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the “Postsocialist” condition. New York: Routledge. Gillborn, D. (2004). Anti-racism: From policy to praxis. In G. Ladson-Billings, & D. Gillborn (Eds.), The RoutledgeFalmer reader in multicultural education (pp. 35–67). London: RoutledgeFalmer.
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Hage, G. (2003). Against paranoid nationalism. UK: Merlin Press. Henry, M., Lingard, B., Rizvi, F., & Taylor, S. (2001). The OECD, globalization and education policy. Amsterdam, London, New York: Pergamon Press. Kaplan, G. (1996). The meagre harvest: The Australian women’s movement 1960s to 1990s. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Kenway, J., Willis, S., Blackmore, J., & Rennie, L. (1998). Answering back: Girls, boys and feminism in schools. London: Routledge. Lingard, B. (2003). Where to in gender policy in education after recuperative masculinity politics? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 7(1), 33–56. McCarthy, C. (1998). The users of culture: Education and the limits of ethnic affiliation. New York: Routledge. McLeod, J. (1998). Out of the comfort zone; feminism after the backlash. Discourse, 19(3), 371–378. Moreton-Robinson, A. S. (2000). Talkin’ up to the white woman: Indigenous women and feminism. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Patton, P. ( 1995). Post structuralism and the Mabo debate: Difference, society and social justice. In M. Wilson, & A. Yeatman (Eds.), Justice and identity, antipodean practices (pp. 153–171). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Pusey, M. (2003). The experience of middle Australia: The dark side of economic reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reynolds, H. (1999). Why weren’t we told? A personal search for truth about our history. Ringwood: Viking Press. Rizvi, F. (1993). Race, gender and the cultural assumptions of schooling. In C. Marshall (Ed.), The new politics of race and gender. London: Falmer Press. Rizvi, F. (1996). Racism, reorientation and the cultural politics of Asia-Australia relations. In E. Vasta, & S. Castles (Eds.), The teeth are smiling: The persistence of racism in multicultural Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Sawer, M. (1999). The watchers within: Women and the Australian State. In L. Hancock (Ed.), Women, public policy and the state. South Yarra: Macmillan. Taylor, S. (2001). Teachers’ union activism for gender equity: Social movements and policy processes. Australian Educational Researcher, 28(1), 47–79. Teese, R., & Polesel, J. (2003). Undemocratic schooling: Equity and quality in mass secondary education in Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Thomson, P. (2001). Schooling the rustbelt kids: Making the difference in changing times. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Tsolidis, G. (1993). Difference and Identity – a feminist debate indicating directions for the development of Transformative curriculum. In L. Yates (Ed.), Feminism and education: Melbourne studies in education (pp. 70–83). Latrobe University Press. Tsolidis. G. (2001). Schooling, diaspora and gender: Being feminist, and being different. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Yates, L. (1995). Gender ethnicity and the inclusive curriculum: An episode in the policy framing of Australian education. In C. Marshall (Ed.), Feminist critical policy analysis: Perspectives on primary and secondary schooling (pp. 43–53). London: Falmer Press. Yeatman, A. (1990). Technocrats, bureaucrats and femocrats. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Yeatman, A. (1998). Activism in the policy process. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
14 THE URBAN AND THE PERIPHERAL: NEW CHALLENGES FOR EDUCATION IN THE PACIFIC Priscilla Qolisaya Puamau and G. Robert Teasdale University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
Introduction The historical development of towns and cities and what constitutes the urban in Pacific countries is different from the way this is defined and understood in the developed nations of the West. Historical evidence (e.g., Jones, 1966; Mumford, 1961) suggests that cities in medieval Europe evolved around the commercial, cultural, artistic and sacred aspects of people’s lives. The movement and settlement of people into towns and cities revolved around trade and commerce, high culture and the church. The values, beliefs and creative expression of the people were evident in the cities of Europe where high culture exhibited in the work of artisans, in museums and other institutions such as church cathedrals dominated the urban spaces. While there was a rapid increase in urbanization due to the industrial revolution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and North America, this has slowed down since the 1950s. Because urbanization of countries in Europe took place relatively slowly compared to the developing nations, western governments have had time to plan and provide for the needs of increasing populations in the cities. Urban centers in Pacific countries, on the other hand, have arisen in response to European colonial enterprise. They are a consequence of foreign influences and came into existence as commercial, administrative, and missionary centers of the colonizing powers (Spoehr, 1960). Unlike the growth of urban centers in Europe, towns and cities in the Pacific have not grown in response to the art, religion or high culture of the indigenous peoples. Western artifacts like museums and art galleries, where they exist, are not particularly popular with the local indigenous population, although a major attraction for tourists. Historically, as colonial settlements grew into small towns that fulfilled the functions and goals of colonial influence, these new urban centers began to do two things. First, they overtook adjacent villages, thus expanding the urban area. And second, many people were attracted to the towns where the seats of government and commerce were 265 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 265–284. © 2007 Springer.
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centered. As urban centers grew, whether town or city, particularly after independence, which is a relatively recent phenomenon in the Pacific, many undesirable consequences arose. Rapid increases in urban populations meant there were more people in need of land, shelter, utilities such as water and electricity, waste disposal, health care, and schooling. This chapter is an exploratory one. It begins with a geographical and historical description of the Pacific region. It then attempts to reconceptualize the urban in the Pacific context. Each country’s population and land area is pertinent, there being highly significant variations in both. The chapter also outlines the reasons peripheral/ rural dwellers move into the urban centers since the rural-urban drift has been severe. It then touches on the outward diaspora of Pacific peoples to rim country cities, and examines the serious cultural, social and economic challenges to education that “townization” or urbanization brings to Pacific nations. The threat to indigenous traditional village systems and concomitant identity issues and the national language challenge arising out of a culturally, linguistically, and religiously heterogeneous urban population are also specifically addressed. As well, we discuss the potential impact of a regional project called Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of basic Education (PRIDE) that is attempting to address some of these issues through its focus on national educational planning and policy.
Geographical and Historical Context What is the Pacific? The Pacific region has been both romanticized and problematized in colonial and postcolonial discourses. In relation to education, the old colonial ways of developing and managing school systems and their curricula have had a pervasive impact in the Pacific, and are deeply resistant to change. Colonial assumptions about the nature of the Pacific and the education of its people continue to need careful, critical and constructive questioning. For example, those who occupy continents on the rim usually view the Pacific Ocean as a vast expanse of water dotted with tiny, isolated islands, their inhabitants disadvantaged by smallness and remoteness. Pacific Islanders are now rejecting this colonial assumption, arguing that they do not occupy “islands in a far sea,” but “a sea of islands” (Hau’ofa, 1993, p. 7). Their ancestors clearly did not view the sea as a barrier, but as their livelihood. They were seafarers who were equally at home on sea as on land. They lived and played and worked upon it. They developed great skills for navigating its waters, traversing it in their sailing canoes, and forming a “large exchange community in which wealth and people with their skills and arts circulated endlessly” (Hau’ofa, 1993, p. 9). In this way, the sea bound them together rather than separating them. This idea of “a sea of islands” captures a holistic sense of people sharing a common environment and living together for their mutual benefit. Many people in the Pacific are attempting to reactivate this ethos, seeking ways to help and support each other,
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rather than constantly turning to the nations on their rim for aid and advice. It is a slow and uneven process, however, much hindered by regional politics, by the insistent pressures of globalization, and by the continuing impact of colonialism. The latter has divided the Pacific linguistically, creating a gulf between groups of English-speaking and French-speaking islands. It also has divided the Pacific politically, with France and the USA still ruling their colonial empires in the Pacific in ways that isolate their people from many regional forums and networks. As a consequence of the above divisions, this chapter focuses only on those countries that are politically independent and therefore able to participate in the dominant political and economic policy grouping in the Pacific, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS): Cook Islands; Federated States of Micronesia (FSM); Fiji; Kiribati; Nauru; Niue; Palau; Papua New Guinea (PNG); Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI); Samoa; Solomon Islands; Tonga; Tuvalu and Vanuatu. To this list should be added Tokelau, which is in the process of achieving self-government in free association with New Zealand, a status similar to that enjoyed by Cook Islands and Niue.
The Pacific Region The Pacific region can be conveniently grouped into three arbitrary categories based on social, linguistic, cultural and physical characteristics. The Melanesian countries, comprising most of the larger islands to the west have ample physical resources. They include Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. The Polynesian countries comprise Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu, and Tokelau. The Micronesian countries occupy small, resource-poor atolls and include the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau. These 15 Pacific countries occupy a small land area but are sprawled over a vast area of ocean. In total, they cover a little over half a million square kilometers of land, but 19.9 million square kilometers of ocean (i.e., in terms of exclusive economic zones). To illustrate the diversity in land size and smallness of population, Tokelau, the smallest nation, has a land area of 12 square kilometers and a population of 1,500; Nauru occupies 21 square kilometers with a population of 12,000; Marshall Islands has 181 square kilometers of land and a population of 54,000. Tonga occupies a landmass equivalent to Singapore, but has a population of 101,000. In contrast, PNG occupies a large landmass of 462,000 square kilometers and has over 5 million people. The countries range from atolls where fresh water and vegetation are scarce and natural resources severely limited, to the better-endowed volcanic islands of the bigger Melanesian countries. In terms of population size, the Pacific is one of the least populated areas in the world, covering a vast area of the world’s water. There are a little over two million people living in 14 of the countries. Add PNG’s 5.6 million and the total population of the Pacific region is close to 8 million. By and large, the majority of people in each country are indigenous.1 The Pacific is the most linguistically complex region in the world, speaking one-fifth of the world’s languages. More than 1,000 distinct languages are spoken by less than 8 million people with multilingualism and bilingualism the norm. The dominant religion in the Pacific is Christianity.
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Agriculture, fisheries and/or tourism are the mainstays of most Pacific economies. In a cut-throat, globalizing and capitalist world where economic concerns are paramount, the Pacific islands are extremely vulnerable as a consequence of their smallness. They are also vulnerable to the vagaries of nature where cyclones and hurricanes continue to cause untold damage to their social and economic well-being. For instance, the Cook Islands suffered five destructive cyclones that attacked within three weeks of one another in early 2005. Small island states face many challenges including development and overconcentration, open economies and overdependence, high public expenditure, distance costs, dominance of public employment, problems of finance, aid dependency, and patronage and nepotism (Bacchus & Brock, 1987, pp. 2–4). Small island states are at the mercy of “developed” nations in terms of economic aid, exploitation by multinational corporations and the vagaries of the global economic system. These countries, because of their colonial legacy, also face the deeper challenge of decolonizing colonial mindsets inherited from centuries of colonial subjugation, oppression and power play. Stepping out of the colonial box into postcolonial2 conditions must start where it counts most – in the mind. A psychological/mental deconstruction must take place – an interrogation of the colonial past and postcolonial present in order to renegotiate the way to a more effective syncretism of local and global worlds. Pacific Islanders need to find a constructive and practical way to “deconstruct the concept, the authority and assumed primacy of the West” (Young, 1990). They must analyze the insidious effects of their colonial past not with the purpose of criticizing or blaming the colonizers, but with the goal of transforming their mindsets in order to reclaim or restore the best of what was lost, subverted or ignored in the colonial era and its aftermath.
The Colonial Legacy With the exception of Tonga, the Pacific region has been colonized by various “western” countries over the last two to three centuries. Some countries were colonized by more than one external power, particularly the Micronesian states. For example, Marshall Islands became a German protectorate in 1886 until Japan took over during the two world wars. From 1947, it was administered by the United States under the trusteeship of the United Nations. While it became independent in 1986, it has a current compact with the United States which keeps it dependent on the US for financial assistance. Political independence is a relatively recent phenomenon with Samoa, the first Pacific country to achieve independence in 1962. Most countries, particularly British colonies, gained independence in the 1970s. The Micronesian countries were the last to gain independence, Palau only in 1994. The primary instruments of control of colonized subjects were (and still are) written history (texts), education and language. Colonial practices – including the historical, imaginative, material, institutional and discursive – have significantly transformed Pacific ways of knowing, being and doing. The ideological, political, economic and social structures currently in place today are manifestations and hybrid versions of the colonial project. Colonial ways of knowing and doing, together with “western” values,
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attitudes and cultural practices, permeate the lived experiences of the colonized to such an extent that they have become part of the postcolonial landscape. At the point of decolonization, if there is no deliberate effort to resist, overthrow, or even transform these colonial legacies, then inherited structures and systems will become normative and hegemonic fixtures of national life. Because every education system is shaped by its national history and socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, the education systems in the Pacific region are manifestations of their colonial histories. For instance, the educational structures in Fiji are modeled on the British system. Similarly, Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, continue to maintain strong ties with the United States of America; the Cook Islands, Tokelau and Niue have close ties with New Zealand, while Vanuatu faces the challenge of dual Anglophone and Francophone systems. The curricula, teaching methods, assessment and evaluation methods, languages of instruction, management models, and organizational cultures of schooling in the Pacific continue in hegemonic forms, usually closely resembling those in place during the former colonial days. It is not hard to understand why colonial practices, processes and structures continued in hegemonic ways after decolonization. Even when countries attained political nationhood as independent states, the colonizing impact continued in two ways: first, through the processes associated with neocolonialism, and second through the influence of local middle-class elites, described by Fanon (1967) as vigilant sentinels who are ever ready to defend “the essential qualities of the West.” These guards of things western are usually the educated locals, who, after independence, continue to protect and maintain systems and structures inherited from their colonial “masters.” An example of this is the continuing practice of valuing and elevating English in school, and in the home, above the mother tongue. Neocolonialism has been defined as “the highest stage of colonialism” where a politically independent nation that was under colonial rule continues to be bound, whether voluntarily or through necessity, to a European or American society, or to a western derivative society such as New Zealand or Australia. It can range from the open distribution of foreign textbooks to the more subtle use of foreign advisers on matters of policy as well as the continuation of foreign administrative models and curricular patterns for schools with very little alteration to the curriculum that was in place before independence (Altbach, 1995). This process has continued unabated through the influence of foreign educational aid, which largely determines the pathways many Pacific curricula, pedagogy, assessment, and resource materials have taken – largely through the developmental assistance provided by Australia and New Zealand. The most insidious element of neocolonialism is that relatively little change occurs to the education system after former colonies attain political independence (Puamau, 1999). As Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1995) put it, “Education is perhaps the most insidious and in some ways the most cryptic of colonialist survivals, older systems now passing, sometimes imperceptibly, into neo-colonial configurations” (p. 424). In the case of the Pacific, educational apparatuses can be described as hegemonic because once structures such as curriculum, assessment and school organization become entrenched and institutionalized, they have a totalizing effect on society. Education
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deeply saturates “the consciousness of a society” (Williams, 1976, p. 204) and becomes unquestionably what parents want for their children. In the Pacific, there is a deeprooted desire for children to succeed at a Western type education irrespective of its cultural relevance and appropriateness. In fact, many households in countries like Tonga and Fiji have trophies of success such as educational certificates taking prime place on walls of living rooms. It has taken three or four decades since political independence for some shift to take place to make Pacific curricula more culturally relevant, but this change has been significantly mediated by foreign aid.
Reconceptualizing the Urban in the Pacific Growth of Towns and Cities Towns in the Pacific arose as a result of colonial enterprise. They were colonial creations, occupied largely by migrants from the metropolitan powers (Connell & Lea, 1998) and were mainly colonial outposts of empire. They were established as colonial administration, trade and missionary centers (Spoehr, 1960), resulting out of two centuries of contact of island peoples with Europeans, Americans, and Asians. Spoehr, writing in 1960, contended that the Pacific Islands, as a whole, are divided into a number of subregions, with each consisting of one or more towns or small urban centers, surrounded by a hinterland, the latter usually an assemblage of islands with the town generally a port. There is a series of port towns, varying in size from less than a thousand to some 30,000 people. Over 40 years later, Spoehr’s observation is no longer valid. While the scale of some Pacific towns is still small, some urban centers have grown rapidly. For example, the cities of Port Moresby in PNG and Suva in Fiji have over 300,000 and 180,000 people respectively. The cities and towns of the Pacific are no longer backwater communities that they may have been in the colonial era, but are vibrant social, economic and cultural entities where people work, play and live out their lives. It is interesting to take note of the population sizes of the smaller Pacific countries because it gives an idea of the challenges that they face not only in individual and national sustenance, but also in meeting the challenges of a global economy. Polynesian and Micronesian nations have relatively small populations. Tokelau and Niue have less than 2,000 people; countries between 10,000 and 20,000 people include the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, and Palau. The Marshall Islands and Kiribati have population sizes of 54,000 and 88,000 respectively. Tonga, Federated States of Micronesia and Samoa have between 100,000 and 180,000 people. On the other hand, the four Melanesian countries have the following population sizes: Vanuatu – 204,000 Solomon Islands – 450,000 and Fiji close to 800,000 people. In contrast, Papua New Guinea, the largest country, has over 5 million people. Unlike European and American cities which took a long period of time to grow, urban centers in Pacific countries mushroomed rapidly after attaining political independence. For example, in the 1960s, rapid rural-urban migration of indigenous peoples produced unusually high urban population concentrations, such as in the four Micronesian island states of the Pacific (Connell & Lea, 1998). As elsewhere in the
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Pacific and other parts of the world, this has created many challenges for city and town planners as they grapple with increasing population numbers and a huge strain on social provisions such as land, employment, housing, education, health, transport and other essential urban services.
Redefining the Urban in the Pacific Different countries define a town or city in different ways. What may constitute a city in the Pacific may be a village in the big nations of Asia, or a mere suburb in a megalopolis of Europe or North America. None of the urban centers of the Pacific resemble those of the developed world. The largest city in the Pacific, Port Moresby, with 300,000 people, is huge by Pacific standards but miniscule on the world stage. Urban centers in many small island states of the Pacific may not even be classified as towns, let alone cities, if we assume conventional western definitions. Nevertheless, this chapter is an attempt to begin the process of reconceptualizing the urban in the Pacific given the small land area these countries occupy, their relatively small population sizes, their colonial heritage and the peculiar social, educational, cultural, spiritual, political, and economic challenges these pose in a competitive, highly globalized economy. It is important to note that the size of the urban population, population density, city dynamics and the complexity of functions that work for the cities of Asia and the West may not be significant in the determination of what constitutes the urban in Pacific nations. What matters are the perceptions of the local people and the basic functions that the urban center serve. If they call it a town because it serves various administrative, municipal, commercial and religious purposes, then it is their town. For example, Funafuti, the main atoll and “capital” of Tuvalu, is the hub of the nation and is, for all intents and purposes, its capital city. It contains the seat of government, a town council, an all-purpose maneaba (meeting house) which houses the parliament and courts at different times, and also has a post office, a hospital, schools, several banks, some supermarkets, three night clubs and a hotel. It is an urban hub, yet is home to only 4,000 people, a mere village from an Asian perspective. The two cities of the Pacific that may arguably fit conventional Western definitions are Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, with over 300,000 people and Suva, the capital of Fiji, with over 180,000 people. The capitals of Palau and Marshall Islands are heavily urbanized with 71 and 60% respectively of their populations living in the main centers. Nauru has a 100% urban population while Tokelau has no urban center since each of its three atolls have decentralized local government and educational systems.
Rural-Urban Drift An interesting feature of contemporary Pacific towns is the changing composition of the people in the urban centers. Unlike colonial times when indigenous people were few in number and life revolved around the colonialists, after independence, increasing numbers of indigenous populations moved into urban centers to live because of the perceived opportunities for paid employment, education, medical, and other benefits.
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While the urban population during colonial days was made up almost exclusively of Europeans, it is the indigenous people who now make up a significant proportion of people living in towns and cities of the Pacific. Many villagers migrate to urban centers because of the lack of resources and opportunities for their families in the rural areas. In Kiribati, for example, the principal reason for moving “is the severe limitation of wage and salary earning opportunities in the outer islands or even the prospect of any in the future” (Connell & Lea, 1998, p. 54). In the Marshall Islands, the bright lights of the city is significant in drawing people to Majuro, the capital, and villagers move because there is a lack of entertainment and recreational activities in the small coral atolls (of which there are 34), and where life in the small coral islands can be somewhat monotonous (Connell & Lea, 1998). A common feature in all Pacific Islands is that the movement from the periphery to the urban is made easier when relatives already live in the town. When rural dwellers come to visit, they generally find life in the towns attractive and many choose not to return to the village. If they are fortunate, they find jobs. If not, they continue to rely on urban relatives for sustenance, thus becoming an additional burden. In many cases, particularly with young people, those who stay are not prepared to go back to the seeming struggle of everyday life in the village, preferring to eke out an urban existence until a means of livelihood comes their way. Many workers with low paid jobs find themselves cheap accommodation in the urban centers or their suburbs. It is not uncommon to find such families packed into small one or two bedroom apartments, or in tiny, crowded houses. This urban crowding readily gives rise to antisocial and criminal behaviors. The issues faced by the urban poor are serious. The increase in shanty or squatter settlements in and around towns and cities is a common sight in the Pacific. The main reason for the move from periphery to center is the perceived advantages an urban life offers. The hinterland is seen as too disadvantaged, especially in the context of economic, educational and other social benefits. The urban centers offer modern amenities that are not readily available or affordable within a subsistence village economy. The internal migration from the village to the town therefore is seen by many as a golden opportunity to get jobs, find good schools for their children, obtain better housing, and generally to be accessible to the “good life” associated with urban living. After all, most of the action take place in the towns: entertainment, shopping, education, politics, banking and commerce. The reality, however, is that many islanders migrating to urban centers find their rosy picture of what life would be like in the towns and cities shattered. Coming into town without necessary work skills or any ready money, many find themselves doing menial jobs or joining the ranks of the unemployed and the growing pool of the urban poor. This vicious cycle is continued with their children and if education does not break this cycle, intergenerational urban poverty and struggle continues.
Impact of Urbanization The rise of towns and cities is associated with the growth of economic centers, the building of infrastructures to provide transport, municipal services and communication
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links, and the growth of the entertainment and information industries. However, when the provision of essential infrastructures and services cannot keep pace with the rapid increase in urban populations, many challenges are created and problems arise. The high cost of living associated with urban spaces can be prohibitive to low-income workers. Additionally, a high unemployment rate, increasing crime, high poverty levels, pollution, an increase in squatter settlements and the increasing demand for schools in the urban areas all contribute to the challenges that urban dwellers face. Urbanization has a number of serious impacts in the Pacific, particularly on indigenous ways of life. First, the process of urbanization has swallowed up villages in its wake. Some villages at the periphery of urban centers have been caught in the middle of infrastructural and transport development and have had to contend with many cultural changes. In some instances, the city has been brought right to their door. For example, 2 kilometers from the capital city of Fiji, the main highway cuts right through the middle of Suvavou village, the landowning unit of much of the city. The same occurs with some villages in Papua New Guinea. As Port Moresby has grown to accommodate increasing business and population pressures, it has built itself around villages in its path such that a strange situation prevails – there are some rural villages that are contained within the urban boundary, but are not counted in that category. Similarly, in Fiji, the indigenous Fijian “urban villages” are systematically excluded from the legal city and town boundaries (Bureau of Statistics, 1997). This poses a continuing enigma because they lie in municipal territory, enjoy all the privileges this entails, but do not contribute to the cost of the services, “nor are they subject to the health and amenity controls of the local municipal council” (United Nations Center for Human Settlement, 1991, p. 3). Second, the development of urban centers has resulted in disruptions to traditional land tenure arrangements. Those villages in and around the town or city have had to lease part of their land to those groups of people or individuals who come to the city to stay. Usually, a traditional approach is made to the landowning unit for a token sum of rent per year. Later, this system may or may not be formalized with the relevant institutions. Native leases are given out for the use of traditional land to accommodate land needs of immigrants to urban centers. This is particularly true in the case of Fiji in the suburbs of Lami, Delainavesi, Samabula and Nasinu, which all fall in the Suva city boundary, for example. In the town of Nadi, 90% of the town is located on native land (Bureau of Statistics, 1997). Cultural identity issues have also become serious matters for many indigenous groups who have become part of the urban landscape. When they lived in their villages, they shared a common dialect or language and had a common culture and value system. However, in the city, there is no knowing who one’s neighbor might be. Papua New Guinea has over 800 distinct languages and the probability of finding another native speaker in the vicinity is remote indeed. Urban dwellers face the challenge of maintaining their language and culture amidst the significant diversity in language and cultural practices prevalent in towns and cities. If one or two generations of city dwellers do not maintain their cultural and linguistic links with their traditional villages, there is the real danger that there will be significant language loss in their children and grandchildren. This situation is not peculiar to PNG. Other Pacific countries, especially
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those with many languages like Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, also face this challenge, but perhaps to a lesser degree. Related to this is the rise of the “hybrid generation,” particularly of second and third generation urban dwellers. From the relative security of the rural village, many Pacific Island children, born and bred in a town or city, grow up and either become kaivalagi (foreign or white) in their outlook, especially if they are relatively rich and well educated, or “fringe dwellers,” neither well versed in their own indigenous cultures and languages nor well adapted to urban living. These are the growing number of misfits, youths without an identity, rootless and searching for a meaning in life. This could explain why the main jails of Pacific Island countries are full of indigenous peoples, mainly under the age of thirty. Associated with the development of the hybrid generation of youths is the continued dominance of English (or Pidgin English in PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) as the language of schooling, communication, administration, politics and commerce. There is also an increasing tendency for many educated indigenous parents to encourage the speaking of English in the home, to the detriment of their own local languages. The trend is especially common in Melanesian countries where there is increasing marriage between people from different language groups. For them, English or Pidgin is their only means of communication with each other. This adds to the difficulty of maintaining indigenous languages, and is becoming a serious problem in the Pacific. Implied in identity issues and the upbringing of urban Pacific youth is a breakdown in culture and traditions of indigenous societies. For example, whereas there were sanctions and norms that were strictly adhered to in the village situation, the relative freedom that comes with urbanization causes many a person to fall by the wayside in the city, particularly if family and church institutions are weak. The impact of Western popular culture (e.g., TV shows, magazines, music, movies, hip hop dressing), the increase in substance abuse, the promotion of materialism through advertisements and the media, and the power of advertising generally is weakening traditional cultural values and seriously undermining the integrity of indigenous ways of knowing and doing. Moreover, a serious concern for city dwellers is the increase in unemployment, crime rate, pollution, over-crowdedness, traffic congestion and other social, health and environmental problems that accompany increasing urban population densities. The increase in lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart attacks and so forth has been unprecedented, with many cases of people dying from these diseases before they are 50. The change in diet from fresh foods to processed and fast foods of the urban landscape, coupled with a more sedentary and stressful lifestyle, have contributed significantly to this deterioration in health standards. The deterioration in moral standards is reflected in the increase in HIV-AIDS cases, with HIV-AIDS now a serious killer disease in the Pacific. It has reached epidemic proportion in PNG and no Pacific country can remain complacent about this. A positive impact of urbanization is the rise of the educated indigenous elite in the Pacific. There is no doubt that education has been a great leveler; it has taken people out of poverty and broadened the opportunities available to people. Over the last two or three decades, there has been a definite shift in the fortunes of some former rural
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dwellers who moved to the centers. While it is true that there are also segments of the population who are poor, those who have managed to get themselves educated to a high level have benefited from medium to high salaries and have nice houses, car and other material benefits. An offshoot of improvement in the lifestyle of city dwellers, particularly for Pacific Islanders, is the spiral impact this has on their relatives in the rural areas. Many rural families have significantly benefited from their richer urban cousins who have not only contributed to helping in the education of rural children at secondary school in urban centers, but also have significantly lifted the standard of living of their families in the villages. Remittances sent to the periphery have helped improve the lot of many rural dwellers. It is not uncommon if Fiji, for example, for an indigenous person to own two houses, one in the village and one in the urban center.
Challenges to Urban Education The preceding discussion has a direct bearing on the education of children, not only in the urban but also in rural areas. There are many educational challenges faced by governments and communities in the Pacific: access, equity, quality, relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and student achievement, to name a few. Interestingly, these terms are now fashionable because they are included in the international discourse imposed from outside the Pacific, and have worked themselves into national strategic educational plans through the influence of international agencies such as UNESCO with its “Education for All” and the UN with its “Millennium Development Goals.” A significant issue in the education of urban children is that of identity formation. There is a paucity of research on the identity of Pacific children in urban centers. It is obvious, however, that intergenerational children born and bred in urban centers, particularly of indigenous parents, will have a “hybrid identity” that is different from that of their counterparts in the periphery. Their social and cultural identity is shaped and mediated by the urban milieu in which they live. This is vastly different from the typical home in the rural landscape. For example, urban children are exposed to a constant barrage of Western popular culture through TV and the print media. They are conditioned from an early age to the schooling culture where success in examinations is highly valued and where failure in school is equated to failure in life. Urban children have to contend with things such as family break-ups, violence in the home and neighborhood, violence in movies and TV programs, increasing peer influence, and dilution of moral standards in society. They therefore need a strong cultural and spiritual foundation in order to successfully negotiate the pitfalls associated with life in the urban centers. Since there is a tendency for individualistic lifestyles to prevail in urban settings, in contrast to the communal concerns of the village, the opportunities that children have of learning their language, cultural norms and traditional values are significantly reduced as more and more people adopt a more Western lifestyle. For example, a growing trend in many Pacific households is for the language of the home to be English, not the vernacular. The danger that this poses for the death of the vernacular language for those children is significantly high.
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If parents do not deliberately choose to let their children learn their language and indigenous culture in the home, if parents isolate their children from cultural obligations and meeting with relatives, if they choose not to maintain strong kinship links to their cultural roots in the villages, then these children will suffer cultural loss and will become part of a rootless society. What are the implications for education? How can schools value the cultural knowledges, languages and ways of knowing and doing of Pacific peoples? This is a challenge that the PRIDE Project, discussed in the following section, is trying to address. A key focus of the Project, for example, is that each country is encouraged to build its education planning on a strong foundation of local cultures and languages, thus enabling students to develop a deep pride in their own values, traditions and wisdoms, and a clear sense of their local cultural identity, as well as their identity as citizens of the nation. A major challenge for quality education in urban schools is that excessive competition for educational space has led to significantly larger class sizes. For example, there are class sizes of 40–60 in some Suva schools. This obviously places a strain on teachers, and on the provision of adequate textbooks and learning resources. On the other hand, a major challenge faced in rural and isolated schools are small school rolls which impact on the amount of money the school can raise and the challenges associated with teaching composite classes. A significant factor in indigenous children performing poorly at school lies in the fact that secondary schools in the Pacific are generally an urban phenomenon. The few rural secondary schools are usually perceived by parents to be inferior to those in urban centers. Parents by necessity are compelled to send their children either to boarding schools or to live with urban relatives. While more research needs to be conducted in this area, there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that these students are usually treated like servants, their educational needs are not prioritized, and they may be psychologically traumatized (for a Fijian example, see Puamau, 1999). In small Pacific islands like Tokelau and Nauru, high school students are usually sent away to be educated in Samoa and Fiji respectively. This would be the norm where provision of secondary school facilities is problematic in rural areas. Poverty, high unemployment and the relatively high cost of living in urban areas also impact hugely on schooling. While financial poverty is also a way of life in many indigenous rural subsistence households, it is more pronounced in the urban centers where kinship networks may be absent. The numbers of people living below the poverty line in urban centers is increasing. In Fiji, for example, a recent survey identified 29.3% of urban households as living in poverty (see Ministry of Local Government, 2004, p. 9). This has significant implications for the education of children from poor families, with concomitant problems of absenteeism, malnutrition, school dropout and low retention rates. In Nauru, which has a 100% urban population with all 12,000 people living on one small island, an economic crash and subsequent national bankruptcy in the late 1990s resulted in mass poverty, malnutrition and social problems. As unemployment has increased, there has been a rise in the crime rate, particularly amongst young people who are basically stealing for food. With a wage freeze, and later, a significant reduction in take home pay, hunger has been the norm with many Nauruans eating only one meal a day. There has been a slight
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turnaround in the economy, but the effects of this economic drought will take a long time to alleviate.
The Diaspora on the Rim In very similar ways that push and pull people from rural to urban centers, there is an increasing exodus of Pacific peoples from their countries of birth to cities on the Pacific Rim. They perceive the advantages of these “greener pastures” as improved education and employment opportunities for their children, and the promise of better jobs and incomes for themselves. Permanent residency or citizenship status in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia is highly sought after. Polynesian countries have especially strong outmigration, and there are now more Samoans, Niueans, Cook Islanders, Tokelauans and Tongans living overseas than at home (Connell, 2000). Political instability also has been a stimulus to push people out to metropolitan cities. In Fiji, for example, the coups of 1987 and 2000 have caused significant numbers of citizens of Indian heritage to emigrate. Moving from the perceived disadvantages of Pacific peripheries to cities on the rim has created a dichotomy that resembles the rural-urban drift within national borders. The impact of this transition is outside the scope of this chapter. However, while much research is yet to be carried out on alternative ways of responding to the challenges this poses for migrant Pacific Islanders in their new urban spaces, remittances sent back to relatives at home have been of significant benefit both to the recipients and to the local economy. In Fiji, for example, remittances earn almost as much foreign income for the nation as tourism. In the preceding sections, we have laid the framework of the urban nature of education in the Pacific. In particular, we have noted that the development of towns and cities has been an outcome of the colonial enterprise. We have also demonstrated that the definition of the urban in the Pacific context is very different from the way it is conceived in Western or Asian contexts. We have discussed the impact urbanization has had on indigenous cultural systems. In redefining the urban in the Pacific, we have specifically addressed issues to do with land tenure, changing social relations, identity reformations and the concomitant problems that are associated with the process of urbanization. Now we turn our attention to an important project that involves all fifteen countries covered in this chapter, a project we believe will make a significant difference to educational development in the Pacific region, both in urban and rural settings.
The PRIDE Project: Making a Difference Any current analysis of education in the Pacific must include the PRIDE Project. An acronym for “Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of basic Education,” this major regional project has the potential to impact significantly on Pacific education in its totality, including both the remote and the urban. Funded by the European Union and NZAID, its main focus is to support strategic planning in the 15 participating Pacific countries, and implementation of key priority areas.
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In the following section we describe unique features of the Project and show how it is reconceptualizing the delivery of education in the Pacific. In particular, urban as much as rural schools could benefit from the holistic approach it advocates, with an emphasis on the spiritual development of students, as well as values education, and indigenous education, including the teaching of vernacular languages. This is particularly important in the urban landscape, given the fragmentation and disintegration of family units and their isolation from the security that indigenous peoples have in the tight kinship relationships still evident in more remote settings.
The PRIDE Project The overall objective of the Project is: To expand opportunities for children and youth to acquire the values, knowledge and skills that will enable them to actively participate in the social, spiritual, economic and cultural development of their communities and to contribute positively to creating sustainable futures. (www.usp.ac.fj/pride) To achieve this objective, the Project is seeking to strengthen the capacity of each of the fifteen countries to deliver quality education to children and youth across all sectors except higher education [i.e., pre-school, elementary, primary, secondary and Technical & Vocational Education & Training (TVET)], and through formal and non-formal means (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2001). The key outcome will be the development of strategic plans for education in each country, plans that blend the best global approaches with local values and ways of thinking. Ideally these plans will be developed following wide consultation with all stakeholders and beneficiaries, including parents, teachers, students, NGOs, private providers, employers and other civil society groups. The Project is also assisting countries to implement their plans and to monitor and evaluate the outcomes. Capacity building activities are provided for educators at national, sub-regional and regional levels. To further support these activities, the Project is developing an on-line resource center to encourage the sharing of best practice and experience amongst countries. In discussing the PRIDE Project with educators throughout the Pacific and beyond, a frequently asked question is: “How is it different? We have seen many donor-driven education projects and initiatives come and go. Why is this one unique?” Their cynicism is justified. The history of educational aid in the Pacific, as elsewhere, is an ambiguous one, with at least as many negatives as positives. The present Project, however, does have a number of unique features, and there is considerable optimism that it can achieve its goals in ways that others have not. These features include: (1) The fact that the Project was designed and approved by the Ministers of Education: the process started with them, not with the donors. It has been very clear at recent meetings that they see this as their Project, and are determined to guide and direct it according to their countries’ needs and priorities. Discussions with individual Ministers have reinforced this view. The donors, in turn, have shown quite remarkable preparedness to allow this to happen.
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(2) The significance of the acronym: its choice clearly was deliberate, and reflects the wishes of the Ministers. Each country is being encouraged to build its education plans and curricula on a stronger foundation of local cultures, languages and epistemologies, thus enabling students to develop deep pride in their own values, traditions and wisdoms, and a clear sense of their own local cultural identity. This element has been prioritized by heads of Education Ministries as number one in the list of ten benchmarks used by the PRIDE Project to review strategic plans in each country. This very strong focus on the local is of particular significance in urban settings where Pacific languages and cultures are under the greatest threat. (3) The strong emphasis on mutual collaboration and support: the aim of the Project is to help countries to help one another. Earlier projects brought consultants from outside the region, and therefore became donor-driven as they responded to donors’ priorities and preferences. The PRIDE Project is sourcing most of its consultants from within the region, and already has built up an impressive database of qualified people from Pacific nations. It is also funding local educators to go on study and training visits to one another’s countries, not to those on the rim and beyond. (4) The encouragement of consultative and participatory approaches to educational planning, policy-making and curriculum development within each country: there is a clear wish to avoid top-down models, and a strong commitment to bottom-up processes involving parents, teachers, students, private providers, NGOs, employers and other civil society groups. (5) The fact that Ministers want the Project to promote a more holistic and lifelong approach to education, with effective articulation between sectors, and between school, TVET and the world of work. (6) The commitment of the PRIDE team to building strong conceptual foundations for the Project. Earlier projects brought outsiders to the Pacific with western “recipes” for the reform of curricula. The PRIDE team is committed to helping countries develop their own theoretical foundations, doing so via the creative fusion of their own epistemologies, values and wisdoms with the most useful ideas and approaches of the global world beyond their shores (Teasdale, 2005).
Conceptual Framework As mentioned above, a unique feature of the PRIDE Project is a commitment to building a strong conceptual framework for the reform of education in the region. This conceptual framework3 draws initially from the Report to UNESCO of its International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (Delors, 1996). The first two pillars of learning highlighted in the report – “learning to know” and “learning to do” – are adequately covered in Pacific schools, in fact so much so that there is a serious imbalance, with the other two pillars – “learning to be” and “learning to live together” – receiving relatively little attention. A serious imbalance also exists in the current Pacific curriculum which places an emphasis on academic learning – “learning to know” – and treats TVET, life skills and lifelong learning – part of the “learning to do” pillar – as second class. The PRIDE
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Project seeks to rectify this imbalance by having as a benchmark the principle that national education plans should contain strategies for the systematic teaching of literacy, numeracy, ICT and English together with life and work preparation skills, thereby equipping all students to take their place in a global world with ease and confidence. This benchmark seeks a better balance between the so-called academic subjects (literacy, numeracy and English) with life and work preparation skills that include ICT, TVET, the visual and performing arts, together with skills for self-sufficiency and self-reliance. The suggested shift in focus from the teacher to the learner as exemplified in the Delors Report is highly significant for the Pacific as it is elsewhere in the world. Ministries of Education will need to grapple with this global shift. The knowledge explosion brought about by improved ICT has meant that teachers and other education professionals, including teacher educators, will need to devise new ways of delivering education to students. With the advent of the independent, lifelong learner, the role of teacher as facilitator of learning, rather than the old role of dispenser of knowledge, is becoming increasingly important. In particular, teachers have: responsibility to help students make effective and appropriate use of this knowledge which requires a capacity to critically appraise all of the material available to them and to make value judgments of it, often from moral and ethical perspectives. School curricula therefore need to focus on developing the critical capacities of students, enabling them to know themselves, to think for themselves, and thus become active and confident learners. (Teasdale, Tokai, & Puamau, 2004, p. 5) In this conception, teachers have to lead by example. They need to be role models if they are to facilitate moral and ethical decision-making on the part of their students. They need to be culturally and spiritually grounded to make a positive impact. If they are unable to provide moral and ethical leadership in the classroom, their role as “teacher,” facilitator and guide will not be effectively fulfilled. Teacher training institutions must develop appropriate programs to help foster the development of teachers of integrity and sound character, who in turn will be able to guide their students into making moral and ethical choices in their learning and living. The teaching of values, and the strengthening of students’ moral and ethical decision-making, are particularly urgent in the new urban landscapes of the Pacific. Yet it is here, in these increasingly multilingual and multicultural settings, that the teaching of indigenous values and wisdoms is becoming increasingly neglected. Urban schools are no longer grounded in communities, but are part of an urban conglomerate. The wisdom and educational leadership of the older generation are often lacking.
A Holistic Approach Is it possible to have education systems that are owned by the people of the Pacific? In light of over a century of colonization, and the current colonial substitutes of globalization and educational aid, can Pacific educators develop their own distinctively local systems, firmly founded on their local cultures and traditions, and strongly underpinned by indigenous value systems, philosophies and epistemologies? Is it possible,
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even desirable, to do so, especially in light of increasing urbanization and the steady outmigration of Pacific peoples to urban cities in countries on the rim and beyond? How can education reform in the Pacific be reconceptualized? A holistic approach needs to be taken not only in discussions on education in the Pacific, but more importantly in its practices and processes. Currently, learning and what happens in schools are disparate and disconnected from the daily lives of students, especially in urban areas. It is mainly abstract, too academic and fragmented. From a traditional perspective, the two pillars of “learning to be” and “learning to live together,” until the colonial era, were a fundamental part of a holistic process of lifelong learning throughout the Pacific. In order to regain wholeness and a seamless connection in education, a shift must now occur in the following areas: (1) Balanced and holistic ways of “knowing,” “doing,” “being,” and “living together” need to be reflected in curricula. The current perception that livelihoods and life skills knowledges are of second-class status should be discarded. A more holistic approach to learning would necessitate a better balance in academic, technical, vocational, life skills and lifelong learning. As well, a holistic approach needs to be taken also to the old demarcations between the various levels of education – pre-school, kindergarten, primary/elementary, secondary, technical/vocational – with more effective articulation between each level. (2) Because formal schooling is largely derived from foreign value systems, there is a serious cultural gap between the lived experiences of most Pacific Island students and what is offered in schools, including the way schooling is organized and structured, the culture and ethos of schooling, its pedagogical practices and the assessment of learning. And because the outcomes of schooling continue to be measured in terms of examination passes, many Pacific Islanders fail to succeed in school. A holistic approach to education will also mean a rethinking of all these factors. (3) A holistic approach to education will particularly necessitate a culturally inclusive curriculum where cultural and linguistic literacy is part of what is offered in schools (Thaman, 1992). It is critical that every child learns the language, culture and traditions of the particular human society into which s/he is born. This is particularly so for indigenous cultures. It is important that the curriculum is grounded in the local cultural systems of knowledge and wisdom. The cultural identity of indigenous peoples must be reaffirmed at school, beginning with a culturally inclusive and democratic curriculum which halts the “cultural and environmental bankruptcy” that is “an affliction which has been an obstacle to sustainable development in much of the modern world” (Thaman, 1995, p. 732). It is envisaged that curriculum development for schools (Thaman, 1992) and teacher-training institutions (Thaman, 1996) will focus on making the curriculum more culturally democratic at these sites. (4) The spiritual development of the child is currently missing from most educational discourse in the Pacific. This is a serious gap that needs to be rectified. An emphasis on spiritual development or moral education needs to occur in Pacific schools. The region has successfully internalized Christianity as the dominant religion. Because the bulk of a child’s waking hours are spent at school, and because of changing economic and social conditions which weaken the role of the church and families,
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we believe schools and their teachers now have a crucial role in building morally strong citizens for the future. The teaching of Christian values and principles should therefore be incorporated into the curricula of Pacific schools. At the same time, however, an inclusive environment strongly suggests that the spiritual needs of non-Christian students also be taken into account. Countries that are developing or reviewing their curricula should ask the following questions: ● ●
● ● ● ● ●
What are the current curriculum goals? What should the goals be? What and whose values, philosophy, ideology does the curriculum profess? What and whose values or ideals should it promote? What knowledge, skills and attitudes should the curriculum emphasize? Who decides on content? What language should the curriculum be taught in? Whose interests will the curriculum serve? What are the social, educational, economic and political implications of such a curriculum?
In order to have a holistic approach4 to curriculum reconceptualization and educational reform, these questions should be answered in light of the quest to be culturally inclusive, to be cognizant of indigenous concerns, and to blend both local and global ways of knowing and doing. Values education or spiritual development should also be included in this holistic approach to education in urban settings. The latter is of crucial importance given the increasing stress and challenges that urban people face, particularly relating to changing social relations, identity and the negative realities associated with living in urban landscapes.
Conclusion There is no doubt that the colonial encounter with indigenous peoples of the Pacific region, as elsewhere, brought untold psychological, social and cultural damage. After decolonization, Pacific peoples, living in small island countries, continue to grapple with challenges brought about by the impact and influence of neocolonialism, westernization, urbanization, globalization, foreign aid and market capitalism. Education systems in Pacific countries have been significantly affected by these onslaughts. Noting the paucity of research and theorizing on anything urban in the Pacific region and the fact that different countries have defined the urban differently, we have attempted to explore the meaning of the urban in the contemporary Pacific, emphasizing that towns and cities are colonial inventions. In redefining the urban, we have particularly examined the impact the growth of towns and cities has had on indigenous cultures and languages since it is the indigenous peoples who predominate in contemporary Pacific urban areas. We have specifically addressed issues to do with land tenure, changing social relations, identity reformations and the challenges associated with the process of urbanization, particularly on the education of children in urban areas.
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In reconceptualizing educational reform in the Pacific, and the work of the PRIDE Project, the need for a holistic approach to education, including grounding formal schooling in the spiritual and cultural realities of indigenous communities, has been emphasized. This holistic approach should also include working towards a balance in other areas: curriculum coverage; levels of schooling; school structures and lived experiences of Pacific peoples; and local and global intersections. Research that concerns Pacific education and its relationship to development and urbanization, amongst other things, needs to be undertaken on a more intense scale in order to build up a body of knowledge that is unique to the Pacific.
Notes 1. The exception is Fiji where a little less than half of the population is Indo-Fijian. 2. The term “postcolonial” is a hotly contested one and much theorizing revolves around it. A useful definition for the purposes of this chapter is given by Leela Gandhi (1998) who defines postcolonialism as “a theoretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia of the colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project devoted to the academic task of revisiting, remembering and, crucially, interrogating the colonial past” (p. 4). 3. See Teasdale, Tokai, and Puamau, 2004, a paper presented at a Commonwealth of Learning Consultative Meeting, Vancouver, November 15–17, 2004, available on www.usp.ac.fj/pride 4. See Puamau (2005) for a detailed presentation on a holistic approach to rethinking Pacific education, a paper presented at the international conference on Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy & Practice at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 30th May – 1st June, 2005, available on www.usp.ac.fj/pride
References ABC. (2000). Statistics. Retrieved October 26, 2005, from http://www.abc.net.au/ra/carvingout/maps/ statistics.htm Altbach, P. G. (1995). Education and neocolonialism. In B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, & H. Tifin (Eds.), The post-colonial studies reader (pp. 452–456). London: Routledge. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (Eds.). (1995). The post-colonial studies reader. London: Routledge. Bacchus, K., & Brock, C. (Eds.). (1987). The challenge of scale. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. Bureau of Statistics. (1997). The rural-urban continuum in Fiji, Vol. 1. A report on the geographic subdivisions of Fiji for the 1996 census. Suva, Fiji. Connell, J. (2000). Urbanization and migration. Retrieved October 26, 2005, from http://www.abc.net.au/ra/ carvingout/issues/urbanisation.htm Connell, J., & Lea, J. P. (1998). Island towns. Managing urbanization in Micronesia (Occasional paper 40). Honolulu: Center for Pacific Islands Studies and Research Institute for Asia & the Pacific. Delors, J. (1996). Learning: The treasure within [Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (Delors Report)]. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Fanon, F. (1967). The wretched of the earth. Translated by C. Farrington. Middlesex: Penguin. (Fiji) Ministry of Local Government. (2004). Urban policy action plan. Suva: Government of Fiji/Asian Development Bank initiative. Gandhi, L. (1998). Postcolonial theory: A critical introduction. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Hau’ofa, E. (1993). Our sea of islands. In E. Waddell, V. Naidu, & E. Hau’ofa (Eds.), A new Oceania: Rediscovering our sea of islands (pp. 2–16). Suva: School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, in association with BEAKE House. Jones, E. (1966). Towns and cities. London: Oxford University Press.
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Mumford, L. (1961). The city in history: Its origins, its transformations, and its prospects.New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. (2001). Forum Basic Education Action Plan (FBEAP). Outcomes paper of the meeting of the Ministers of Education of the Pacific Islands Forum held in Auckland, New Zealand, 14–15 May 2001. Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS). Puamau, P. Q. (1999). Affirmative Action and Racial Inequalities in Education: The Case of Fiji. Doctoral dissertation, University of Queensland, 1999. Puamau, P. Q. (2005). Rethinking educational reform: A Pacific perspective. Paper presented at the international conference on Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy & Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 30th May–1st June, 2005. Available on: http:www.usp.ac.fj/pride Spoehr, A. (1960). Port town and hinterlands in the Pacific Islands. American Anthropologist, 62, 586–592. Teasdale, G. R. (2005). The big picture: International perspectives on education for planners. In P. Puamau, & G. R. Teasdale (Eds.), Educational planning in the pacific: Principles and guidelines (pp. 1–14). Suva: PRIDE. Available on: www.usp.ac.fj/pride Teasdale, G. R., Tokai, E., & Puamau, P. (2004). Culture, literacy and livelihoods: reconceptualizing the reform of education in Oceania. Paper delivered at a Commonwealth of Learning Consultative Meeting, Vancouver, November 15–17, 2004. Available on: www.usp.ac.fj/pride Thaman, K. H. (1992). Cultural learning and development through cultural literacy. In B. Teasdale, & J. Teasdale (Eds.), Voices in a seashell: Education, culture and identity (pp. 24–36). Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, USP. Thaman, K. H. (1995). Concepts of learning, knowledge and wisdom in Tonga, and their relevance to modern education. Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 96, XXV(4), 723–733. Thaman, K. H. (1996). Towards a cultural democracy in teacher education. Keynote Address, New Zealand Teacher Education Conference, Dunedin, June 25–28, 1996. United Nations Center for Human Settlements. (1991). Policy recommendations for housing and urban development. Suva, Fiji: United Nations Development Program and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Williams, R. (1976). Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory. In R. Date, G. Esland, & M. MacDonald (Eds.), Schooling and capitalism: A sociological reader (pp. 202–210). London: RKP. Young, R. (1990). White mythologies: Writing history and the west. London: Routledge.
15 DUCKED OR BULLDOZED? EDUCATION OF DEPRIVED URBAN CHILDREN IN INDIA Anita Rampal Delhi University, India
When Time Stands Still Time: Time stands still when water runs out and the tap is dry. When electricity goes … Time stands still when we sit in class in school. Time also stands still when we cannot go out and have to stay at home (Ayesha, age 14 years; translated from Hindi). These words were penned by Ayesha, a withdrawn and shy girl studying in Class VIII, who died from an undiagnosed disease in the summer of 2001. She wrote for the collective diary “By Lanes” (jointly published by the two groups, Sarai & Ankur, 2002), as part of a project for urban slum children of Delhi. The “Cybermohalla” project draws on the Hindi word “mohalla” – denoting a dense urban neighborhood, its lived sense of alleys and corners, “its relatedness and concreteness” – to interrogate a child’s place in the city, through articulation in cyberspace. The diary provides space for reflection and creativity, to serve as an “act of everyday intransigence” in a cruel urban environment, to young people from two working class settlements. One is an “illegal” squatter colony facing constant police harassment and threat of eviction, and the other a legal re-settlement colony. Yet, both are home to the increasingly contentious metropolitan reality of unemployment and violence. The young people who meet regularly in the self-regulated spaces called “Compughars” have acquired technical skills in handling computers and digital cameras, and have created booklets, wall magazines, e-postings and short animation films to narrate their memories and testimonies of the city through diary entries. The import of Ayesha’s transient life’s intractable struggle for water, electricity, or mobility outside her home are placed, almost symbolically, in stark contrast to the “timelessness” of her experience of schooling. Curiously, time stands still for her when the tap runs dry, when the feverish and densely purposeful hustle and bustle of life is summarily silenced. In her innocent and perhaps unintended metaphorical comparison, the aimlessness and “lightness of being” in school is equated with that moment when life loses its momentum and meaning. The majority of our children who somehow 285 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 285–304. © 2007 Springer.
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manage to stay on in school face similar alienation, which is not always benign, and can often be humiliating, even violently oppressive. Other young authors of the above diary also use “water” as a marker to punctuate the flow of their lives, as the “time for water to start flowing from the tap.” In describing the dramatic fights at the public outlet, the frenetic screaming, the single-mindedly rushed activity of filling utensils, rudely brought to a halt as the flow stops, they document their fears and concerns, their reading of the changes and the growing tensions in their locality. Flows: A fight began between them. But the tap was running. And water was flowing into the drain nearby. Something in the drain was already obstructing its flow and causing water to fill up. The drain was filling up but their fight was not coming to an end. It went on, and finally it was time and the tap ran out of water. Meanwhile the water overflowed from the drain onto the lane … . For two or three days, walking in the lane proved to be a major problem (Sarai & Ankur, 2002; diary entry “Flows –13.10.2001”). Fights and Fear: The basti (settlement) has changed over time. Something new appeared; something suppressed erupted. The population here has grown. And space for the people living here is constrained … . For some reason, due to unemployment and the conditions of helplessness at home, boys tried to drown their sorrow in alcohol. Bad habits, teasing girls, fights among neighbors, thus began the animosities. … We fear most the fights here! We fear someone going around drunk. We fear the police! We fear the dogs here! The innocent are trampled upon while the cunning go scot-free. … One only fools one’s heart by saying that all is well when one’s own environment is fine. After all, the surroundings do affect a human being (Sarai & Ankur, 2002; diary entry “People – August 30, 2001”). Indeed, this reflection is poignantly mirrored in The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society where Bourdieu et al. (2002) document the “vicious circle of rejection” of urban working class students in France. Their rejection by school and then of school, gradually traps them into the defiant role of the “tough,” in coping with the humiliation of academic failure. His interviews with young men at urban housing sites highlight the “inert violence in the order of things” – and the links between the school market, the job market, and their “everyday experience of racism” (also present in the “police forces” actually meant to repress it). Their collective bad luck only enhances their self-despair, “and attaches itself, like a fate, to all those that have been put together in those sites of social relegation, where the personal suffering of each is augmented by all the suffering that comes from co-existing and living with so many suffering people together – and perhaps, from the destiny effect of belonging to a stigmatized group” (p. 64). In complacent contrast the school textbook maintains an inert distance and refuses to acknowledge their lives, its turbulent flows and fears, its sense of time or timelessness. It deals with the issue of water or housing in a sterile manner, assuming that everyone lives in a brick and mortar bungalow provided with tapped water, and preaches “water conservation” so that taps are not kept running while brushing one’s
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teeth. It also deliberately evades any conflicting issues seen as “uncomfortable” by its middle-class urban authors, and unabashedly pontificates on what “they” – the poor and the unclean – must do to keep themselves and the city clean. There is an implicit understanding that while education must inform “those backward” children on how to conduct their lives “properly,” it should project only happy and “positive” situations to protect the “innocence” of the privileged. Textbooks for government schools, fast becoming sites of social relegation, therefore contain highly prescriptive and moralistic lessons (about hygiene, cleanliness, hard work, etc.) together with naive but insipid generalizations about the perceived needs of the poor.
The Timeless “Civilizing” Agenda? The lesson on “Communicable Diseases” of the earlier version of a primary science textbook for Class V (for 10-11 year olds) produced by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT, 2003; the fourteenth edition, reprinted annually since 1989, but radically revised in 2006), is a classic example of middleclass callousness. It is also a telling illustration of the language of school, how texts pay little attention to the language and concepts appropriate for children that age. The lesson shows a shockingly crude (and crudely drawn) picture of a child defecating in the bushes outside a house, while another one holds a “lota” (metallic mug) and walks towards a tin-shed toilet. The textbook states: “Is this a healthy practice? Often germs spread in this manner.” It then goes on to ask, “Which is the proper place to defecate?” (implying that there is much choice!). With another picture depicting people washing and bathing near a well, it states: What would happen if you contaminate the source of water? Garbage thrown here and there also decays. Flies breed in such decaying matter. They also sit on exposed excreta or stool. Then they carry the germs. When they sit on the exposed food it gets contaminated … . Diarrhea can cause loss of water and salts from the body. You have learnt earlier how to prevent dehydration. If there is a case of dehydration in your family, remember you can prevent it by giving the child Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). (Exploring Environment: A Textbook for Class V, NCERT, 2003, p. 59) The next paragraph feigns an interrogative stance – “How to prevent water and food borne diseases” – but only to spout a didactic list of do’s and don’ts, which include: – “Do not pass stool anywhere and everywhere. Use a sanitary latrine” (sounds almost like toilet training for a pet dog!) – “Wash your hands with soap or dry ash after defecation” (more choice!). Similarly, another picture shows a person sleeping on a rope-cot near an open window, half covered with a sheet and with mosquitoes hovering around. However, the “sensible” person sleeps fully covered, head and body completely wrapped in a sheet, and
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miraculously, the mosquitoes are now nowhere to be seen! The didactic list to prevent malaria advises the use of a purportedly banned chemical: – “Spray insecticide such as DDT in your house regularly. Take care that it is not sprayed in excess” (yes, the story of how excessive DDT sprayed earlier by government agencies went all wrong for malaria is now well known). – “Do not keep stagnant water. Change the water in the storage tank or reservoir at least once a week” (as if there is always plenty to store!). A detailed table (probably meant for a medical worker) then gives the vaccination schedules for tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, typhoid and polio, using terms such as “triple antigen,” “DPT,” “polio booster,” “tetanus toxoid,” etc. The lesson triumphantly (though certainly not accurately, as most would know from their experience) declares, “So you see, you can protect yourself from these diseases if you take vaccination in time. … These vaccinations are given free in the Primary Health Centres” (p. 60). The message is loud and clear. If despite this “scientific” education you still continue to fall ill and prey to such diseases, surely you are to blame for not learning your lesson. The “civilizing” agenda of school has almost been timelessly and righteously imposed on poor children, who supposedly need to be “rescued from the abyss,” where the discipline of school is meant to be contrasted with the chaos and squalor in their homes. In fact, the disdain faced by the urban poor in our city schools is reminiscent of nineteenth century England, where the Compulsory Education Act of 1870 gave state sanction to the purported maintenance of “order” through often oppressive measures. Education was enforced with prosecutions and fines, with seizure of goods if parents could not pay, and even prison. Order and obedience came with cleanliness, vested with the same moral righteousness, the same sense of “shame,” and even greater priority than instruction. Clean clothes offered the most taxing demand, on children and their already vexed mothers. “It was not easy to look neat. … Water for all purposes had often to be fetched in from an outside tap or even a street standpipe, and in many poor districts it was turned on only for part of the day, at least before the 1890s” (Davin, 1996). The experience of “clean and compulsory” schooling for disadvantaged urban children somehow transcends its temporal and colonial legacy. It still seems to ring true for Ayesha, in twenty-first century Delhi, for whom, in any case, time stands still, when trying to be clean and in school. Curiously, the ubiquitous head-louse has symbolically offered a historic challenge to the civilizing crusade, right across the space-time of universal schooling. The following account of indignant poor urban mothers in England 200 years back could warm the hearts of their many Indian counterparts today, and perhaps inspire them for similar action: “Their outraged dignity led them to visit the school and even to assault the mistresses … . In one month four mothers were prosecuted for personally assaulting mistresses” … (from the 1937 unpublished memoirs of Thomas Gautrey, “School Board Memories,” quoted in Davin, 1996, p. 137) … . Gautrey here implies that the resentment was provoked by the mere demand for “clean” hair. One reason for it,
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however, was probably the equation by the authorities of headlice and dirt, and their euphemistic, but insulting, reference to “clean” or “dirty” heads rather than to infestation. … The schools did not confine themselves to stimulating a sense of shame and demanding “clean” heads: they also cut the children’s hair. Gautrey quotes a letter to the headmistress from a mother who saw this as one more in a series of official attacks: “I should like to know how much more spite you intend to put upon my child for it is nothing else. First you send the Sanitary Inspector and I have my home taken away, … and now you cut the few hairs my girl was just beginning to grow so nice … she had no need to have her hair cut off as it was washed with soft soap last night. The child is thoroughly heartbroken” … . In the 1900s systematic inspection for headlice began … (and) children … not certified “clean” were segregated (they “sat at benches together, shamed outcasts” and were referred to as “the dirty girls”) … .Cropped hair meant a loss of a central feminine attribute; it was also the mark of the children in orphanages … . It was also an attack on the mother, since her child’s shorn hair then declared her uncaring or incompetent. (Davin, 1996, pp. 138–139) The same “shame” and indignity, heaped with loud indiscreet labels of being “backward/slow learners,” continue to torment the majority of first generation learners in our city schools. Yet, time has moved on for the middle-classes, and a more realistic engagement with the ordinary louse is now considered too “filthy” for the textbook. Indeed, in the state capital of Bhopal (in Madhya Pradesh) it was found that poor mothers were liberally using DDT and other cheap insecticides on children’s heads to treat lice. During the textbook writing exercise, when we suggested the use of creative narratives, not didactic messages, to introduce safe practical ways to deal with lice or scabies, the official “expert” frowned disgustedly and, scratching her scalp, decisively dismissed such true-to-life topics that actually made her feel itchy and lousy! (PROBE Team, 1999). Moreover, even as we strive today to develop new national textbooks, despite the new syllabus we have framed for the primary school level, we contend with unrelenting pressure to impart didactic “messages” about cleanliness and orderliness. “We have to teach children to avoid putting their dirty hands into water, and to keep food covered!” is what traditional teachers and textbook writers tenaciously insist. In any case, we hope to redirect this fetish into an exercise for “critical reading of messages” – asking children to critically reflect and respond to such posters or advertisements routinely brought out by the municipal agencies during the monsoons, warning people about uncovered food and unsafe water which could cause water-borne diseases. However, the greatest challenge lies in transforming classrooms, to sensitize over six million teachers towards a dialogic constructivist pedagogy that can give voice to the majority of our children who continue to be alienated by school.
Transformative Curricula Shagufta, a primary school teacher in Lahore (Pakistan), focuses on her students’ lived struggles, framed by high urban poverty, through the political lens of her lessons. She begins with their homes and a walk down their streets, covered with garbage and sewer
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water, encouraging questions such as “Are your streets clean?” or “We cannot live without water. If all the water is dirty, what will we do?”(Roth & Barton, 2004). The critical stance, according to her, is not meant to make them feel bad about where they live, but to empower them for responsible citizenship and community action, to help them analyze and change their surroundings. Ironically, she had faced daunting opposition from the men in her own family and her neighbors when she had aspired to study beyond school to become a teacher, and was taunted by comments such as “yay to pani bharaygee” (“she will only carry water” in Urdu). However, despite a constraining national curriculum, she has shown that school can play a transformative role, and she strives alone to give voice to her disadvantaged students as she continues to metaphorically “carry water” through environmental action, well beyond the expectations of her community. The role of transformative curricula has been stressed in India by some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), working largely in the context of rural schools or centers for out-of-school children. For instance, an innovative curricular intervention in the government system, initiated in the 70s through voluntary groups and activistscientists, was the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program or HSTP (in the state of Madhya Pradesh), catering to a thousand predominantly rural schools (Rampal, 1991, 1992). We had designed lessons based on an enquiry oriented approach that encouraged democratic interactions between the children and teachers, in an attempt to demystify science and loosen its hegemonic control on school. The use of low-cost and locally available or indigenously designed equipment promoted self reliance and creativity among teachers and students; they confidently handled apparatus in elementary school, unlike what happens even today in the best of schools. Some girls from working class families had moved far beyond their texts to question traditional beliefs and potent superstitions. In one dramatic case, they outshone even college science students: after investigating all by themselves, they challenged their families about the cause of the white snake-like lines on the purportedly “cursed” leaves (infested by the leaf minor), which had caused thousands of people across the country to shun green vegetables over weeks and even go fasting (Rampal, 1994). However, despite having achieved wide acclaim, nationally and internationally, over the three decades that it ran, the program (along with two others supported by the NGO Eklavya) was summarily closed in 2003 by a state government aggressively pursuing neo-liberal reforms in education. As seen in other countries, neo-liberal reforms have devalued diversity in curricula and instead enhanced the power of the dominant models of “traditionalism” (Apple, 2001; Gillborn & Youdell, 2000). The Madhya Pradesh government tenaciously promoted its low-cost “alternate” schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centers, run by untrained contractual para-teachers, while it dismissed what it saw as an undesirable competitor in the critical pedagogy of HSTP. Having stopped all regular recruitment of teachers over the last decade, and having decimated and demoralized what it calls a “dying cadre” of teachers, the state contractually appointed almost 200,000 para-teachers, on a fraction of the salary of a regular teacher. It thus led the way in drastic cost-saving measures, often propelled by priorities proposed by funding agencies, later adopted nationally and by the other states. As a result, the public provision of education in the country has today been rendered most
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starkly differentiated and unequal, while the government grapples with its constitutional declaration of Education as a Fundamental Right and still shirks enacting the Free and Compulsory Education Act. There are serious repercussions and future ramifications, of the current trends towards globalization that buttress the notion of “uniformity” and “standardization” in the school curriculum. This is meant to facilitate a privileged section of students, who may need to move across state or country boundaries and be assessed comparatively through what are considered equivalent testing systems. In some countries this has led to a flourishing industry of “high-stakes” testing, such as in the “No Child Left Behind” regime of the US, where it is causing grave concern. However, despite the shrinking space for NGOs, and their changing relationship with the State in the neo-liberal era, there are still some that attempt to bring critical pedagogy within government schools. In the Municipal Schools of Mumbai, the mega-city with a population of about 18 million (including the area covering Greater Mumbai), of whom more than half are estimated to be living in slums and temporary settlements, a supplementary program aims to redress the alienating influence of the traditional curriculum. Through its own materials and volunteers, the Avehi-Abacus team enables children to sensitively view urban reality from their different perspectives. For instance, the chapter on Urban Life, in the Teachers’ Manual on “Parivartan Ki Parakh” (Reflections on Change) used in Class VII, presents detailed “frames” contrasting rural and urban life. While viewing the opportunities for employment, and freedom from the oppressive caste and gender relations that influence large migrations from villages, it also shows the degraded and dehumanizing living conditions of urban slums. In one frame on “Nandita,” a girl living with her relatives in a slum in Kolkata, the narrative states: Nandita is living here since one month to look after her mother hospitalized in Kolkata. Every morning she wakes up at 3:30 A.M. and goes to fill water at the nearby tap with her cousin and aunt. If you do not reach early you get no water for the day. Every day there are fights among the women at the tap. Nandita gets upset when her day begins with such shouting and screaming. Even her house in the village has no water, but the pond is only ten minutes away. If in summer the pond happens to dry up she needs to walk 45 minutes to the river. But at least there are no fights over water! … However the biggest problem is with latrines. There is a row of latrines ten minutes away, but so filthy that Nandita finds it nauseating. So it is better to go to the little space near the river. The women all go together while it is still dark; after 4.30 A.M. vehicles start plying and people stare from atop the bridge. The village too has no latrines; all go out in the open, but women have a separate area. … If only her village had a hospital where her mother could get treated! (Sangati Teachers’ Manual 5, Avehi-Abacus Programme, 2005) Leading questions help relate the above narrative to children’s own experiences, while the next frame provides information about their own city – Mumbai, where more than half the people live in slums, covering less than 6% of the total land. One million live on pavements; half the slums have no latrine, and a single tap can cater to between 200–8,000 people.
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Contrived Divide: Urban vs. Rural, “Quality” vs. “Relevance”? The Declaration on Education For All (EFA) in 1990 had demanded an ambitious paradigm for reform, transcending the conventional understanding of education. It called for an “expanded vision of learning” by linking educational and social processes through school and life, education and work, curriculum and culture, theory and practice, etc. EFA programs had aimed for curricular reform to address issues of diversity, of different knowledge systems and linkages between life and learning. Yet the objectives soon narrowed down to “numbers enrolled” in primary schools, and the initial vision for all – to encompass youth and adults – is now almost forgotten in most international reviews. A study by UNESCO on South Asia, to see how issues of “quality of life” and “empowerment of learners” (a rare phrase indeed in the present policy discourse) had been addressed, candidly acknowledged that “lack of relevance” and “poor quality” continued to plague all countries of the region, greatly impacting children from poor families. It noted that attempts to give a life orientation to school is often consciously thwarted and that any attempt to change curricula faces stiff resistance from elitist groups which tend to use school only as a stepping stone for employment (UNESCO-APPEAL, 1998). Even in the countries of the North there has been a tension between criteria of “relevance and practical usefulness” on the one hand, and “quality” on the other, where “quality” is defined in a narrow way to suit the needs of privileged groups. Thus those whose children grow up in stimulus-rich environments may judge the “quality” of an education system by its ability to cultivate special or exclusive skills and talents, while parents of less privileged children will look for the system’s ability to foster more equitable learning opportunities for a larger number of people (Weiler, 1993). Some of our restructured state curricula were resisted on grounds of deliberately fractured notions of “relevance” and “quality” of schooling for rural and urban children. Conventional curricula are equally “irrelevant” for rural and urban children, and do not achieve much useful learning, but the urban/rural divide is used euphemistically to differentiate between the employment interests of the middle classes and the “basic needs” of the poor (Rampal, 2002). Ironically, “lack of relevance for urban children” and “dilution of academic standards” were cited as the reason for resisting curriculum renewal even in the state of Kerala, where there is today no sharp rural–urban divide, but where, despite near-universal enrolment (and consistently high social indicators), the quality of learning has remained dismal (KSSP, 1999). Through concerted newspaper campaigns, fuelled by political opponents and other vested interests, including publishers of commercial “guidebooks” and the network of coaching classes, the middle classes engaged in often rhetorical and uninformed protest. This resulted in the loss of momentum and even significant reversals in a program that, in a relatively short span of time, had indeed made a difference to the school performance of the poor, whether rural or urban (Rampal, 2001). The paradox of the rural/urban divide has reduced the “urban poor” in our cities to greater social and spatial relegation, to remain a relatively neglected and increasingly “peripheral” group in the discourse of education interventions. A large majority of the
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urban poor still continue to have shifting and multiple identities, owing to their organic links with their rural families, socially, culturally and economically. Moreover, there exist culturally diverse and ambiguous notions of “home” and “place,” which even after decades of urban living may still anchor them to their rural roots through a strong sense of belonging. The majority of rural migrants, who come to the city primarily to earn money to remit or periodically take back to their rural households, are absorbed into the urban economy in a highly differentiated manner, in sectors such as casual or unskilled labor, factory work, the informal and unorganized sector and domestic service (Rigg, 1997). However, with the increasing exploitation of the flow of cheap, captive and “compliant” rural labor, including large numbers of women and children employed for globalized production, cities are reconfiguring as “meccas for the formation of a transnational working class … living under conditions of poverty, violence, chronic environmental degradation, and fierce repression” (Harvey, 2000). Indeed, to engage with the stark “local reality of global inequality,” schools must reconfigure as sites that allow education “to re-root itself in the organic conditions of daily life” (p. 82). Moreover, since education can be “about learning to live across borders and within them, and in and through differences instead of against or in spite of them, … (in other countries too) struggles have arisen to develop a vocabulary and optics for seeing the heterogeneity of their student population” (Nozaki, Openshaw, & Luke, 2005, p. 3). A relational understanding of “urbanism” helps engage with the collapse of traditional dualisms, such as, the blurring distinction between production and distribution (Giroux, 1994; Harvey, 1973). The interplay of how different human practices in cities create and make use of specific spaces, as in the spatiality of life and work between the metropolitan hub and its increasingly peripheral “re-settlements,” continues to shape what it means to be children of the “urban poor.” In fact, the sharp segregation of the poor in Mumbai has led to the large and well-constructed government schools in its posh south being rendered vacant and “unviable,” while its north struggles despairingly with the displaced and dispossessed. A few educational programs have coined a category of the “Deprived Urban Children” (DUC; ironically pronounced “duck”) but these remain essentially nominal and peripheral, easily ducked during considerations of contending priorities. A household survey conducted by the Delhi government in collaboration with an NGO, shows that of almost 200,000 out-of-school children (aged 6–14 years), 80% are concentrated in about a third of the “difficult” geographical/administrative units (Pratham Resource Centre, 2005). Many of these “difficult” pockets have large migrant or resettled populations, no schools or, at best, a deplorably overcrowded school with very poor learning achievements. In addition, the proximity of industrial units or garbage dumps seriously affects children’s health. A case study documents the pressing fears of thousands of children threatened by relocation in Delhi, owing to the Yamuna river beautification plan, who took a delegation to the local police station to request delayed action until after their exams were over. Similarly, Rafiq Nagar is a “huge slum perched on the rim of Mumbai’s largest garbage dumping ground. The densely crowded lanes wind through the hutments … then the ocean of waste begins … Water is scarce and has to be bought and carried home. In the monsoon, and when water is released
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upstream, the drains overflow and sewage enters the homes … the life and duration of the entire community is insecure … . Uncertainty and insecurity (of demolition) keep children from making use of the meager existing facilities” (p. 14). The segment of “hard core child labor,” living in the city alone, without parents, is found concentrated in specific urban locations, such as, railway stations, religious places, red-light areas, and particular industries of the unorganized sector. An estimated 70,000 children work for pitiably low wages, almost exclusively and “invisibly” in hazardous industries in Mumbai, doing up to 18 hours a day in cramped, dark, low-ceiling pits, often suffering acute physical abuse (Roy, June 2005). They remain “invisible” to most statistics; to policy makers and educationists who might conceal them as “helps” behind their own domestic doors, perhaps even to the above household survey, which shows but a total of 79,000 children (aged 5–15 years) out-of-school in Mumbai. Some NGOs, with police help, have been “raiding” factories to free children, and escorting them back to their villages, often in the poorest districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Orissa. State governments claim there is a need to set up alternative residential schools for the education of such children brought back to their rural homes. Yet, most of the initiatives are taken up by NGOs, such as M.V. Foundation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Movement to Save Childhood), etc. Moreover, very little has been done to construct appropriate “bridging” curricula, acknowledging the children’s maturity, knowledge and skills, acquired especially during their urban sojourn in coping alone with the cruel city, while also helping them to soon enter the mainstream of rural schools. Despite the sharp spatiality of their existence, schools seldom engage critically with children’s “geographical imagination” in the spirit of Harvey’s proposition, to enable them to recognize the “role of space and place in their own autobiographies.” Spatial metaphors have played a role in the framing of emancipatory pedagogies to counter the domesticating tendencies of education, ranging from phenomena of “border crossing” to “legitimate peripheral participation” (Edwards & Usher, 2000). In countries of the South the urban poor today are witness to increasingly dehumanizing, even “savage inequalities,” as the city reconfigures and monstrously metamorphoses into a modern metropolis. In addition, the media relentlessly imprints surreal images on young fertile imaginations and blossoming aspirations; jazzy jacuzzis and fancy fittings seem to acquire a commonplace realism while modest taps and sanitary latrines remain remotely unimaginable. Yet schools make no attempt to scaffold the “spatial consciousness” of an urban child to interrogate “the relationship that exists between him and his neighborhood, his territory, or to use the language of the street gangs, his ‘turf ’ ” (Harvey, 1973, p. 24). On the contrary, urban schools meticulously try to stay clean of the child’s neighborhood, the language of his territory, and very certainly that of his “turf!” Moreover, rural accents or colloquial terms, different dialects and even children’s “rural” (especially tribal) names are frowned upon and arrogantly “corrected.”
Bulldozed: Without Homes and Schools Schools and urban administrations make no concessions for children who are forcefully evicted out of their houses through regular demolition or relocation. Often in the
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middle of a school term, thousands of urban squatters are brutally bulldozed and there is no attempt to get children readmitted; in fact, usually there is no school at the new “dumping” sites. In a spate of ruthless demolitions between November 2004 and February 2005 in Mumbai, over 300,000 people were rendered homeless for having encroached on what was called “illegal” land, even though government agencies had provided services such as electricity, and the police had made large sums in repeated extortions. During the prompt mobilization and depositions held by the Indian People’s Tribunal for Environment and Human Rights (IPTEHR), a victim, Anita Shukla, poignantly declared: “My husband is an ice-candy seller and we have two children. There is no count of the demolitions of our houses; it must be 17–18 times … Children cannot go to school; those who do manage to go find it difficult because … other children tease them. Children feel sad about it. They start avoiding school … (and) have lost their bags and books in demolition” (IPTEHR, June 2005). Over 180,000 children were estimated to have been rendered homeless in Mumbai within a couple of months of the demolitions, most of them left out in the cold – out of school, insecure and vulnerable. There were several cases of children succumbing to extreme climatic conditions. “A common thread running through the accounts (of the depositions) is not only the effect on people’s lives and livelihoods, but also the future of their children. Given the fact that February–March is the end of the school year, and a time when examinations are conducted, many children have lost a year … , many suffer post-demolition trauma due to which it is impossible to calculate how many will drop out from the school system completely” (IPTEHR, June 2005). This despite the Supreme Court rulings that, as part of Fundamental Rights, “the right to shelter includes adequate living spaces, decent structures, clean surroundings” and (in 1997) that “the state has the constitutional duty to provide shelter to make the right to life meaningful.” However, what worried 12 year old Savita most on losing her home was the forced loss of school for children who “will find it difficult, because their mothers won’t even be able to bathe and dress them” (Srinivasan, 2004).
Clean Cities and Citizens: “De-territorialized” Global Aspirations Clean and health-conscious citizens, in synergistic action between “environmental self-help” and a new “caring for the self ” aggressively marketed by the cartel of weight-loss clinics, yoga parlors, reiki gurus or gyms and gizmos, are buying in to the idea of active “citizenship” to clean their cities of all “pollution.” Indeed, the democratization of the environmental discourse – “it affects us all, belongs to all” – has obscured how conflicts of “the environment” of an abstract “public” may be justly resolved with the many “environments” of differentiated publics (Sharan, 2002). Several corporate NGOs, such as Bombay First, CitiSpace, and Merchants Chambers, are now on the forefront, in collaboration with the World Bank and other international agencies, to build public opinion and rebuild “public spaces.” This new environmentalism bids for a more “realistic” use of real estate, through the removal of encroachers and
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“deviants” such as hawkers, slums, street children and beggars from public land, as also other pollutants from air and water. However, the global aspirations of Delhi have been found to be somewhat fatally flawed by its alarming gender ratio (868:1,000 female to male in the 0–6 age group), owing to high female feticide by expensive sex determination technologies. The Census 2001 (www.censusindia.net) shows figures as low as 762 female toddlers in its “clean,” affluent, and highly educated south Delhi colonies, with substantially higher ratios in the congested quarters or rural habitations of the less-literate “polluting” poor. Ironically, this is similar to the national pattern, where the more prosperous, educated urban districts show the least “tolerance” for the girl child. This raises critical questions, not only about gender justice or overarching notions of development and prosperity, but also, more pointedly, about the efficacy of the present education system, and its ability to shape such mindsets. In addition, Mumbai is tarnished by alarming levels of urban malnutrition which, according to the National Family Health Survey, is 29% in the 0–6 age group – much higher than in the rural or even tribal areas of the state of Maharashtra (17% malnutrition), owing to the extremely low purchasing power of its urban poor. The devastating demolitions in Mumbai have been seen as part of the city’s “Vision Shanghai,” attributed to its proposed multi-billion dollar development plan to transform the industrial capital of India into Asia’s leading financial capital. Indeed, the planned “makeover” of Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi, located on prime land in Mumbai, and home to more than 600,000 people in ramshackle corrugated tin-sheds, has sent warning signals about the government’s intentions. Dharavi, with a thriving business worth $1 billion a year in local enterprise turning out everything from leather goods, pottery, and jewelry to fake “branded” watch straps, remains an enigmatic study in cosmopolitan contrast – between the enterprise, ambition and good humor of its heterogeneous habitants, and their soul-deadening surroundings (Ahmed, BBC News, 2004; D’Souza, 2002; Sharma, 2000; Verma, 2002). Meanwhile, large textile mills set up in 1854, to serve as the harbingers of industrial and economic growth of Mumbai, when the British allocated central land to house textile factories and workers’ quarters, have been closed. The owners threw out over 200,000 workers in the last three decades, and sold most of the land to builders of high-rise luxury houses, not “public housing,” as had been decreed in the sale permission granted by the government, which had also called for investment in modernization. “My heart breaks every time I see a mill being torn down,” says Narendra Kargaonkar, 42, a second-generation mill worker who lost his job at Phoenix Mills, now working as a door-to-door milk deliveryman, earning a fraction of his mill salary in 1982. The mill has been reconfigured into a mall – a bustling shopping complex, nightclub and bowling alley. “They say they want to turn this city into Shanghai,” says Mohammad Badruddin, “I don’t know what the word Shanghai means, but it is an excuse to kick poor people in the stomach.” He is “a mason who lived in a cramped, fly-infested slum with open drains, and was laying floor tiles in a gleaming residential high-rise recently when he heard that four bulldozers had flattened his neighborhood of tin-walled homes. To prevent their return, the government dumped heaps of putrid garbage on the slum land and posted
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security men to guard the area” (Rama Lakshmi, 2005). It is cruel irony that settlers, who had transformed marsh and muck into habitable land through investment of their own labor and funds, patiently filling it with soil and debris over several years, are brutally evicted by the untamed power and greed of the builder-politician-mafia nexus on grounds of their having “encroached on public land.” Delhi, where slums house more than one-fourth of its population, leads the way in “environmental activism,” with recent large-scale eviction of polluting industries and relocation of about 50,000 workers and families. However, there have been few questions asked about the health of the workers themselves and those living in the relocated polluted sites. Moreover, with increasing demands for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and mushrooming “call centers” connected to their First world clients in clean cyberspace, Delhi aspires to be on-call globally through such “de-territorialization.” Indeed, the city has shed its democratic pretensions through a recent Supreme Court Order, which states that the health of some is more important than the livelihood of others. The contemporary civilizing agenda for “clean cities” has also influenced schools directly through a recent Supreme Court order directing that “Environmental Education” be taught in schools as a compulsory examinable subject in all classes. A separate national syllabus, in the traditional “information-transmission” format, was hurriedly drawn up to comply with the court orders. However, as part of the national Syllabus Revision in 2005 it has been decided to integrate these issues into the existing subjects, instead of inventing yet another one to subject children to.
The New Environmental Studies: Integrating Science and Social Sensibility I shall discuss here in some detail our recent attempts to reconfigure one subject, which according to the policy framework, has long been meant to be taught as integrated “Environmental Studies” (EVS) at the primary school, instead of separate general science and social studies. However, “integration” was only nominally and superficially achieved earlier; it is in the present exercise of syllabus revision in accordance with the National Curriculum Framework 2005 that this has been seriously attempted. Its objectives include: “to help children to locate and comprehend relationships between their natural, social and cultural environments, … based on observations and illustrations drawn from lived experiences, rather than abstractions; to be able to critically address gender concerns and issues of marginalization and oppression, with values of equality and justice, and respect for human dignity and rights” (NCERT, 2005). Transcending rigid disciplinary boundaries and resisting the pressure to include “key topics” from traditional “subjects,” the new syllabus format proposes themes that allow for a connected and inter-related approach, grounded in a social constructivist perspective of children’s learning. It begins with “key questions,” framed in a language that can stimulate and scaffold the thinking of children that age, and then indicates the key concepts that relate to the elaboration of the questions. It also lists suggested
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resources and activities, such as, stories in oral and written literature, local games and puzzles, information from local resource persons including grandparents, medical workers, artists and books, experiments, excursions, observations, etc. Despite consistent pressure to specify “learning outcomes” for each sub-theme, a legacy of the atomized and absurdly behaviorist “Minimum Levels of Learning” that held sway in the last decade, the new EVS syllabus stays clear of such statements. The “outcomes” of competencies and skills tie in with the increasingly problematic managerial discourse of “inputs–outputs,” as also with the minimalist requirements for developing countries to produce sufficiently productive humans for the global market. The EVS Syllabus Preamble I had written has a section on this issue: What Learning Do We Expect? How can Environmental Studies help all our children, … those for whom the main purpose in life is going to school, as well as those who aspire for a school that can support life, with meaning and dignity? This syllabus format consciously does not spell out any outcomes for each theme. However, schools must ensure that these activities or discussions will be conducted because only then can it be ensured that learning will happen. … (for instance) EVS classrooms will need to provide opportunities to children to be able to progressively ask higher order questions that require different levels of reasoning and investigation, by planned activities and exercises to get them to phrase their questions, to answer, discuss and investigate them. These are basic to the learning process in EVS and yet, unfortunately, most classrooms are not designed to ensure this. How then can we expect all children to learn? What then does it mean to specify any outcomes at this point? (NCERT, 2005; also at www.ncert.nic.in) With a focus on those who are most vulnerable to be pushed out of school and, unlike the prevalent “culture of silence” or evasion at school, some key questions openly address issues of inequality or difference, and encourage children to reflect on their lived experiences, however unpleasant. For instance, the syllabus departs from the traditional manner of treating “Our Body” in a purely scientific, socially distanced manner, through routine topics such as “our senses,” “parts/organs of the body” and their functions, etc. The new unit “our bodies – old and young” helps children place their own bodies in relation to those of their family members. The rubric of the “family” is meant to provide intimacy and empathy, to help develop sensitivity towards people having different abilities/disabilities. “Feeling around with eyes shut” explores their senses of touch, smell, etc. – not in isolation of the people or animals they care for – but by trying to identify all those by touching, hearing or smelling them. Instead of introducing “touch,” without feeling, only “objectively” as one of “our senses,” it subjectively views how touch can mean both a caress and a painful slap, where the caress too can be a “good” touch or a “bad” touch. In higher classes this could lead to more complex issues about security and sexuality, a major issue for urban girls in cities such as Delhi, where rape and molestation have assumed numbing proportions. Similarly, the theme on “Food” begins with “cooking” and “eating in the family,” about what we eat and what others eat, what animals eat, etc. “Plants” and their leaves,
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stems or seeds are introduced here through “food.” The key question “Which of the following is food? – red ants, birds’ nest, goats’ milk, etc?” focuses on differences, and that food is a deeply cultural notion. It moves on to how food is grown, how it reaches the city, who grows it, and the hardships farmers may face, while staying grounded to the reality of our own pangs of hunger or the plight of people who do not get food. Changes in food habits and crop patterns are analyzed through the experiences of elders/grandparents, not just from what the teacher or textbook says. “Water” and “Shelter” include questions on the immediate issues of disadvantaged children, both in rural and urban environments. For instance, the following questions could scaffold critical dialogue equally well in either case: How far do you have to go to fetch water? Are there some people not allowed to take water from your source? What are underground wells and do you still see them being used? Have you seen water being wasted? Are there some people in your area who always face water shortage? Do you find factories or people dumping garbage or harmful materials in rivers or seas? Similarly for “Shelter”: Does everyone have a shelter to live in? Why do people live together in hamlets/colonies/neighborhoods? The resources suggested in the syllabus include a story of a child displaced by the construction of a dam or the demolition of an urban slum. “Work and Play” includes sensitive issues of caste, gender or child-labor through their understanding of “clean” and “dirty” work; work patterns in the family, comparing the daily schedule of work done by different children, also comparing with when their grandparents were young. It looks at games and martial arts, local and national sports, their “heroes” and how they acquire their skills. “Travel” was developed to take the child on a journey of expanding social and physical spaces, into newer and unfamiliar terrains of often mind-boggling and no less fascinating diversity. A “resource” narrative of a child from a rural migrant/itinerant family and her problems of schooling helps look at difference through flesh and blood characters children relate to. New NCERT textbooks based on the revised syllabus have been introduced in schools in 2006. As part of the Environmental Studies (EVS) textbook team we went through an intense process of debate and reflection to respond to the vision of the new syllabus. To remain sensitive to all children and to consciously include the lived experiences of the disadvantaged is indeed a challenge, especially when most of us – teachers and educators – are from among the urban educated sections of society, with increasingly fewer shared spaces of social and cultural interchange. For us tapped water (though now in short supply in most cities) or personal toilets are unquestioned essentials of urban life, while many other markers of our middle class existence – be it cooking gas, a refrigerator, an ice cream cone, or even ordinary colored paper – often unthinkingly appear in the chapters we draft. We also continue to contend with middle class moralistic notions of hygiene and cleanliness, and the belief that the poor need the “right messages” through school. Nevertheless, we have made space for different children’s voices and concerns, from diverse regions, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds – of those whose houses are washed away by floods each year and also those who walk miles to get a pot of water (NCERT, 2006; freely available at www.ncert.nic.in). We are also focusing on real life narratives of inspiration and transformative action for the textbooks for Classes IV and V.
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Excerpts from the chapter “Too much water, too little water” of the class IV environmental studies textbook published by NCERT
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“Quality” for Equity in Environments Thriving on Inequality? In 2002, the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India, for the first time in half a century, brazenly attempted to dilute the state’s commitment towards universalization of elementary education (UEE). Under pressure, both external and internal, to declare Education as a Fundamental Right, a deliberately ambiguous clause was added to what is now Article 21A: “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6–14 years, in the manner as the state may by law determine.” Not only does it retract from the original “all children until they complete the age of 14 years,” but also allows the state to get away with whatever “quality” it deems fit for those who suffer the severest inequalities. Subsequently, several drafts of the Free and Compulsory Education Bill have been proposed and contested, and the Parliament has still not passed an Act to ensure “education of equitable quality” as the right of every child. India’s last Education Commission (GOI, 1966), inspired by a socialist democratic vision of national development, had reflected a somewhat dialectical relationship of “quality for equality” and “equality for quality” and recommended the Common School System, strongly endorsed by subsequent policy documents (Rampal, 2004). However, the proposed draft Act of 2004 sought legal sanction to legitimize the deeply discriminatory public system set in place over the last decade. Terms such as “transitional school,” “Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) Center” or “Alternative School,” were euphemisms the state had carefully crafted through programs promoting low-cost poor quality options for poor children. State provision of elementary schooling has never been as starkly stratified, ranging from the few better endowed Navodaya Vidyalayas and Central Schools for the children of Central government servants and army officers, to the poor State government schools, and now “alternative schools,” for the poorest and the socially “hardest to reach.” The proliferation of sub-standard private schools needs to be checked by improving the quality of public education, and projecting the model of a Central School as freely accessible to all. Ironically, prominent private schools in cities are wooing affluent clients and influencing public perceptions of “quality,” even using absurd quality benchmarks used for industrial products to advertise how they convert “raw material” into “finished products” (not really, because they diligently reject any “raw” material to begin with, carefully collecting information about parents’ salary, proficiency in English and other attributes of social capital in their admission questionnaires). Judicial intervention of individuals and legal aid organizations is actively engaged in ensuring that private schools do not violate basic norms of social justice. From biased admission procedures to flouting of land lease rules that require 25% seats to children from poor households, private schools have now increasingly been brought under the legal scanner. They in turn have been vociferously lobbying against the Free and Compulsory Education Bill, which calls for “Common Schooling” and expects them to reserve seats for the underprivileged. More damagingly, there exists a differentiated vision of learning for the “hardest to reach.” There is a palpable sense of impatience with the notion of “quality” in large urban enrolment programs run by the government in partnership with NGOs, often with corporate support, aggressively professing a minimalist vision of schooling.
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Some have questionably fragmented the skill to read, claiming they achieve “reading” first and only later “reading with meaning.” Others have proposed a “Reading Guarantee Program”; we shall wait to see when it graduates to Reading With Meaning Guarantee, Writing Guarantee, and so on, and if ever the disadvantaged can get to the more exotic schemes for Curiosity Guarantee, Creativity Guarantee, and even, perhaps, Empowerment Guarantee! An ostensible dichotomy between “access” and “beyond,” or between the “basic” provision and its “quality,” has been propagated to justify not being able to do “both” simultaneously. The belief that only some “wanted” education, while the “unwilling” majority contributed to high “wastage” by dropping out of schools without learning much, has been sufficiently contested by several studies, including ours conducted in the most educationally backward states (PROBE Team, 1999; Rampal, 2004). The poor aspire for education as a possible way out of their condition, and are dropping out mainly because there is little being learned. The numbers of those out of school are alarming, and amount to almost as many as a 100 million children between the ages of 6–14 years. Their right to education remains unfulfilled and few organizations strive to devise programs to address their needs, while respecting their knowledge, self esteem and maturity. The sharp “quality” divide between those who can pay and those who depend on public education has accentuated in the last decade as developing countries use cost-reducing means to provide Education For All. However, studies from Chile, Argentina and Columbia have shown that more and better resources invested in making schools of low-performing groups as good as those attended by higher performing students has an “equalizing” impact for creating a culture of success in the education system (Carnoy, 2004). The urban disadvantaged, who live in environments that thrive on inequity, and are constantly being shoved or bulldozed around, need education that can nurture a sense of equality and empowerment. What is urgently required is a much more innovative academic engagement in curricula, including creative teaching and assessment pedagogies, for courses offering “open learning” and vocational education. Unfortunately, the National and State Open Schools have not taken their mandate for “openness” and flexibility seriously, often emulating formal syllabi with mediocre and modest resources. Vocational education has long been assigned a second rate status for the “less able,” with an instrumental emphasis on “training” for employment, not on education, and has largely been relegated to the Labor Department. There is an urgency to break away from the hegemony of the formal system, especially for the millions of urban adolescents who have opted out and who are desperately looking for alternate avenues of education with suitable certification. The timelessness of Ayesha’s experience of school needs to be addressed with a greater sense of urgency than what is being witnessed in present policy discourse and action.
References Ahmed, Z. (March 1, 2004). Bombay’s billion-dollar slum. BBC News Bulletin. Apple, M. A. (2001). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God and inequality. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Avehi-Abacus Programme. (2005). “Sangati” teachers’ manual 5: Parivartan Ki Parakh, Mumbai: AvehiAbacus Programme.
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Bourdieu, P., et al. (2002). The weight of the world: Social suffering in contemporary society. Oxford: Polity Press. Carnoy, M. (2004). Education for all and the quality of education: A reanalysis. Paper Commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO, Paris. D’Souza, D. (2002). Twilight City. Retrieved from http://www.indiatogether.org Davin, A. (1996). Growing up poor: Home, school and street in London 1870–1914. London: Rivers Oram Press. Edwards, R., & Usher, R. (2000). Globalization and pedagogy. London: Routledge. Gillborn, D., & Youdell, D. (2000). Rationing education: Policy, practice, reform and equity. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Giroux, H. A. (1994). Disturbing pleasures. London: Routledge. GOI. (1966). Education and national development: Report of the national education commission 1964–1966. New Delhi: Government of India. Harvey, D. (1973). Social justice and the city. London: Edward Arnold. Harvey, D. (2000). Spaces of hope. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. IPTEHR. (2005). Bulldozing rights: A report on forced evictions and housing policies for the poor in Mumbai. Mumbai: Indian People’s Tribunal for Environment and Human Rights (IPTEHR). KSSP. (1999). Report of the Kerala education commission. Kochi: Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishat. NCERT. (2003). Exploring environment: Textbook for class V (14th Reprint ed.). New Delhi: National Council for Educational Research and Training. NCERT. (2005). Environmental studies syllabus. Retrieved from http://www.ncert.nic.in NCERT. (2006). Around us: Environmental studies textbook for class III. Retrieved from http://www.ncert.nic.in Nozaki, Y., Openshaw, R., & Luke, A. (2005). Struggles over difference: Curriculum, texts and pedagogy in the Asia-Pacific. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Pratham Resource Centre. (2005). Megacities and the status of out of school children (unpublished mimeo). Pratham, Delhi. PROBE Team. (1999). Public report on basic education (PROBE). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rama Lakshmi. (May 8, 2005). Bombay moves to push out the poor: Slums are razed as envisage reinvented city. Washington Post, 8 May 2005, p. A20. Rampal, A. (1991). Deliverance from the “Delivery” metaphor: Curriculum innovation in India. Journal of Education for Teaching, 17(3), 237–244. Rampal, A. (1992). A possible ‘orality’ for science? Interchange, 23(3), 227–244. Rampal, A. (1994). Innovative science teaching in rural schools in India: Questioning social beliefs and superstitions. In J. Solomon, & G. Aikenhead (Eds.), STS education: International perspectives on reform (pp. 131–138). New York: Teachers College Press. Rampal, A. (2001). Curriculum change for quality education: A study of schools in DPEP and non-DPEP districts of Kerala. New Delhi: UNICEF. Rampal, A. (2002). Texts in context: Development of curricula, textbooks and teaching learning materials. In R. Govinda (Ed.), India education report (pp. 153–166). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rampal, A. (2004). Unpacking the “Quality” of schools. Seminar, 536, 46–51. Rigg, J. (1997). Southeast Asia: The human landscape of modernization and development. London: Routledge. Roth, W. M., & Barton, A. C. (2004). Rethinking scientific literacy. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Roy, S. (June 20, 2005). Free these. Outlook Magazine. New Delhi. Sarai, & Ankur. (2002). By lanes, joint publication of Sarai and Ankur. New Delhi: Retrieved from http://www.sarai.net Sharan, A. (2002). Claims on cleanliness: Environment and justice in contemporary Delhi. In The cities of everyday life, Sarai Reader 02, currently available online at http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/ 02-the-cities-of-everyday-life Sharma, K. (2000). Rediscovering dharavi. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Srinivasan, R. (2004). Along with homes, kids lose their education. The Times of India, January 9, 2005, Mumbai. UNESCO-APPEAL. (1998). Basic education for the empowerment of the poor. Bangkok: PROAP. Verma, G. D. (2002). Slumming India: A chronicle of slums and their saviours. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Weiler, H. N. (1993). Control versus legitimation: The politics of ambivalence. In J. Hannaway, & M. Carnoy (Eds.), Decentralisation and school improvement: Can we fulfill the promise? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
16 WITHERING THE STATE? GLOBALIZATION CHALLENGES AND CHANGING HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNANCE IN EAST ASIA Ka Ho Mok University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Globalization and the “Hollowing out of the State”? Before the end of the Cold War, according to Hirst and Thompson (1999), nation states were: perceived as the primary political communities with the capacity to determine the status and to make rules for any activity that fell within contemporary understandings of the scope of legitimate authority. States were sovereign and hence each state determined within itself the nature of its internal and external policies. (p. 258) The revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe and their aftermath have led to a growing concern about whether modern states are losing their capacities for governance, and whether national-level processes are ceding their primacy to global ones. Believing capital is becoming more mobile and has no national attachments, national politics and political choices are considered to have been sidelined by the global market forces while transnational corporations are perceived as the key players in defining not only economic, but also social and political agendas. Hence, national-level governance is regarded as ineffective in coping with challenges generated from globalizing economic and social processes (Horsman & Marshall, 1994). The rise of “the borderless world economy,” “global politics,” and “global civil society” seems to suggest the sovereignty of the state and the capacities of any government are being eroded (Garrett, 2000; Woods, 2000). Against the wider political economy context discussed above, hyper-globalists such as Ohmae and Reich even believe nation states have become the local authorities of the global system (Ohmae, 1990, 1993; Reich, 1992). Without the capacity in riding over the competing and even contradictory economic, social, and political demands resulting from growing globalization challenges, nation states are reduced to becoming “municipalities within states … to provide the infrastructure and public goods that 305 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 305–320. © 2007 Springer.
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business needs at the lowest possible cost” (Hirst & Thompson, 1999, p. 262). With such conceptions in mind, the globalists believe the scope, roles, forms, and architecture of modern government should change. Unlike the globalists, the skeptics and transformationists believe nation states still retain the ultimate claim of legal legitimacy within their territories even though they have to respond to external pressures generated by the changing global contexts (Jayasuriya, 2001; Pempel, 1998). Contrary to strong globalists’ arguments for “the decline of nation states,” the skeptics and transformationists believe globalization challenges could be conducive processes for reconfiguring modern states, driving them to restructure their governance models and reform the ways that they manage the public sector (Pierre, 2000). More specifically, non-globalists believe modern states would make use of the globalization discourse or globalization challenges as justifications for shaping domestic political and public policy agendas or legitimizing public sector reforms (Cheung, 2005; Cheung & Scott, 2003). By adopting trendy “global practices” like decentralization, privatization, and corporatization strategies in governing public policy and managing the public sector, coupled with adherence to the neo-liberalist doctrines in reducing the state’s burdens in providing and financing public services while simultaneously institutionalizing state-society linkages,1 modern states can regenerate and reinvent themselves into successfully riding over the challenges of globalization (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002; Scharpf, 1994). The present paper sets out against this theoretical context to examine how East Asian states have been affected by the growing impact of globalization, in what ways they have attempted to change higher education governance, and specifically what strategies they have adopted to enhance the global competitiveness of their higher education systems. Has the search for new governance weakened the state capacities of East Asian states in shaping public policy formation and governing public sector management? Would the adoption of more “pro-competition” policy instruments make the developmental state model irrelevant to East Asia? The following discussion will address these questions.
Globalization Challenges and Educational Restructuring A close examination of international trends in higher education shows that the globalization of the economy, the decline of the welfare state, and the commodification of knowledge have continued to shape higher education developments globally (Burbules & Torres, 2000; Marginson, 2002; Schugurensky, 1999). In order to meet the heightened expectations of the public for more higher education opportunities and the need to enhance the global competence of citizens in the increasingly competitive global marketplace, modern states are confronted with growing demands for better quality higher education. Yet at the same time, they are constrained by limited resources. In attempting to resolve such dilemmas, a significant global trend during the last two decades is the restructuring of higher education (Mok & James, 2005). Central to this restructuring process is the introduction of restructuring strategies along the lines of decentralization, corporatization, privatization, marketization, and commodification to transform higher education institutions. Similarly, diversified
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policy tools and instruments such as commercial banks, private corporations, industrial corporatizations, networks, and partnerships in education financing and provision are becoming increasingly common in generating additional resources to support higher education (Rhodes, 1997, 2000). The diversification of financial sources and the proliferation of actors in education provision suggest that higher education is now experiencing fundamental governance changes from the “state-centered” towards a more “society-centered” approach. Such developments may supplant hierarchical command and control; more importantly, such restructuring processes would inevitably lead to a redefinition of the relationship between higher education institutions and the market, as well as a drastic reduction of institutional autonomy. Although it is difficult to make generalizations about the patterns and trends in higher education developments in East Asia since each country/society may have its own stage and speed of development, comparative studies of similar settings have reported some interesting patterns and trends common to the development of education in East Asia (Mok & James, 2005), and even to the Asia and Pacific region (Mok & Welch, 2003). Some of the major changes in higher education governance are as follows.
Changing Higher Education Governance in East Asia Quest for Entrepreneurial Universities Against an increasingly competitive global context as outlined above, schools and universities in different parts of the globe have been under tremendous pressures from governments and the general public to restructure or reinvent the way that they are managed in order to adapt to the ever-changing socio-economic and socio-political environments and to maintain individual nation-states’ global competitiveness. As Martin Carnoy (2000) has pointed out, “globalization enters the education sector on an ideological horse, and its effects in education are largely a product of that financially driven, free-market ideology, not a clear conception for improving education” (p. 50). Education reforms, under the context of globalization, could be characterized by a finance-driven reform emphasizing decentralization, privatization, and better performance. Attaching far more weight to entrepreneurial efficiency and effectiveness, contemporary universities are under immense pressures to transform their roles to adapt to rapid socio-economic and socio-political changes. This is particularly true when modern governments have reduced capacity to continue financing growing demands for higher education. It is against the socio-economic context discussed above that the processes of academic capitalization in general, and the pursuit of academic entrepreneurship in particular, has become increasingly popular in shaping the relationship between government, university, business, and industry. Therefore, new “university-academicproductive sector relations” have emerged (Sutz, 1997); notions such as “corporate academic convergence” (Currie & Newson, 1998), “entrepreneurial universities” (Marginson, 2000), “campus inc.” (White & Hauck, 2000), “capitalization of knowledge,” “strong executive control” and “corporate characters” are used to conceptualize
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current changes in contemporary universities (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1997). In the context of reduced financial support from the state, higher education systems across different parts of the globe have attempted to generate incomes through entrepreneurial activities (see, e.g., De Zilwa, 2005; Marginson & Considine, 2000; Mok, 2003a). It is therefore not surprising that “the language of human capital dominates official policy recommendations dealing with growing economic and social problems” (Spring, 1998, p. 163). My recent comparative studies on how governments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore have tried to foster entrepreneurship among their higher education systems indicate that the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has played a facilitating role in promoting entrepreneurialism (Mok, 2005a). Instead of high levels of government intervention, the HKSAR acted as a “market-facilitating state” that set a conductive policy framework bridging the various sectors – university, business, and industry – for exploring and developing entrepreneurial opportunities. Similar developments have been found in Taiwan and Singapore when these Asian governments attempted to partially retreat from directing and intervening in industrial and business developments. Conventional wisdom suggests that the postwar East Asian economic miracle was directed by highly interventionist states. Entrepreneurial activities in general, and industrial and Research & Development (R & D) policies in particular, were directed by the state. In Taiwan, for instance, the government used to play a significant role in coordinating R & D collaboration. According to Gregory Noble (1998), research and development consortia in Taiwan were “actually forms of direct provisions of technological services by the government and its quasi-public research institutes” (p. 146). Similarly, Meaney (1994) argues that “state intervention took the form of focused R & D” by “choosing technology, acquiring technology [and] developing domestic R & D capability” in Taiwan (p. 173). In the same vein, Robert Wade (1990) contends that the postwar developmental state in Taiwan strategically intervened in the market. Government hands were highly visible, especially when competition was mediated by purposive public policies. Through the use of “incentives, controls and mechanisms to spread risk,” these sorts of public policies “enabled the government to guide – or govern – market processes of resource allocation” (p. 26). Therefore, the market in Taiwan was “organized” in order to maximize productive or innovative efficiency. Judging by the significant role that the government had played in industrial and entrepreneurial activities, we may well argue that the Taiwanese government was actually a “market-constructing” state. Nonetheless, such conventional wisdom has been challenged. Recent studies focusing on organizing technovation and technological dynamism in Taiwan suggest that there has been a fundamental change in the state’s role with regards to R & D policies. Changing from acting as a “market-constructing state” to a “market-facilitating state,” the Taiwanese government now encourages collaboration and competition among various actors. Government policymakers, previously the main actors promoting R & D and entrepreneurial activities, now interact more with other actors from the scientific community and the market in order to pull them together to conceive and develop projects that promote entrepreneurialism. Instead of being heavily involved in directing R & D and other entrepreneurial activities, the Taiwanese government entrusts other
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public organizations such as the National Science Council (NSC), one of the government organizations in Taiwan, to oversee biotech development on the island state. Working closely with the Science and Technology Advisory Group and the Biotechnology Strategic Review Board, the NSC is responsible for implementing key national science and technology projects. Meanwhile, many more of the biotech projects have been directly run by commercial firms. Despite the fact that the Taiwanese government remains important in shaping the rules for the introduction of competition in R & D and entrepreneurial activities, nonstate players like those who work in the scientific community and the market actually determine the R & D and entrepreneurial developments in Taiwan (Chen, 1997; Hsu & Chiang, 2001). Since the 1990s, an increasing number of alliances have developed in Taiwan, “bringing together firms, and public sector research institutions, with the added organizational input of trade associations, and catalytic financial assistance from government” (Mathews, 2002, p. 633). Such developments have been confirmed by another study of technological dynamism in Asia, which concludes that “innovation in Taiwan and Hong Kong is a result of domestic individuals and independent firms” (Mahmood & Singh, 2003, p. 1052). Similarly, another study focusing on the development of biotechnology and R & D collaboration in the biotech sector has also argued with evidence that R & D and entrepreneurial activities are becoming more commerciallydriven, the development of which has been significantly directed by market forces rather than state initiatives. Openly recognizing the lack of the spirit of inventiveness and risk taking, and, at the same time, worrying about the lessening of its competitiveness in the globalizing economy, the Singapore government has begun to launch projects in promoting entrepreneurship. Comparing Singapore to Taiwan and Hong Kong, entrepreneurial activity is relatively low since the Singapore government has long been orchestrating the developments of the city-state. Having been paternalistic, the Singapore government has put the promotion of entrepreneurship at the top of its political agenda in recent years (Tan, 2003; Tan & Tan, 2002). According to unofficial estimates, the Singapore government, together with its linked companies, employs more than half a million people in the island nation (Asia Times, November 27, 2002). Singapore, regarded as a “government-made city-state” (Low, 2001), has seen very high levels of government intervention across different social, economic, and political aspects. Criticized for its over-concentration of economic decision-making, control of factors of production (including corporations) and unnecessary influence over-pricing and supply of land and savings, the Singapore government has attempted to change its governance strategies by introducing privatization to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) (Institute of Policy Studies, 2003). In addition, the government has designated a Minister of State to be responsible for promoting a more entrepreneurial Singapore. By setting up a Public Service for the twenty-first Century (PS21) Office directly under the Prime Minister’s Office, the government hopes to make civil servants think more innovatively and creatively. In addition, the Civil Service College of Singapore has been organizing different kinds of exhibitions and symposia promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship. Personal visits to the PS21 Office and the Ministry of Education in Singapore repeatedly confirm how
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important the promotion of entrepreneurship is in Singapore. On the public administration front, the Singapore government has started reforms in making its administration more efficient and responsive to changing market needs (PS21, 2005). Believing that education significantly determines the creation of an entrepreneurial spirit, the Ministry of Education in Singapore has started a new reform movement called “Innovation and Enterprise,” where students are encouraged to venture in the commercial sector by developing their own small firms or engage in selling and buying activities after school (Ministry of Education, 2004). Realizing that the conventional university governance model (i.e., a state-directed and centralized model) can never drive state universities in Singapore to become entrepreneurial, the government has adopted an entirely new governance model in setting up the Singapore Management University (SMU). Intending to make SMU more flexible in governance and more responsive to changing education needs of the business and commercial sectors, the Singapore government deliberately made SMU a publicly- funded but privately-run university. The government provided the set-up fund and established an endowment to finance the future development of SMU. According to Prof. Tan Chin Tiong, Provost of SMU, the newly established University has been very successful in developing close relationships with the business and commercial sectors not only in Singapore, but also overseas. In response to the Singapore government’s University Matching Grant Scheme, SMU has been able to match the fundraising targets set by the government. It secured one billion for the endowment fund by approaching Dr. Lee Ka Shing, a very famous Chinese businessman in Hong Kong. In addition to fund-raising, SMU has maintained a very close relationship with business and commercial sectors (communicator’s name, personal communication, February Date, 2005). Putting the above observations together, it is clear that universities in East Asia, like their counterparts in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., have begun to shift their paradigms from purely upholding the mission of research and teaching to the third mission of promoting economic and social development. The pursuit of academic entrepreneurship and the transformation towards the “entrepreneurial university” has started in East Asia.
Corporatizing and Internationalizing Universities Another emerging trend commonly found among East Asian university systems is the adoption of corporate or business ideas/principles and strategies in reforming/running higher education institutions. Yonezawa’s recent work (2007) compares and contrasts the backgrounds and the current developments of the evolution of the “education market” in Singapore, Japan and Malaysia. Unsatisfied with the conventional model along the lines of “state-oriented” and “highly centralized” approaches in higher education, these Asian governments have introduced and implemented “corporatization” measures to turn their state/public universities into independent legal entities, allowing them more flexibility and autonomy in running and governing their own businesses. Adhering more towards the market and corporate principles and practices, these state universities are now run on a market-oriented and business corporation model instead of being closely directed by the Ministry of Education or equivalent government
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administrative bodies. State universities are now also required to become more proactive and dynamic in looking for their own financial resources. With reference to the previous discussion on how universities have tried to become more entrepreneurial, Yonezawa’s article adds value to the current debates on how state universities in Singapore, Japan and Malaysia have transformed their governance and management styles to meet the changing social and economic needs of their nations. Like universities in Hong Kong, universities in Taiwan have also experienced marketization and corporatization processes in the last decade. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan has decided to change the “statutory” position of state universities into “independent judicial entities” by adopting principles and practices of corporatization. In order to reduce the state burden in higher education financing, all state universities in Taiwan have to generate additional funds from non-state sectors such as the market and enterprises. Like Hong Kong, university presidents in Taiwan nowadays are occupied with fund-raising since the Ministry has cut down its financial support to state universities by 20–30%. In order to generate sufficient funds to finance their institutions, various kinds of market-driven strategies have been adopted. Like Japan and Singapore, the Taiwanese Government has also tried to restructure its state universities by passing a new University Bill to make state universities independent legal entities. Influenced by the Japanese model, state universities in Taiwan have to establish new governance structures while facing immense pressures in searching for additional financial support from the non-state channels, especially when the Taiwanese government has significantly reduced its funding (Lo & Weng, 2005). Having reflected upon the changing university governance models and evaluated the recent experiences of SMU, the Ministry of Education in Singapore has decided to change the governance models of the existing state universities, namely, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, by making them independent legal entities through the process of “corporatization” (communicator’s name, personal communication, December Date, 2004). By incorporatizing these state universities, the Singapore government hopes that universities on the island state could become more entrepreneurial. Such discussions have once again shown that the ideologies and practices of the market have become increasingly influential in shaping higher education governance in East Asia (Mok & Tan, 2004). Similarly, public universities in Malaysia have begun to experience the “corporatization” processes. According to Lee (2004), the restructuring of higher education in Malaysia is very much influenced by neo-liberal economic ideology. In order to expand higher education opportunities, the Malaysian government has adopted similar strategies in incorporatizing some of the public universities. After the reform, “the structural changes in the corporatized universities show that collegial forms of governance has been sidelined, entrepreneurial activities have increased, and corporate managerial practices have been institutionalized” (Lee, 2004, p. 15). Recent study on changing university governance has also found that Japan, like other East Asian states, is not immune from the impact of neo-liberalism, managerialism, and economic rationalism, three major ideologies underlying the tidal wave of public sector reforms and reinventing government projects across the world. With the intentions to make its state university system more responsive and flexible in coping with
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intensified pressures generated from the growing impacts of globalization, the Japanese government has incorporated all state universities since 2004. Central to the transformation of the existing national universities into “National University Corporations” are three major reform aspects: increased competitiveness in research and education; enhanced accountability together with introduction of competition; and strategic and functional management of national universities (Mok & Yonezawa, 2005). It is in such context that the Japanese government has begun to take “internationalization” of the higher education agenda more seriously. Roger Goodman, in his recent paper (2007), examines a Japanese term “kokusaika” (often translated as internationalization) and its related expressions from the mid1980s. Goodman argues that “globalization” has become one of the most fashionable concepts in social scientific discourse over the past 15 years, along with a related vocabulary of words such as “transnationalism,” “McDonalization,” “Cocacolanization,” “localization,” and “globalization.” Much ink has been spilt on how such terms should be defined and used in a theoretical context and how they can be mobilized methodologically, but little agreement has been reached on either score (see, e.g., Eriksen, 2003; Guillén, 2001; Rosenau, 2003). Nonetheless, he argues that there is a lack of consensus about the exact meaning of any new concept, resulting in it becoming what the anthropologist Victor Turner (1974) has called a “multivocal symbol.” Such symbols are capable of being interpreted in multiple ways by different actors and in some cases can become the site of conflict as different interest groups compete to have their own interpretations accepted as the dominant one. Therefore, Goodman believes that it is necessary to undertake a detailed, “thick description” of the use of such words in a particular social context during a defined historical period. His article provides further insights on how Japanese people interpret “internationalization” and how they have attempted to make their higher education system more “internationalized” in response to the growing impacts of globalization. Lesley Vidovich, Rui Yang, and Jan Currie (2007) address another dimension of “corporatization” of universities in their co-authored piece examining how universities in mainland China have been affected by the growing impact of globalization. Based upon empirical findings generated from fieldwork observations and interviews, this research team has found that academics in Chinese universities are not happy about the evaluation measurements and performance and assessment criteria imposed from the top and borrowed from the West. With a focus on changing accountabilities in higher education after China “opened up” to globalization, academics have inevitably had very different lifestyles in the university sector. Criticizing the Chinese government for taking to the extreme performance assessment in light of “imposed western standards,” some interviews on teaching and research performance in general and individual job appraisals are just “like forcing a gentlewoman to be a prostitute.” Such a critical analysis on the accountability movement in Chinese universities have reminded us of the very important fact that we should not take “global trends” or “global practices” for granted. Without proper contextualization, the adoption of such “trendy global strategies” or “global reform measures” may be counterproductive. Most important of all, globalization processes are complex and often contradictory; we therefore need to avoid an overly deterministic view of globalization. We should not underestimate the
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social and political costs of globalization. In particular, when we try to make use of the globalization discourse or globalization framework to drive reforms in the public sector and public policy in East Asia, we must appreciate the strong traditions, rich cultures and social norms embedded in these societies. The extreme form of globalization along the “Anglo-Saxon” line may produce adverse effects and threaten the social, economic, political, and cultural developments of East Asian states.
Diversifying Policy Instruments in Education The processes of globalization discussed above have accelerated changes to the public sector, driving more East Asian governments to engage in public sector reforms to search for alternative “policy tools” or “policy instruments” to solve public problems. Hence, new governance models are evolving and different kinds of management reform measures are developing to improve public sector performance. Despite the fact that theories of new governance are contested and in some respects appear contradictory (Peters, 2000), they grapple with a broad set of “mega-trends” across a wide range of institutions and relationships that are not easily or precisely operationalized in testable propositions. To try to overcome this, the approach adopted here by an increasing number of governments not only in East Asia, but also in the West, is to focus on one important dimension of new governance: changes to the mix of policy instruments (Pierre, 2000). According to Salamon (2002), instruments can be distinguished in a number of ways – one can draw up more or less exhaustive lists (e.g., “direct government provision, social and economic regulation, grants, information collection and dissemination” and so on; p. 21). According to the most recent statistics of OECD and UNESCO, consistent trends and patterns of reductions in state funding in higher education have been found, while the non-state sectors have become increasingly important in higher education financing and provision. In 2001 alone, household expenditure, expenditure of other private entities and other private sources constituted about 25 and 43%, respectively in terms of the total expenditure on education in Japan and South Korea (OECD, 2004). Looking closely at relative proportions of public and private expenditure on tertiary educational institutions, we find that public sources constituted only 44.5%, while private sources contributed to 55.5% in Japan in 1999. Similarly, public and private expenditure on tertiary educational institutions in South Korea indicates that private sources constituted 79.3% and public sources were about 20.7% in 1999 (UNESCO, 2003). UNESCO data also show that private sources constituted around 43% and public sources about 57% on tertiary educational institutions in China in 1999. Similar trends can easily be found in China and other Asian societies when these Asian governments began to reduce their financial support to higher education. This is particularly true when higher education institutions are urged to become more entrepreneurial (as discussed earlier) and the role of student loans and fees is becoming increasingly important in higher education financing. Similar to what happened in the U.K., where young people in particular and the public in general are now beginning to question whether it is worth having a university degree (especially when more and more young graduates only find themselves burdened with a huge amount of student loans, graduate
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loans and many of them becoming debtors upon graduation), governments in East Asia have begun to introduce other policy tools like student loans and charge more fees in university education instead of simply treating it as a “public good.”
New Governance and the Demise of the East Asian Developmental State? The above discussions regarding higher education governance change seem to suggest that these East Asian states are reduced to the role of the “night-watchman state” of classical liberalism, only taking care of law and order, protecting the sanctity of contract, and maintaining the minimum level of welfare to protect those really poor and vulnerable and facilitating the free operation of the market particularly in the tidal wave of a “pro-competition” regime. In this role, it may seem like the capacity of nation states have changed in the sense that they become less autonomous and have less exclusive control over the economic, social, and cultural processes in their territories. However, before we jump to such a conclusion, we must first examine how successful these Asian states have been in protecting their own autonomy when making use of these indirect policy instruments. Our above discussion has shown that the adoption of “pro-competition” policy instruments in response to the growing impact of “liberalizing and marketizing” forces does not necessarily lessen state capacity in public sector management. As outlined earlier, East Asian governments find it easier to govern their higher education systems by introducing corporatizing strategies that drive institutions and academics to perform and enhance their productivity. The quality assurance movements institutionalized in these Asian higher education systems, with references drawn from international benchmarking, and good practices would have strengthened nation states in their capacity to steer higher education developments rather than weaken it. Accordingly, Lee’s research on university corporatization in Malaysia indicates that the role of the state is strengthened instead of being weakened. He stated unequivocally, “the restructuring of higher education in Malaysia is taking place in the context of a strong interventionist state” (2004, p. 15). My recent comparative research on educational decentralization in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan has also revealed a “centralized decentralization” trend evolving in education governance, further suggesting that these Asian states still maintain a significant level of control over higher education policy formulation, management and governance (Mok, 2003b, 2005b). According to Castells (1997), the developmental state has now run its course, at least in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It has performed its historic mission and in so doing, has made itself redundant. It now represents a barrier to development in the informational economy of the global age: The success of the development states in East Asia ultimately led to the demise of their apparatuses and to the fading of their messianic dreams. The societies they helped to engender through sweat and tears indeed (created) industrialized, modern societies. But at the end of the millennium, their actual projects are being shaped by citizens, now in the open ground of history making. (p. 286)
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Contrary to Castells’ argument of the demise of the developmental states in East Asia, our case studies above have shown that East Asian states remain robust and dynamic in pursuing their nation-building projects despite globalization pressures and crises. It is particularly true when we analyze the current educational developments in these societies from a public policy perspective – we may find that the higher education reforms in these East Asian societies are pursued within the context of managing state-building (or government-capacity) and economic growth within a paradigm of governance rather than to de-power the state/government. In this regard, the adoption of new governance in higher education in these Asian states can be interpreted as the strategies adopted by the government to cope with problems of political and bureaucratic governance instead of purely problems of severe economic and social difficulties. More importantly, our discussions above suggest the presence of diverse national and local agendas that have given different meanings to common management jargons and statements. Even though similar strategies are adopted by different countries in response to the so-called tidal wave of policy instruments reform, different governments may use the same strategies to serve their own political purposes. As Hallak (2000) rightly suggested, modern states may tactically make use of the globalization discourse to justify their own political agendas or legitimize their inaction. Similarly, Painter and Wong (2005), in their recent study of the telecommunications regulatory regimes in Hong Kong and Singapore, has also observed that in the era of growing procompetitive regulatory, states still exhibit distinctively different regulatory regimes due to the need to formulate strategies to suit their own traditions, capacities and goals. Putting the above observations regarding changing higher education governance and choice of policy tools/instruments in light of the conventional wisdom in understanding public policy governance in East Asia such as the “East Asian Economic Miracle” thesis (World Bank, 1993), attributing the economic success in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to the strong developmental state (“East Asian developmental state” or “plan-rational” theses; Johnson, 1982), or Wade’s (1990) argument of “governed market” in East Asia, as well as the fourth world of welfare regime that Ian Holliday (2000) calls “productivist welfare capitalism” in East Asia, we can easily find that the Asian states do play significant roles in social/public policy formation. Recent comparative studies related to policy instruments and governance in East Asia have repeatedly reported that adopting “pro-competition” policy instruments may not necessarily weaken the capacity of nation states (Stiglitz, 2005). On the contrary, the adoption of “pro-competition” and indirect policy tools may well have strengthened the state’s capacity in steering public sector management more effectively. Taking the case of mainland China for example, the accession to the World Trade Organization and the adoption of privatization strategies in the economy and social policy reforms are selective internalization by China of principles, institutions and rules embedded in the world economy being dictated by strategic and instrumental rationale (Wong, 2002; Zheng, 2005). Similarly, the Chinese government has skillfully and tactically made use of the “globalization discourse” to justify its reform programs originally grounded locally; while other Asian states like Malaysia and Thailand can guard against the growing impact of globalization by creatively developing policies matching their local needs instead of blindly following global trends (Moore, 2005;
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Yeoh, 2004). A rich literature on government-industry relations and state capacity in East Asia (see, e.g., Brodsgaard & Young, 2000; Evans, 1995; Wade, 1990; Weiss, 1998), coupled with the literature related to the strong and staying force of the bureaucracy in public policy formation and public sector reforms in East Asia (see, e.g., Cheung, 2005; Cheung & Scott, 2003; Mok, 2003a, 2005b; Ramesh, 2005), indicate that East Asian states are highly interventionist. They may adopt popular “pro-competition” instruments and “indirect policy tools” to reduce the state financial burden in financing and providing higher education or other public/social policies, but still maintain a strong “state-planned, state-led or state-managed” approach to economic and political development. Therefore, “it is not surprising to observe that governance reform programs have not carried any overly anti-public-sector connotations, and do not seek to denigrate the bureaucracy per se” (Cheung, 2005, p. 13). Most important of all, the choice of policy tools is highly political and governments should pay particular attention to the particular socio-economic and socio-political contexts of their countries when making such choices (Peters, 2002; Salamon, 2002). In addition, the adoption of policy tools is significantly shaped by political feasibility, resources available to implement policy, and behavioral assumptions about the target populations. In this regard, we must be sensitive about the political culture, the nature of the state and the unique socio-economic and socio-historical contexts in which policy tools are chosen by different Asian states, bearing in mind the fact that they are not entirely immune from the growing impact of globalization. The comparative studies presented above have clearly indicate that the role of government in East Asia is still important, especially when there is a strong need for government to set up appropriate regulations, social protection, and welfare. Hence, governments in East Asia are very much conceived as a complement to the markets (Stiglitz, 2005). Despite the changes in governance and the adoption of pro-competition policy instruments in a neo-liberalist fashion, such changes have not moved significantly beyond the original policy paradigm, while the whole restructuring processes are still state-directed and conforming to the model of state developmentalism.
Conclusion In conclusion, the above scrutiny of higher education governance change in East Asia has clearly shown that the revitalization of non-state sectors (including the market or private actors) in education provision and financing may not necessarily weaken the states’ capacity (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002), but instead may drive modern states to reconstitute and restructure their systems to become activist and proactive in shaping policy agendas and policy directions. As Pierre (2000) has rightly argued, “as the state’s traditional power bases seem to be losing much of their former strength, there has been a search for alternative strategies through which the state can articulate and pursue the collective interest without necessarily relying on coercive instruments” (p. 2). Similar to experiences elsewhere (e.g., the U.K.) when strategies of deregulation, contracting-out, agencification and privatization were introduced to reform the public sector (Bache, 2003; Hood, 1991), the reforms did not necessarily lead to the
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“hollowing out of the state” and weakening of the state capacity. On the contrary, the introduction of new governance, particularly the diversification of non-state actors and proliferation of policy tools, may in fact enable the state to retain and enhance policy control. Through prudent restructuring exercises, these Asian states can successfully reinvent to steer the public policy/public sector management more effectively with considerable financing and provision burdens downloaded to other one-state sectors.
Note 1. This refers to the mobilization of non-state sources and proliferation of non-state actors in social/public policy provision and financing.
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17 MADRASAH AND MUSLIM EDUCATION: ITS INTERFACE WITH URBANIZATION Sa’eda Buang Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Introduction Madrasah, a Muslim religious school, and pesantren, loosely defined as a Muslim boarding school, are amongst the many Muslim educational institutions that still exist today amidst the tides of challenges brought about by urbanization. In contrast, pondok, another informal religious boarding school, and Imam-Khatib (Teacher–Student) schools in Turkey, are experiencing a near demise (Hasan Langgulung & Che Noraini Hashim, 2005) or political obliteration (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004), respectively. Such differing positioning of Muslim educational institutions has been attributed to the interface with and impact of urbanization, amongst other key socio-politico-economic factors. In other words, urbanization has been perceived as a contributing factor to the decline of Muslim educational institutions, including the madrasah, and Muslim education in general. Yet, arguably, urbanization has accelerated the process of madrasah’s curriculum reformation, and strengthened madrasah’s position as the focal point of Muslim individuals’ quests for their personal equilibrium. Such complex interface between madrasah and urbanization, and its seemingly imponderable ironies will be the focus of this chapter. In a nutshell, this chapter proposes to review the challenges of madrasah and Muslim education in and around the process of urbanization and its responses and strategies in mitigating the impact of the interface. These strategies, such as the Islamization of knowledge, curriculum reformation, and the promotion of Muslim education for human and social capitals, in turn, will be critically analyzed. Case studies of Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey will be surveyed from its comparative socio-historical analysis rather than chronological perspective, to give an overview of the madrasah and Muslim educational system in those countries.
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Contextualizing Urbanization Urbanization needs to be contextualized for it to be meaningful and relevant to our discussion. Unlike European history, where industrialization necessitated urbanization narrowly defined as “city formation” (Scott Marshall, 2005) brought about by capitalism and population growth due to migration from rural to city. Colonialism, instead, was the primary impetus for the formation of modern urban centers in most Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia (Evers & Korff, 2000), and the Indo-Pakistani region. This suggestion does not negate the existence of indigenous entrepot cities or traditional urban-centers such as Malacca of fifteenth and sixteenth century with its cosmopolitan characters, or Yogyakarta and its centralized government. In relation to this, O’Connor (1983) posits that colonialism continues to magnify and ossify the longstanding pattern of immigration, pluralism, the primate city and ethnic division of labor. The city remained the centre of wealth, power, and prestige, but with colonization, development of cities is now being measured against European civilization, modernity, and economic surpluses. The cities of countries under discussion were not unaffected by such major shift in the socio-economic parameters of progress, through the exertion of colonials’ influence. Madrasah, as the primary institution for Muslim education, whether in urban or rural sites, has also been impacted by such changes. It is however erroneous to oversimplify and suggest that traditionalism disappears completely and be replaced by rationalism and westernization with the formation of colonial administration and trading centers. Rather, modern urban centers of these countries are the symbiosis of traditionalism and modernity and this is reflected in the city-dwellers’, in particular, and in general, Muslims’ strategies to overcoming the challenges of madrasah. Collectively, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan have divergent and complex socio-historical and political experiences that mediate how each experiences urbanism. Nonetheless, besides Islam as a common religion, again with its differing dominant schools of thought and theological stance, and as foundation for religious educational typology in the four countries, certainly another common denominator is the high urban population. By early 1994, about 32% of all Pakistanis lived in urban areas. Thirty-Six percent of Indonesia’s 216.4 million citizens were living in urban areas in 1995 (Asian Development Bank, 2005) and the figure is estimated to double in the next few years. In 2004, 62.8% of Malaysian population of 26 million people resided in urban areas, while 65% of Turkey’s 69 million people in 2000 can be classified as urban.1 This indicates simply that the impact of urbanization on the Muslims and madrasah will be increasing in relation to the growing number of urban centers and population in the near future. Integral to urbanization is a broad spectrum of socio-economic and cultural processes such as pluralism, westernization, modernization, and capitalism. It is therefore this writer’s interest to articulate her conceptual framework of urbanization as beyond physical landscaping or habitation. In other words, the city as spatial locus remains, but urbanization carries with it such cultural processes that transcend into socio-political domains and belief system regardless of locality. In this regard, it is highly probable to find a village madrasah or pesantren with characteristics assumed to be solely associated with
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modern urban schools, such as formal organizational structure and liberal curricular content promoting social and economic transformations; schools that can be found in many rural areas in Malaysia and Indonesia (Maksum, 1999). Conversely, one may discover archaic pedagogy of rote-learning and memorization in many madrasahs and general public schools in urban sites of the same countries, and as in the case of Pakistan (Kazi, 2000) and the more cosmopolitan state of Turkey. It would be naïve to solely render urbanization responsible for the better or for worse in madrasah and Muslim education while negating other socio-economic, ethical, and political factors. It is the interplay of all these factors, facilitated by urbanization, that becomes the angle of this analysis. In this regard, we forward Castells’ (Evers & Korff, 2000, p. 11) contention that cities are created, interpreted, and experienced by the people, where social construction of the city’s citizens is a volatile process with fissions and conflicts. With this perspective, we approach the subject matter of our study.
Colonial-Sponsored Urbanism and Educational Dualism Colonization has, to a large extent, determined the socio-political environment, which in turn impacted the educational sector, of the countries under study. It is therefore necessary to briefly review these impacts on Muslim societies and their responses in order to understand their strategies, or lack thereof, to grapple with issues of Muslim education and its interface with urbanization. The nineteenth century witnessed colonization of many Muslim states, much to the dismay of the Muslims who saw the occupation as a European and Christian expansion, not only to subjugate the land, but also the mind, spirit, and faith of the Muslim populations (Saqib, 1981). With colonization, the advent of urbanization was inevitable particularly with the formation and expansion of colonial-administrative and business centers, heightening the Muslims’ fears that traditional educational institutions such as Madrasah, pondok, and pesantren, along with other religious institutions, would vanquish and be replaced by secular structures and other forced reforms. In response, the Muslims resisted these radical changes. For instance, for fear of being proselytized by Christian missionaries who set up English schools in the cities, Muslims in Malaya (known as Malaysia after Independence in 1957) distanced themselves from these institutions that were known to have the agenda of producing lower and middle rank government and civil servants who would run the administrative machineries of the Colony (Chelliah, 1960). Similar resistance against vernacular schools was observed. The colonialist’s condescending attitude to champion “the gradual emancipation of the Malayan race from the present state of ignorance, apathy and barbarism” (Chelliah, 1960, p. 94) did not help to foster the much needed trust of the Muslims. In contrast, realizing its pragmatic value and future career prospects, the immigrants and a small number of Muslim aristocrats seized the opportunity to send their children to English schools. Upon graduation, these children enjoyed a better position in the socio-economic strata while the majority of Muslims continued to send their children to pondok in the outlying rural areas or to madrasahs with the hope of gaining divine guidance in this world and the hereafter (Rahim Osman, 1979). This
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underlying attitude towards education and knowledge dominated the weltanschauung of the Muslims then. This was further strengthened by the encroachment of imperialism that threatened to change the socio-religious fabric of the Muslims. Madrasah and pondok provided them a strong network in the field of religious education and social functionaries, and more significantly, a sense of hope, self-identity, and political will amidst the changing political environment and the advent of westernization. Similar communal resistance against British education shaped the educational landscape of the Muslims in India, prior to the creation of modern Pakistan in 1947. One writer opines that although the Muslims’ own education system had seriously decayed by the middle of the nineteenth century, they continued to persist that education should essentially be religious, that it should contain religious subjects and be taught through the medium of Arabic or Persian (Peshkin, 1962). Educational dualism gradually deepened social stratification that worked against the Muslims’ interests, but their determination to defend madrasah education overruled any socio-economic consideration. As it was in Malaysia, madrasah thrived on nationalism and heightened religiosity in response to colonialism, and particularly, the colonial’s repressive measure against religious schools in Indonesia (Hasan Langgulung, 1989). However, Maksum (1999) observes that response from the general public for sekolah desa or village schools (equivalent to vernacular schools) was equally keen due to the public’s awareness of its socio-economic benefits. Sekolah Desa, therefore, provided a strong competition against the madrasahs. In this instance, the growth of educational dualism gained momentum with the sponsorship of colonial power. In the case of Turkey, Muslim education did not “suffer” in the hands of external forces, but rather its secularization process self-initiated by the founding father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kamal Attarturk. Trying desperately to erode the image of the “dying old man of Europe” and to modernize, Turkey since 1920s had enforced military might to abolish any paraphernalia, Arabic language or institutions that can be associated with the Ottoman Empire. Muslim education was not spared. Religious schools were closed down under the Law of Unification of Instruction in 1924 and replaced by secular education fashioned after the French public schooling system. Although not subjugated by European colonial power, Muslims in Turkey perceived the reform policy introduced by Kamal Attarturk was akin to mental and spiritual colonialism. Although the Muslims’ strong support for madrasah as a counter-strategy against colonialism was evident, educational dualism, viz. secular and religious, has since continued to exist in all the countries under study. Educational dualism has been taken as a great challenge to madrasah’s survival, particularly when it gradually plummeted to an alternative, rather than the mainstream system, a status now conferred to the English and vernacular schools. Muslim education was marginalized via socio-economic mechanisms. Generally, educational dualism has led to dual career paths, one producing religious functionaries and the other, the bureaucrats, civil servants and technocrats who ultimately became the judiciary of the country. Over the years, cross-over disciplines from religious to secular, but not vice-versa, has become more prevalent and rampant with the introduction of common national examinations after Independence and liberalization of higher education to private corporations, as in the case of Malaysia. Nonetheless, with educational disparity, socio-economic strata were more obviously
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defined by the type of schools one attended. More often than not, for lack of relevant skills and knowledge, graduates of madrasahs face difficulties in securing gainful employment (Bakri Musa, 2003).
The Urban and Repositioning of Madrasah Ironically, while colonial-sponsored urbanization provided the ground for the birth of educational dualism and therefore the depositioning of madrasah to the periphery of states’ educational realm, urban centers provided the geographical and ideological spaces for discourses on religious education reformation to be articulated and subsequently implemented. To cite one socio-historical observation, early curriculum reformation of madrasah took place in urban centers where Pan-Islamic reformist ideology thrived due to the absence of traditional ruling power and authoritative religious bodies (Rahim Osman, 1979). To a certain extent, urbanism gave room for democratization of ideas so long as it supported the colonial political agenda to delegitimize the feudal ruling elite and the issue of decolonization was not propagated. The discourse on Muslim educational reformation in the four countries under review was to a large extent possible due to the impact of a Pan-Islamism movement initiated by Middle Eastern reformists in early twentieth century. The reformists’ notion of Islam as a religion that perceives life non-transiently – hence the strife for socioeconomic prosperity in this world and the hereafter – and the inculcation of the spirit of enquiry and critical thinking amongst its adherents, gained foothold especially in the urban centers via locals who have come back from the Haj2 or studies in Egypt or Mecca, or through socio-cultural contacts with visiting Indian and Middle Eastern Muslim traders or missionaries. The introduction of printing press in urban centers by the colonials helped to accelerate the dissemination of reformist ideology and more importantly, the printing of new textbooks and other educational literature. In addition, the socio-economic inequality of the Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia under the foreign rule provided a fertile ground for the reformists’ ideology to take root in the two countries. This ideological initiation helped, to a certain extent, to heighten local Muslim intellectuals’ socio-political consciousness that sought to reform the religious outlook and socio-economic standing of the global Muslim community or ummah. Local religious scholars pushed for radical curriculum reformation in all madrasahs. Curriculum reforms included the introduction of commercial and non-religious subjects such as English, Malay language, mathematics, and humanities; subjects that will prepare students to face the challenges of the contemporary and modern world, along with Quranic reading, theology, Arabic language, Arabic literature, and Islamic history. “Archaic” curricular content that solely concentrated on theology and jurisprudence; merely oral and aural aspects of the Quran and not its meaning; teaching methodology that emphasizes memorization and uncritical following of religious tenets; were proposed to be axed. Promisingly, madrasah was set to put up a formidable front against secular education. However, reform through Muslim education was never the agenda of the feudal ruling or traditional religious elites who controlled all religious machineries including the mosques, madrasahs, and pondoks of the two countries. Any suggestion for social, cultural, religious, or educational reforms from Muslim intellectuals was vehemently
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opposed by the feudal religious elites, as could be witnessed in the Kaum Tua – Kaum Muda (conservatives-reformists) polemic that lasted up to 1945s (Roff, 1994). It was therefore logical for the Muslim reformers to concentrate their efforts in urban areas where the power of the feudal religious elites was less effective. Similar confrontational attitude from the traditional religious elites in Padang Panjang, Indonesia against such reformists had forced one Abdullah Ahmad to transfer his village Madrasah Adabiyah to the town of Padang in 1907. Whether in Indonesia or Malaysia, efforts for socioeconomic transformation through education by curricula reformation ala the panIslamist’s Middle Eastern reformed madrasahs were propagated and only plausible in many urban centers. The setting up of reformed madrasahs in urban centers of the Straits Settlements such as Madrasah al-Hadi in Malacca in 1917, Madrasah Al-Iqbal Al-Islamiyyah in Singapore in 1908 and Madrasah Al-Masyhor Al-Islamiyyah in Penang in 1919 offered new religious outlook towards education for the Muslims. Popular reformist religious organizations like Muhammadiyah of Indonesia went one step further by providing two parallel systems to suit the needs of the society, one that was run similar to government schools with additional religious subjects, and another that was fundamentally religious with some secular subjects in its curriculum. Both offered schooling in the “Islamic” environment and received strong financial support from members who were town officials and traders dwelling in urban areas. Graduates of these madrasahs were perceived to be “balanced” Muslims, productive to the economy of the country, while maintaining their religious identity as best as they could. Modern infrastructure in urban centers facilitated the promotion of educational reformation by allowing radical marketing strategies to be carried out even in the nineteenth century; strategies such as publicity tours to the many towns in Malaysia by a reformed madrasah, not unlike the road shows of the present day. Interestingly, despite educational dualism and the prevalent political hegemony, madrasah flourished in the urban setting. In fact, the prospect of recapturing its status of importance was promising if not for another obstacle in the form of post-colonial state nationalism.
Facing Nationhood Madrasah faced another formidable challenge when countries gained their Independence and the sense of nationalism for nation building was enhanced. In Malaysia’s case, national survival based on a comprehensive national education system anchored on curriculum that promotes national unity further marginalized the madrasah as an alternative educational system. The Education Act of 1961, based on the Razak and Rahman Talib Reports acknowledged the importance of religious and moral education and from 1962, Islamic religious subject was officially included in the national school time-table and taught for 120 hours per week. However, Rosnani (1996) opines that these religious and moral education recommendations proved to have a negative impact upon madrasah’s enrolment and therefore, future. At the same time, the rise of consumerism posed another challenge to madrasah. Consumerism, as a result of capitalism, very much influenced the urban Muslims’ worldview and therefore, educational choices. It became apparent that madrasah’s curriculum reformation was not formidable enough to recapture its once premier position amidst the vast array of
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secular educational opportunities made available, either by public or private corporations. Fed by an undercurrent of pragmatism or consumerism, more post-Independence urban Malaysian parents saw the benefits of enrolling their children in national schools, viz. inculcation of both religious and secular knowledge and more opportunities for further studies, which finally add up to socio-economic betterment. Madrasah’s position weakened further when the centralization of madrasahs curriculum was enforced through the National Education Policy’s two major initiatives. One, the use of Malay language or national language instead of Arabic as the medium of instruction, and two, the introduction of more secular subjects such as Malay language, English, Mathematics, Geography, History, and general science, thus displacement of religious subjects to make room for new ones (Rosnani, 1996). With these initiatives, madrasah curriculum was further streamlined to replicate the government school’s model, minus the better facilities, trained teachers and higher staff salary enjoyed by the latter. With the relinquishing of its bargaining power as the sole Islamic knowledge and Arabic language repository, parents did not have any reason to send their children to madrasahs anymore, especially when the Muslim code of dressing could be observed in government schools. In many cases, even religious teachers saw the socio-economic benefits to enroll their children in national secular schools and did not encourage their children to follow their footsteps in terms of career choice (Nagata, 1984). Similar declining interest in the religious profession was observed and prevalent in Indonesia, particularly as teachers in pesantren and madrasah. Suminto (1991) posits that this decline was due to inadequate recruiting of replacement and the lack of adequate training in Muslim schooling which boils down to the decline of traditional religious scholars’ importance as a result of the narrowing of socio-religious structure. This vicious cycle has become a matter of great concern for Indonesian Islamists. Underlying this great concern was the fact that the number of students in religious schools was further declining (Dhofier, 1991). Whether due to pragmatism or consumerism, madrasah was further marginalized, ironically in relation to increasing religious and moral education. By contrast, Independence in Pakistan witnessed a marked increase in madrasahs. Since 1947–2001, according to Riaz, a 2,745% increase, or an average of 120 madrasahs per year, with 870 madrasahs came into being in the first 28 years of independence (Ali Riaz, 2005, p. 9). One study suggests that there were 7,000 madrasahs in 20033 while other studies show staggering figures of 9,880 in 2002 and 10,000 in the same year. Riaz attributed the phenomenal increase to a number of factors, highlighting US Carter administration’s financial and military sponsorship particularly during the cold war between the West and the Soviet Union, and the Afghan war as the leading factors.4 1970s Islamic revivalism, the US nexus to create militants for the Afghan war, the Islamization program of the military regime of Zia ul Huq and the unremitting flow of external funding for ideology-based religious education have been identified as responsible for the accelerated growth of madrasahs. While external military usurpation through educational sponsorship was at play, the country’s lack of educational opportunities for the vast majority of its people, especially for rural population and the poor cannot be ignored. Hence, the popularity of madrasahs particularly when the schools provided much needed two basic necessities: food and lodging. The state’s
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expenditure for the education sector has been relatively low as compared to defense, reflecting the state’s paltry emphasis on broad based education for the masses. It is this vacuum that was filled by the madrasahs run by private individuals, and largely by Muslim sects or factions. On the other hand, Turkey’s policy of pro-West and secularization that hoped to bring about modernization and westernization to the country through a new system of national secular education impacted negatively upon madrasah education. The single education system aimed to create a monolithic national character to fit the mould of the Kemalist definition of a modern citizen (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004). It subsequently reduced the function of religion to a personal and private affair. The policy augured well with the political and military elites in the urban areas, but not with the ulama (religious clerics) and 90% majority Sunni Muslim population, who mostly lived in the rural or relatively poor sector of the urban areas. However, Islam as an endearing political tool was fully capitalized by all players of Turkish politics, be it the Islamists, leftists, rightists, ultra-rightists, nationalists, and the ruling elites. In 1949, among other initiatives, the government permitted Islamic studies to be introduced in the fourth and fifth grades of elementary schools, and a Faculty of Divinity was established at Ankara University (Kazamias, 1969). The politicizing of Islam by the ruling group to the masses was spearheaded in full speed to turn the public’s attention away from economic problems (Guven, 2005). By 1962, there were 36 middle-level and secondary Imam-Khatib schools and a Higher Islamic Studies institution with 5,820 students. By the end of the 1980s, there were 376 religious schools, 9 Theology faculties, and more religious high schools in Turkey than vocational and technical schools. School curriculum included Turkish components of historical Islamic civilization and universities opened their doors to religious school graduates. More Islamic supporters migrated to urban centers to gain access to formal education and opportunities for upward social mobility. Although products of Imam-Khatib schools were categorically prepared to take on functions as local religious leaders or preachers, with pro-Islamic support and bureaucratic mechanism, they assumed 50% of appointments in Turkey’s public administration department. This newly formed urbanized community pushed Islamic resurgence forward at neck-breaking speed and created dualism not only in education, but also public and state ideology, much to the displeasure of the pro-secular military. The state-sponsored Imam-Khatib schools were closely monitored and expected to work as a deterrent against possible radicalization of Islamic organization (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004). Inadvertently, the state’s calculated attempt to politicize Islam until 1990s had in turn produced an unexpected result of destabilizing secularist national identity. Once again, as in the 1920s, the reinstatement of the republic’s secularist policy was seen as sacrosanct, resulting in the imminent closure of Imam-Khatib schools through the introduction of eight-year compulsory secular education in 1997.5 Again, Muslim schools vanquished in the interest of secularism and national identity. It is interesting to note that Marx’s idea of perpetual class struggles which dominated the industrial-urban European socio-political history has its parallel in Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani, and Turkey’s urban history, but involving different contenders and for different reasons. Spearheaded by the religious elites, political struggles took
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place between the politically suppressed Muslim populace against the colonial or military-cum-ruling powers throughout nineteenth until mid-twentieth century. This observation prompts us to consider that although the seed of socio-economic disparity of the Muslims through political and educational hegemony in the urban setting had taken root, it was the socio-religious impact that captured the Muslims’ attention more readily, hence the struggle to defend religious schools and education at micro level through curriculum reformation, or macro level via pressure groups, mass popular support, or political movements. Madrasah has been observed to negotiate the political and educational challenges from the ruling groups’ educational and political maneuverings by avoidance, reluctant participation or total integration into the national educational system. While participation promises madrasah’s survival, avoidance on the other hand spells an imminent disaster. By adopting avoidance, pondok had paid a high price of being almost obliterated from the physical and socio-educational space of Malaysian urban society. Yet, the same set of maneuverings cannot be used for Imam-Khatib schools of Turkey that could perish as the result of politicization of religion and political hegemony. The interplay of numerous factors that led to the near demise of pondok cannot be denied. But ultimately, the pondok’s resistance to changes or lack of knowledge, skills, finance, and opportunities to reform its curricular content and administration to suit the needs of the day was primarily responsible for its sorry state. At this juncture, an overview of sociohistorical aspects of pondok in contrast to pesantren is necessary not only for brief analysis of tensions and differing negotiation strategies adopted, but more importantly in identifying a prognosis of sorts for Muslim education in general.
Pondok and Pesantren: The Tale of Two Schools Either directly or indirectly, Pondok was the casualty of colonial sponsored urbanization. Pondok’s existence and survival was fundamentally relied upon one charismatic, highly knowledgeable religious teacher. An informal system, male students of various age groups may attend the same classes and conclude their course of study without sitting for formal examination system. To be in close proximity with their teacher, students built pondok or small huts and lived spartanly around the residence of the religious teacher and a surau (prayer house), thus the generic name of pondok schools. Students attended religious classes on the appointed time of the day or evening while toiling on the teacher’s land or doing other menial tasks for the latter for the rest of the day. Memorization of the Quran, the Prophet’s Traditions, and Arabic classical texts or Kitab Kuning (yellow scriptures, indicating its well-used state) was commonly practiced. Critical inquiry was unheard of and if ever articulated, frowned upon. Graduates of pondoks were highly respected as key religious and social functionaries. It was not too long ago when parents would gladly give their daughter’s hand in marriage to religious teachers in order to receive divine blessings and secure paradise in the afterlife (Nik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Hassan, 1979). However, the popularity and relevance of pondok did not last partly due to the corresponding relation between the rise of the more formal educational system of madrasah,
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vernacular schools and Muslims’ change of mindset due to urbanization. As much as they initially resisted English schools for fear of being proselytized, the nineteenth century Muslims in Malaysia equally viewed the Malay vernacular schools set up by the British colonial suspiciously (Chelliah, 1960; Khoo Kay Kim, 1991), that is, until the Colonial’s strategy to improve vernacular education by reintroducing Quranic reading and religious subjects within the formal school curriculum. This move proved popular, but at the expense of the pondoks. Along with the three Rs, religious texts commonly used in pondoks were adopted and religious teachers were engaged; partly to appease the Muslim community, but more for administrative expediency. With increased migration to cities and suburban areas due to socio-economic reasons, the idea of living and studying in an informal system in remote areas seemed less economically attractive for the Muslims. In the meanwhile, pondok remained persistent in using the orthodox method of teaching and learning, classical scriptures and laissez-faire system of administration. This refusal to adapt and change to suit the new socio-economic environment and sophistication of parents put pondok, in the eyes of the Muslim urbanites, in a different socio-historical dimension altogether; one that is no longer relevant to the current demands of society then. Subsequently, the number of pupils in madrasah, seen as a more formal and reformed religious educational institution, and vernacular schools increased particularly after the colonial’s enforcement of compulsory elementary education for Malay boys in the Straits Settlements towns in 1902. With the change in parents’ socio-economic outlook, graduates of the vernacular schools were perceived to enjoy the best of both worlds. As a result, many pondoks in Malaya suffered dwindling numbers in registration and had no choice but to merge with or be subsumed under the administration of madrasah, except in states like Kelantan. The final blow came from the hegemonic power of the feudal ruling elite that caused the near obliteration of pondok from the educational space of the Muslims. In its bid to maintain control over aspects of religion and Malay culture of the Muslim community, the ruling elite had regulated that religious educational institutions succumb to its administrative fold, or be relinquished. Unlike pondok, pesantren flourishes until today. There are about 17,000 pesantrens throughout Indonesia. Its strategy to actively participate and contribute to the state education by alleviating literacy rate especially amongst the rural, poor, and hard-toreach population cannot be downplayed; in fact it received commendations and financial support from Asian Development Bank for its role (Asian Development Bank, 2005). This is a far cry from the defensive approach the pesantren adopted during the Dutch colonial period due to political repression. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the best tactical strategy to avoid encroachment of the Dutch, physically or politically, was by moving further away from the urban site, although that risked making it further alienated from society (Maksum, 1999, p. 116). Pesantrens have been highly regarded as the last bastion of Indonesians’ “pure” Muslim education, although attempts have made by the pesantrens to include some secular subjects such as arithmetic and geography into its curriculum. One pesantren even engaged graduates of Dutch schools and Dutch teachers to teach the language (Maksum, 1999). Currently, the efforts by 17,000 pesantrens to join hands with the central government become the anchor for the national poverty reduction scheme. The
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writer’s own journey to Pondok Pesantren Modern Darussalam Gontor in West Java in 1999 and 2000 witnessed the institution’s struggles in educating the students for the benefit of self, society, state, and the Muslim ummah. The pesantren determines to stay relevant and modernize by including ICT, English, and other humanity subjects in its curriculum across all levels, from primary to university. The graduates of this wellknown self-sufficient pesantren have filled many political and prominent posts in the country. However, to assume that all is good and well with pesantren is disastrous to our search for educational prognosis. Undeniably, more improvements in terms of its pedagogy, inculcation of critical and creative thinking, educational facilities and standard of hygiene could be done. Other areas of concern had also been identified by Indonesian analysts. Billah (1991) highlighted three areas. One, religious scholars and teachers of pesantren were inward-looking toward spiritual matters, with limited understanding and vision concerning earthly matter; second, there is a strong sense of in-group loyalty and solidarity against outsiders or parochialism; and third, there is no regular structure among pesantrens and consequently the process of learning differs from one to another. There is no standardization of syllabi, curriculum, literature, and grading (Billah, 1991). Yet, the less than satisfactory standard of teaching for nonreligious subjects remains the locus for pesantren’s improvement (Rahardjo, 1991). Like pondok, pesantren had its share of colonial and feudal religious elites’ hegemony, and many had perished. In negotiating educational and political hegemony, most pesantrens took the non-confrontational path. Although lacking the sophistication of urban educational centers in terms of facilities, obviously, most pesantren’s willingness to adapt and change its curriculum to suit the reality of the day while maintaining its religious sanctity spells its current winning formula for survival. While it has been argued that the impact of urbanization along with other cultural processes on madrasah and Muslim education is tremendous and at times irreversible, it does not necessarily put madrasah at the receiving end permanently. Nor is madrasah resigned to playing second fiddle to secular education, or worse, be phased out from geographical and educational spaces in totality. In the wake of madrasah’s decline, a wide spectrum of differing opinions and suggestions that dissected the Muslim education backwardness problem, have been offered. The most prominent discourse is on Islamization of knowledge, believed to be an ideal strategy to end the educational dualism that has led Muslims to confusion, chasm, and cultural decadence. The extent of the Islamization approach towards achieving its goal will be our next focus of discussion.
Islamization of Knowledge: A Strategy that Needs Restrategizing Generally, Islamization of knowledge has been touted by Muslim scholars as a solution to the Muslim educational crises and savior for the Muslim world. It is believed to be a building block for a comprehensive Islamization process that encompasses all spheres of Muslims’ life (Al-Faruqi, 1982). The discussions and literature on the ill-effects of educational dualism which necessitates Islamization of knowledge are numerous.6 Basically, Islamization of knowledge incorporates Islamization of language, curriculum, and finally, the reinstatement of Muslim ethics or adab (Al-Attas, 1999). The wave of Islamic revivalism in 1970s throughout the Muslim world particularly after the successful
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Islamic revolution in Iran reignited the ideation of Islamization and its concretization by Muslim countries. Muslim scholars’ collective effort in 1977 at the First World Conference on Muslim Education organized in Jeddah, Mecca, formulated the recommendations and a blueprint on Islamic education and its proliferation in Muslim countries and by Muslim minorities. Underpinning the recommendations is the gravity of the far-reaching effects of westernization, secularism, urbanization, and dualism in Muslim education. This was the first collective attempt to remove the dichotomy of religious and secular education systems prevalent in many Muslim countries. Not wanting to superficially mix secular and religionoriented courses, the conference restated the nature of Man, the purpose and goal of his existence, and central role of education in helping Man achieve this end, all of which are embodied in the following proclamation (Al-Attas, 1979): The aim of Muslim education is the creation of the “good and righteous man” who worships Allah in the true sense of the term, builds up the structure of his earthly life according to the Shariah (Islamic law) and employs it to subserve his faith … From the Islamic point of view the object of education in the most comprehensive sense of worship is the upbringing of the true believer, it follows that education must achieve two things. First, it must enable man to understand his Lord so that he worships Him in full conviction on His Oneness, observes the rituals, and abides by the Shariah and the divine injunctions. Secondly, it must enable him to understand the ways of Allah in the universe, explore the earth, and use all that Allah has created to protect faith and reinforce His religion in the light of what Allah has said in the Quran. The recommendations hoped to reinterpret secular knowledge from primary to university level in the shade of Islam. A series of conferences followed suit to identify weaknesses of and reformulate strategies in approaching Muslim education related issues such as textbooks, teacher training, and infrastructures. All the four countries under discussion adopted Islamization at different points of their socio-historical developments. The Malaysian government adopted the Islamization policy in 1983 and sanctioned the establishment of governmental or private Islamic educational institutions from nursery, pre-school, primary, secondary, colleges, to vocational institution levels (Nagata, 1984). The setting up of International Islamic University (UIA), a product of collaborative work and funding from the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) comprising 56 Muslim states; and Islamic Banking served as pinnacles of the government’s Islamization policy. The recently adopted national policy of Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam)7 (Sekretariat Islam Hadhari Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, 2006; Wikipedia, 2006) is seen as the next phase to concretizing the Islamization process in Malaysia. Islamization has been attempted oftentimes overzealously by some countries, but after 20 years of its inception, voices of cynicism question the feasibility of such reformulation, particularly when the whole educational transformation involves major shift in terms of values, mental and cultural paradigms of the teaching profession, parents, students, and the ulama. UIA has been accorded the pinnacle of the Islamization process and a model by many Muslim countries, but as many faltered in their attempts to realize the Islamization of knowledge and managed only to integrate both religious and secular
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subjects in one school, these run parallel to each other without any convergence. This is the current situation prevalent in the Muslim world. Due to strong political and religious oppositions from the ulama or religious groups, or the failure to correctly interpret the Islamization process as inclusion and not exclusion of modern, oriental, or Judeo-Christian sciences, Islamization has been read as the reaffirmation of the traditional status quo, dutifully observed by many madrasahs. As the discourse on Islamization of knowledge continues at the theoretical level, political and educational environments changed even more swiftly and radically. While serious thought is dedicated to promulgating Islamization of Arabic language and its use in madrasahs and Muslim education, the nationalism process is fast underway, requiring the replacement of Arabic language with national languages. If Islamization of knowledge accorded importance to the transmitters of Islamic knowledge or religious scholars as a source of reference and for policy making, the diminishing interest in the profession speaks volumes of Muslim society’s changing attitude towards the ulama. In one study, there was even a growing reluctance among the Muslims in Indonesia to become religious teachers due to social stigma (Federspiel, 1991, p. 175). The conference of international Muslim scholars and academics in Malaysia to deliberate on the challenges and prospects of religious curricula in the Muslim world demonstrated their search and continuous attempt to reformulate the most ideal curriculum that embodies the spirit and philosophy of Islamization (International Seminar on Religious Curricula in the Muslim World: Challenges and Prospects, 2005). The very existence of such seminars reflected the Muslims’ continuing struggle and Herculean task to comprehend, conceptualize, realize, and internalize Islamization when faced with the surmountable internal and foreign socio-political complexities, such as globalization and modernization. Islamization of knowledge as a vehicle to finally achieve a holistic Islamic system of governance is an unfinished business of the Muslim world. As an ideal impetus for Muslim civilization, Islamization of knowledge must be a definitive point to render madrasah’s relevance in the modern world. It would be a great loss if such ideation becomes less important in pulling society into the fold of madrasah than the factor of refuge from social ills which are perceived to be perpetuated by urbanism. Apparently and ironically, urbanization and its negative deliverables provide a life-line for madrasah and Muslim education. In this regard, the dominant discourse on madrasah’s function as a medium for attaining Muslims’ personal equilibrium will be deliberated next.
Urbanization and madrasahs: In Search of Personal Equilibrium In the context of social science and to borrow Merton’s notion of structural strain, equilibrium is achieved when any deviance behavior that is perceived to violate a widely held social norm or value or seen to be as a departure from the shared norms of a well-integrated society is realigned or modified towards and for social normative conformation. Equilibrium is achieved through social structures, laws, and norms as internal regulating mechanisms that provide societies with continuity and stability (Calhoun, 2002). Religious education through madrasah is said to possess such mechanisms to
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preserve one’s equilibrium in the face of urbanization. Urbanization gives rise to capitalism, secularism, egalitarianism, and liberalism, which promote free competition in all fields of life. Such new traits proved to be too overwhelming for the urban Muslims who are not psychologically ready, or lack the correct attitude, skills, and capital to keep up with the rigorous competition. As a result, compulsive character, like destructiveness against others or own-self may surface. Examples of destructiveness are abundant in urban setting, such as drug addiction, moral decadence, depression, and loss of traditional values. Madrasah and religious education have the capacity to return a person to a state of equilibrium and turn him or her away from personal, social, and religious annihilation. It is therefore considered ideal to equip him with religious education through the study of the two primary sources of knowledge, namely wahyu (Divine revelation) and aqli (the human intellect); in short, a balanced and wholesome religious education. The emergence of Man as a khalifah (God’s vicegerent) true to his fitrah (potentials) is said to be made possible through madrasah education that undertakes such synthesis in its curriculum planning. Difficult as it is to measure one’s religiosity and morality or its antonyms, many anecdotal accounts point accusing fingers to non-madrasah students for the increase in delinquent behaviors in Indonesian society (Rohmat Mulyana, 2005). The role of religious education to inculcate students with moral values gained legitimacy when firmly entrenched in the constitution of Indonesia and its national educational policy, especially during the post-New Order regime in late 1960s, when religious education became a compulsory subject in national schools (Muhammad Zuhdi, 2005). These curriculum changes are seen as insufficient to create an Islamic environment and enforce the strict discipline prevalent in madrasah. In this regard, religious education through religious schools became both the ideal vehicle for moral education and a shield against the enticement of social ills associated with urban living. Simply, madrasah is seen as an ideal mechanism for personal equilibrium. Although the Muslim community is fully aware that madrasahs have to confront with inadequacies such as curriculum, untrained teaching staff, poor facilities due to lack of finance, and poor administration, many parents in Malaysia, particularly since after Independence, have decided to send their children to Sekolah Menengah Agama Negeri (State’s Religious Secondary School or SKAN), or the privately run Sekolah Agama Rakyat (People’s Religious Schools or SAR) due to increasing social ills amongst the youth, especially in urban areas. The city’s rising juvenile delinquencies, particularly in drug abuse, are reportedly rampant (Lau, November 5, 2005). In the light of this, parents blame the national secular schools for their alleged failure in providing a good religious and moral education curriculum to arrest rising social decadence. Strong criticisms against the government and national schools became louder with increasing number of both parents working to meet the high cost of living in urban areas. Parental and family institution’s traditional role in providing moral education is now transferred to the madrasah or SAR. Global Islamic revivalism has also reignited urban Muslims’ religious consciousness in the realms of daily rituals and education. Currently, there are 500 SARs throughout Malaysia with 1,26,000 students receiving Islamic education in such institutions (New Straits Times, January 22, 2003, p. 3). This staggering figure raises many eyebrows, particularly when the quality of
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teaching and learning in such madrasahs is questionable. One observer even concludes that it is the decline in the quality of national schools that prompted parents to send their children to madrasahs (Bakri Musa, 2003). If this is the norm rather than exception, we may generally observe that it is not the strength of madrasah schooling but the socio-environmental factors that determine madrasahs’ future.
Madrasah, Human and Social Capital The central thesis of human capital theory is investment in education, which includes training, to elevate one’s earning power. Simply, the more investment one puts in education and training, the more personal income one will receive. At group level, human capital investment serves to increase the productivity level, hence higher profits (Scott Marshall, 2005). Like other theories, human capital is imperfect. It assumes that the playing field is even and is ignorant of the blame it casts on individuals for any defects in economic system. Worse, it is silent in acknowledging the superlative role of political and religious dynamism in any economy or even ideology. We acknowledge both the merits and deficiencies of human capital theory and apply the concept to our survey, bearing in mind that socio-political factors, individual-society relations and religious dynamism too play a great role and have contributed to the resultant challenges of madrasahs. Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey are fast-developing Muslim nation-states with strategies to modernize and sustain economic growth via, among other things, huge investments in education and training for the people, and poverty reduction (Asian Development Bank, 2004). By 2000, Indonesia hoped to reduce the percentage of its population living below the poverty line to 8.3%, Malaysia to 0%, and Pakistan from 47.8 to 31%. The literacy rate, another key indicator for improved human capital, is improving for these countries although still lower in the female population, particularly in Pakistan. Madrasah has, to a great extent, helped to improve the literacy rates in these countries. However, to become responsible and active economic contributors of their countries, madrasah graduates cannot be expected or left on their own to rely on occupations related to religious functionaries such as religious teachers, mosque officials, and ulamas, who are limited in number. One case in point: although the annual need for religious functionaries in the late 1990s was around 3,000, Imam-Khatib schools in Turkey produced 50,000 graduates (Guven, 2005, p. 202). In another instance, when the Malaysian government advertised 100 vacancies for Islamic teachers, it received 4,000 applicants (Bakri Musa, 2003). M. Bakri argued that huge numbers of these Muslims with qualifications in Islamic studies were unable to find employment and thus felt betrayed. While the government is attempting to champion the cause of Islam by establishing more Muslim educational institutions or departments to win the hearts and popular votes of the masses, due consideration must be given to the end product of such a strategy and proper human resource planning must be made to avoid disastrous socio-political implications. The disparity between socio-religious idealism and economic opportunities is wide and prevalent in all countries reviewed, and could lead to more social unrest rather than enhancing social capital. Indeed some reformations in madrasah education have taken place where its
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curriculum was liberalized to include secular subjects to allow its graduates’ placement in the open job market. Indonesia, since the reign of New Order in 1966, for instance, has instituted minimal percentage allocation of 30% secular subjects and 70% religious subjects for all madrasahs. A number of studies on pesantren and madrasah concluded that the quality of teaching and learning in non-religious subjects is much to be desired, underscoring the critical need for teacher training and improved textbooks (Billah, 1991; Rahardjo, 1991). Curriculum reformation could be further improved to include not only subjects currently vital for socio-economic development, but also of future importance, such as bio-sciences, bio-technology, and finance. The recent worldwide phenomenon of an Islamic banking system perceived to worth billions of US dollars per annum should be seen as a promising avenue for madrasah graduates. To go a step further, liberalization of madrasah curriculum under the auspicious guide of an Islamization process should be revisited and redefined. After 20 years of its implementation, reformed religious curricula have been seen as a cocoon. One academic observed that the overall curriculum of religious institute of higher learning has insulated and isolated its student-participants from the plural society dynamism and socio-political reality of the day (Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman, 2005). The researcher opines that the products of religious institutions may be further “displaced and dislocated of their future, particularly career-wise and leadership-wise … . Thus they will remain in the peripherals, marginalized and marginalizing themselves, despite the fact that in campus they may be the creams of the University, in academics as well as in co-curricular activities.” The voice of urgency to expose madrasah’s community to their country’s pluralism can also be discerned in Tariq Rahman’s comparative study on madrasah and secular school students’ worldview towards religious tolerance, gender equity, and issues of militancy in Pakistan (Tariq Rahman, 2004). In relation to this, the OIC’s call (Whitaker, December 9, 2005, p. 23; The Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit Conference, 2005) for the reformation of religious textbooks to depict such multi-cultural, multi-religious, and global realism is timely, and must be supported by financial-political commitment by its 56 member countries. The recent global construct of madrasah is a major challenge to negotiate. The devastating event of September 11, 2001, put madrasah in the limelight through media frenzy, but for a specific reason. Attempts have been made either by the media or interested countries to connect madrasahs to terrorist acts, even though such connections have never been logically substantiated by hard evidence. The fact that key radical militants graduated from secular institutions of higher learning, or went through a process of socialization in western urban soil (Bergen & Pandey, 2005) did not alter such misconceptions. Pakistani madrasahs, in particular, have been frequently highlighted to represent “schools of hate” and the hotbed for terrorism (Hasan Zaidi, 2005). This unfortunate global construct puts madrasah and Muslim education, be it in rural or urban centers, in great pressure to wrestle with insurmountable challenges at micro and macro levels; from curriculum reformation to engagement of sorts with world major powers. In a cautious, pre-emptive act, Pakistan for instance has regulated all madrasahs to register officially with the government and to deport all foreign students studying in its madrasahs to their countries of origin, while Indonesia has enforced security measures
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by finger printing its 3.5 million madrasah and pesantren students, selectively profiling these students as potentially state security concern (Salim Osman, December 7, 2005). Whether this profiling process is dehumanizing and creates an atmosphere of mistrust rather than promotes responsible citizenship should be given serious thought. Muslim nations’ commitment to promote a balanced and practical Muslim education, for the salvation of one’s life in this world and the hereafter, is long overdue. Unfortunately till today, many Muslim countries belong to the underdeveloped circle, with majority of its people earning less than US$1 per day, lacking knowledge, skills and funds to arrest the socio-economic problems that have since become their number one preoccupation. In this regard, if education is taken to be a reflection of, and promotion for, society’s endearing norms and values, ceteris paribus, it is far from being successful in comprehending the socio-economic expectations of the ever-changing environment and in preparing the students with necessary knowledge and skills to face those realities. As long as the education sector is nowhere near defense terms of budget allocation and state-of-the-art infrastructure, society must remain critical of such skewed relations impacting their lives. To the extent that curriculum liberalization should be, inclusive of socio-economicpolitical realities rather than exclusive, adaptive of other civilizations than aloof, dexterous to the ever-changing world environment than stagnant, promoting critical thinking than subservient to popular opinions, maximizing individuals’ potentials than strengthening the status quo of the selected few, it is still found wanting. The importance of madrasah and Muslim education in the face of urbanization and its social ills should not be doubted. In as much as Muslim society remains steadfast to the belief that madrasah has its relevance in the rebuilding of civil society, social justice and Muslim civilization through religious ethics and intellectualization, madrasah education must rise to expectation by proving itself able to realize such social roles through practical, forward-looking and robust curriculum, teacher training, textbooks, assessments, and vocational training that befit its claims to be the ideal manifestation of Islamic education and training. At mundane but concrete level, madrasah’s contribution to social capital in producing morally upright citizens should and has been acknowledged, evidently in the dramatic upsurge in the number of madrasah intakes in urban centers. However, such idealism could run counter itself if not supported by socio-economic opportunities to sustain the upright citizens while they perform their acts of worship, including earning a decent living, on earth. That the presence of childlabor in trades not only pose danger to their health and moral upbringing, but also rob their rights to education in the midst of our Muslim civil community or any community for that matter (International Labor Organization report, 1997), should be a matter of great and direct concern to Muslim education. In this regard, the Muslim educational framework should not be just theoretically ideal, yet proving elusive in its practical merits for the masses. The latter must be attended to in order for Muslim education to be true to its philosophy and wholesome educational aims promoted during the First World Conference on Muslim Education in 1978. For this very reason, we support the contention of the classical Muslim thinker Ibnu Sina,8 that to identify and support the natural talent and vocational skill of a child is the primary function of parents and Muslim education, so that civil society could be
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established and strengthened. The essence and spirit of human and social capital have been aptly articulated as early as tenth century. These are yet to be realized and concretized by modern and urban Muslims.
Conclusion Madrasahs’ challenges in the face of urbanism are a facet of its continual struggles against forms of hegemony at the societal, state and transnational level. In the race for modernization and despite its Herculean task to face many challenges, madrasah and Muslim education are very much a force to reckon with. Its administrative aspects, pedagogy, textbooks, syllabi, teacher training, management, and infrastructure have undergone changes due to urbanization, modernization, international community’s coercion, and Muslims’ own desire for the reemergence of Islamic civilization. These transformations are also necessary to equip city dwellers in their economic pursuit and search for personal equilibrium. It is therefore incorrect to negate the impact of madrasah upon city dwellers, at least in its functionary role as normative determinant that helps them achieve personal equilibrium against the challenges of socio-economic inequality and cultural decadence characterizing the urban. As long as madrasah embodies the spirit of human and social capitals as promulgated by the religion and correctly understood by the Muslim masses and elites, it will remain relevant for many years to come. The determination to continuously review, reconstruct, synthesize, and adapt Muslim education curriculum and its infrastructure to suit the ever-changing socio-political environment proves the ummah’s will to witness madrasah and Muslim education as major contributors to the development of knowledge and post-modern civilization. What remains to be seen is the realization of such determination at a broad and more concrete level. Interestingly and perhaps ironically, urbanization, with its encroaching values of westernization, secularism, and modernization, accelerates the cycle of such a cultural reaffirmation process.
Author’s Note Sincere gratitude to Prof. S. Gopinathan of National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, for graciously sharing some articles and newspapers cuttings on the madrasah.
Notes 1. See Library of Congress Country Studies (2003); http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cstdy:1:./ temp/~frd_GN5i Retrieved on October 25, 2005. 2. The Pilgrimage to Mecca performed in the month of Dzulhijjah is considered as one of the “five pillars” of Islam; a requirement that must be fulfilled by all Muslims if they are able, once in a lifetime. 3. Figures are taken from Ali Riaz (2005).
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4. According to Javed (2003) as quoted by Riaz (2005), the US Carter administration established a 500 million dollar fund for preparing Mujahiden to fight against the occupying Soviet forces. Later on, 4 billion dollars were provided for this purpose and the project was given the title of “Operation Cyclone.” The results have been astonishing: the number of traditional religious schools in Pakistan rocketed from 700 in 1980 to 20,000 in 2000. 5. An eight-year compulsory education has implications beyond a simple policy change. If implemented, it would mean the closing down of the sixth, seventh, and eight grades, or the middle school section, of all vocational schools in Turkey including the Imam-khatib schools. Moreover, learning the Arabic language – the foundation of much of the Islamic curricula – became more difficult if students began taking Arabic language classes from ninth grade instead of sixth. See Soon-Yong Pak (2004), p. 323. 6. Please refer to M. Waiullah Khan, (Ed.) (1981); Al-Attas, S. M. N. (1999); Al-Faruqi, I. R. (1982); Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud (1989); to name a few. Al-Attas’ seminal work on the subject has become the main reference point for Muslim education. 7. Islam Hadhari is a theory of government based on the principles of Islam as derived from the Quran. It is being promoted by the current Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. It consists of ten fundamental principals: Faith and piety in Allah, just and trustworthy government, freedom and independence to the people, mastery of knowledge, balanced and comprehensive economic development, good quality of life for all, protection of the rights of minority groups and women, cultural and moral integrity, protection of the environment, and a strong defense policy. See Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam), Wikipedia, Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_Hadhari; and Islam Hadhari Menjana Kemajuan Ummah (Islam Hadhari Generates the Muslim Community’s Advancement), Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://www.islam.gov.my/islamhadhari 8. Abu Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina, or commonly known as Avicenna, was born in the Persian city of Afshana near Bukhara in 980 A.D. and died in Hamadan in 1037 A.D. At the age of 18, he was well versed in Greek astronomy (particularly Ptolemy’s Almagest), mathematics, deductive logic, Muslim philosophy and jurisprudence, and medicine. He wrote important treatises such as, among others, the Canon of Medicine which is the epitome of Islamic medicine, and which has been translated into Latin and taught for centuries in Western universities; the Kitab al-Shifa’ (the Book of Healing), on physics and metaphysics which is popularly known as an encyclopedia of Islamic-Greek learning in the eleventh century; the Najat (The Salvation), which is popularly taken as a summary of al-Shifa’, and the Hikmat al-Alai. Some 276 titles have been credited to his name. See Winter, H. J. J. (1952). The life and thought of Avicenna. Bangalore: The Indian Institute of Culture.
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Rahim Osman. (1979). Madrasah Al-Masyhur Al-Islamiyyah, Islam di Malaysia (Islam in Malaysia). KL: Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia, p. 78. Roff, W. R. (1994). The origins of Malay nationalism. KL: Oxford University Press. Rohmat Mulyana. (2005). Case-based value learning: A challenging issue for teaching religion in Indonesia (Focused on Islamic Education at Senior Secondary Schools). Proceedings of the International Conference on Redesigning Pedagogy: Policy, Research and Practice, organized by National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 30 May – 1 June 2005. Rosnani, H. (1996). Educational dualism in Malaysia: Implications for theory and practice. KL: Oxford University Press. Salim Osman. (December 7, 2005). Islamic school students in Indonesia to be fingerprinted. The Straits Times. Retrieved on June 20, 2006, from http://web.lexis-nexis.com.libproxy.nie.edu.sg/scholastic/ document?_m=83d63398338b8b1caebd6be2f0ee9e37&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzWzSkVk&_md5=6a34318296abbe50b4c30d577b3f32be Saqib, G. N. (1981). Modernization of Muslim society and education: Need for a practical approach. In M. W. Khan (Ed.), Education and society in the Muslim world (pp. 45–60). Great Britain: Hodder and Stoughton. Scott, J., & Marshall, G. (2005). A dictionary of sociology. US: Oxford University Press. Sekretariat Islam Hadhari Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia. (2006). Islam Hadhari Menjana Kemajuan Ummah (Islam Hadhari Generates the Muslim Community’s Advancement). Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://www.islam.gov.my/islamhadhari Soon-Yong Pak (2004). Cultural politics and vocational religious education: The case of Turkey. Comparative Education, 40(3), 321–341. Suminto, A. (1991). Politik Islam Hindia Belanda (Dutch Policies toward Islam). In H. M. Federspiel (Ed.), Muslim intellectuals and national development in Indonesia (pp. 154–155). New York: Nova Science Publishers. Tariq Rahman. (2004). Denizens of alien worlds: A survey of students and teachers at Pakistan’s Urdu and English language-medium schools, and Madrasas. Contemporary South Asia, 13(3), 307–326. The Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit. (December 7–8, 2005). Ten-year programme of action to meet the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in the 21st century. Retrieved on August 16, 2006, from http://www.oic-oci.org/ex-summit/english/10-years-plan.htm Whitaker, B. (2005, December 9). Islamic leaders unveil action plan to rescue a “Nation in Crisis”, The Guardian, p. 23. Wikipedia. (2006). Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam). Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_Hadhari
18 WOMEN IN EAST ASIAN EDUCATION AND SOCIETY: WHOSE GAINS IN WHOSE PERSPECTIVES? Grace C. L. Mak The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China
The World Bank attributed the East Asian miracle of nine high-performing economies to the rapid growth between the 1960s and 1990 that began with Japan, followed by the Asian Tigers of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and more recently China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia (World Bank, 1993, p. 2). The works on education and development in East Asia generally celebrate the phenomenal economic growth in this region, driven by export-led industrialization, an educated labor force, and relatively equal distribution of social opportunities (Green, 2006; Kim & Lau, 1994; Sen, 2000; World Bank, 1993). Such certainty in the perspective of the outside world is indeed shared by many individuals that live in these societies. The latter are typically members of the new entrepreneurial or professional classes, who are well-educated urban dwellers whose prime years coincide with the boom and have benefited from it. Thus, in broad terms there is agreement on the positive view in and outside East Asia. A closer examination reveals a much more complex picture of how perspectives on development are derived. A perspective is shaped by two sources of information: the differential impact of development on different social groups, and the nature of evidence that substantiates a claim. While country-level indicators point to overall success, a breakdown shows that development benefits urban dwellers more than rural and men more than women. Thus, the perspective of the outside world is shared only by a select group of beneficiaries. This group is in the forefront of development and projects a new social profile that eclipses the plight of the groups on the periphery. What are the perspectives of these other groups and how are they formed? Another way of understanding differential impact lies in the classic comparison in absolute and relative terms. For example, increase in women’s earnings in absolute terms indicates improvement in women’s situation, but the same earnings may be relatively lower than men’s and indicate a lack of improvement in relative terms of equality. The same data then lead to contradictory conclusions. The second source of perspective formation is the nature of evidence. Evidence in the form of statistics is an important, but insufficient, measurement of social progress. Social life is the sum total of diverse values and 343 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 343–358. © 2007 Springer.
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behavior, and its significance cannot be neatly captured in numbers. One has to look beyond statistical evidence for phenomena that are the early hints of social change. These phenomena are captured in non-statistical works like biographies, creative writing and above all, daily social life. This chapter examines the impact of education and development on a social group that enjoys the privilege of urban residence, but faces the disadvantage of gender in the four Tiger economies and China, namely, women. In his study of Tanzania, Morrison (1976) concluded that one’s proximity to Dar es Salaam, the capital city, is the single most important predictor of one’s life chances. The same holds true in other societies with sharp rural-urban disparities. The recent history of urbanization of the Tiger countries and China, in contrast with the rest of developing Asia, is a constant reminder of the privilege of urban residence. These five societies are good cases for understanding the complex interaction between women’s education and gender roles in the public and private spheres at a time of economic boom. The first part of the chapter reviews the status of women as a group. Collectively, they have benefited from development in terms of rising levels of educational attainment, labor force participation, later marriage and lower fertility. At the same time, they have actively contributed to development in the form of a large supply of cheap labor in manufacturing and services. The second part of the chapter examines inter- and intra-gender comparisons. It is argued that there has been little fundamental change in gender equality; women continue to be subordinate in both the public and private spheres. Urbanization reduces gender inequality only to a limited extent; new forms of inequality have emerged. The situation varies with sub-groups of women. Whether there is any gain depends on the interaction of gender with education, social class, race/ethnicity, and urban–rural residence, and how – whether in absolute or relative terms – impact is assessed. We then shift our focus from the macro level to amorphous social phenomena to identify the values, perspectives and behavior of women which have the potential for change. In affluent East Asian cities, there emerged a visible force of new age women who are assertive in education, employment, marriage, and sexuality. They react to patriarchy in different ways and some of them try to deny gender as a key factor in conceptualizing their social role. This discussion draws on evidence in creative writing, the arts, and social activities. Such evidence has an urban slant. Education is an important attribute in women’s value formation. New values in turn shape the demand for and use of education. The focus of discussion in the first two parts of the chapter is on women as a group or sub-group, while the third part focuses on women as individuals. A balanced view of women in Asian education and society will need to connect these two levels of perspectives. The connection is relevant in the current context of urban Asia – the spread of new opportunities as well as exploitation, and the emergence of a new sense of individuality and construction of womanhood as autonomous personhood.
Overall Improvements in Women’s Status The last three decades has witnessed unparalleled change in key dimensions of human development relevant to women’s status. In the latest (2005) Human
Women in East Asian Education and Society Table 1.
345
Key indicators of human development HDI rank, 2003
Hong Kong Taiwan Singapore Korea China
22 23 25 28 85
HDI trend
Urban population (% of total)
Total fertility rate (birth per woman)
Life expectancy at birth, 2003
1975
2003
1975
2003
1970–1975 2000–2005
Female
Male
0.761 – 0.725 0.707 0.525
0.916 – 0.907 0.901 0.755
89.7 – 100.0 48.0 17.4
100.0 69.1 100.0 80.3 38.6
2.9 1.8 2.6 4.3 4.9
84.6 78.4 80.6 80.6 73.5
78.7 72.7 76.7 73.3 69.9
0.9 1.5 1.4 1.2 1.7
Sources: United Nations Development Program (2005), Tables 1, 2 and 5. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China and is presented separately in the UNDP’s Human Development Reports. Taiwan is not included in the UNDP’s Human Development Reports. The Taiwanese government did their own calculations using UNDP’s instrument. See Taiwan Bureau of Statistics (2003). Information on Taiwanese urban population in 2005 is from Taiwan Government Information Office.
Development Report, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea rank 22, 23, 25, and 28 respectively in the human development index (HDI) (Table 1). The HDI is a composite index that measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions: health, education, and standard of living. These improvements place the four societies in the high human development group of 57 countries/territories. China ranks 85th, rising from the low- to the medium-human development group, and is expected to continue in bold strides. The number of cities in Asia has increased with economic transformation. The cities are centers of goods, services, innovations, lifestyles and, above all, opportunities (Asian Development Bank, 1997). They provide an escape route and give rise to new gender relations and family structure for rural women. Hong Kong and Singapore are fully urbanized. Taiwan and Korea are mostly urbanized with reasonably developed rural areas. In China, however, the ruralurban gap is widening. In 1990, the average per capita income in rural areas was 45% of that in urban areas; in 2002 it was 32% (China State Statistical Bureau, 2004). Rural life is a world apart from urban life. The totality fertility rate in the world has dropped as a result of various factors – increase in participation in education and waged employment, technological progress in birth control, and state policy on population control. At the same time, women and men live longer than before. The Asian Tigers and China are all Confucian societies which attach a high value to education. Educational expansion is a combined result of state development policy and strong social demand. Table 2 shows the high adult literacy rates and school enrollment rates in these societies. Some of the figures in the table are for the years 1999–2000. The most recent figures from the respective national offices are higher. The gender gap in primary and secondary enrollment is more or less closed. Recent data from national statistical offices show that girls’ rates have surpassed boys’ in postcompulsory schooling. There is also a clear inverse relationship between education and fertility (United Nations, 2000, Ch. 4). With drastic fertility decline, there are fewer
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Table 2.
Literacy and educational enrollment rates Adult literacy rates, 2003
Hong Kong Taiwan Singapore Korea China
Primary net enrollment rates
Secondary net enrollment rates
Gross tertiary enrollment rates, 2002/03
Female
Male
Female
Ratio of Female to male
Female
Ratio of Female to male
Female ratio
Ratio of female to male
89.6 92.5 88.6 – 86.5
96.9 98.5 96.6 – 95.1
97 98 – 100 –
0.99 – – 1.00 –
75 95 – 88 –
1.04 – – 1.00 –
31 80 – 64 14
0.99 – – 0.61 0.84
Source: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Table 27. The figures in italics are for 1999–2000. Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: Primary and secondary enrollment rates, 2002, the rest are 2000 figures.
Table 3.
Economic participation GDP per Ratio of capita estimated PPP female to US$, male earned 2003 income
Hong Kong Taiwan Singapore Korea China
27,179 15,100 24,481 17,971 5,003
0.56 0.52 0.51 0.48 0.66
Female economic activity rate (ages 15 & above), 2003
Employment by economic activity, %, 1995–2002 Agriculture
Industry
Services
Rate Index As (%) (1990 = 100) % of M rate
F
M
F
M
F
M
51.2 105 46.0 – 50.0 99 54.4 113 72.4 98
–
– 13 – 9 –
10 33 18 19 –
27 43 31 34 –
90 59 81 70 –
73 44 69 57 –
66 66 64 71 86
8 – 12 –
Sources: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Tables 26 & 28. Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: “Employment by economic activity” statistics are for 2005; the rest are 2000 figures.
primary school children, and resources previously allocated to primary education can be reallocated to secondary schools, allowing more adolescents, including girls, to remain in school (United Nations, 1995, p. 40). One of the most direct benefits for women is economic participation (Table 3). Unlike in education, the gender divide in the economy is striking. The ratio of female to male earned income is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 50%, ranging from 0.48 (Korea) to 0.66 (China). These ratios show that wealth generation does not necessarily bring gender equality in wealth distribution. The tables above and later in this chapter show that social opportunities open up to women in the order of education, economy, and family and politics. Within each sphere,
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the nature and extent of women’s gains vary. Generally, where legislation reaches effectively and where there is less competition, for example, in education and public sector employment, the sphere opens up more readily. Otherwise, for example, in private sector employment, politics, and the family, inequality perpetuates. The extent to which improvements in women’s status have been achieved depends on different criteria: (1) whether one looks for overall equality between women and men, (2) whether the improvements some groups of women have enjoyed are brought about at the expense of other groups of women, and (3) whether personal gains can be expanded to become collective gains. These criteria help us understand whether the improvements outlined in the above tables represent a fundamental change or merely an enhanced version of the past. They also beg the question of how women as a group and as individuals respond to and negotiate with the new context.
Inter- and Intra-gender Inequality The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) adjusts the average achievement measured in the HDI to reflect inequalities in the key areas of human development. Table 4 shows that in the Tiger countries, gender development is more or less parallel to achievements in human development; in China, the GDI is higher than the HDI, probably due to the lingering effect of an egalitarian policy before her switch to the market economy. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) focuses on women’s opportunities rather than their capabilities as measured in the GDI using key dimensions of political and economic participation. The available data on GEM in Table 4 suggest that GEM may vary considerably from GDI. Compared to data from a few years ago, all the five societies included here have improved in both their GDI and GEM, although the inter-gender gap remains significant.
Table 4.
Gender-related development index and gender empowerment measure
Hong Kong Taiwan Singapore Korea China
HDI rank
GDI
GEM
Seats in parliament held by women (% of total)
Female legislators, senior officials & managers (% of total)
Female professional & technical workers (most recent year in 1992– 2003) (% of total)
Ratio of estimated female to male earned income
22 23 25 28 85
22 23 – 27 64
– 20 22 59 –
– 22.2 16.0 13.0 20.2
26 15 26 6 –
39 43 45 39 –
0.56 0.55 0.51 0.48 0.66
Source: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Tables 25 & 26. Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: 2000 figures.
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Education The four Asian Tigers share a similar history of expanding education sequentially to meet the needs at different stages of development, with expansion in universal basic education resulting in the supply of quality low-skilled workers and the spread of vocational education to prepare semi-skilled workers in the early and middle stages of labor-intensive manufacturing. There was also drastic expansion of higher education to meet the demand for skilled personnel in economic restructuring (Kim, 2000; Yang, 1994). In China, egalitarian provision in health and education in the 1950s–1970s prepared it for the economic take-off later (Sen, 2000). In the 1980s, China promoted vocational education at secondary level to meet the need for large numbers of semiskilled workers in its manufacturing boom. Educational expansion is always articulated with economic transformation, which takes place in urban areas. It has an economic and instrumental function, and is not specifically gender sensitive. Large numbers of girls enroll in courses as a preparation for employment. Ironically, these are Confucian societies which traditionally denied women of knowledge. This shows an interesting mitigating effect of industrialization and urbanization on culture in traditional gender roles. In recent years, girls have surpassed boys in numbers and academic performance, again challenging the Confucian construction of women’s deficiency in intellect. However, where provision is limited, the gender gap continues. For example, in Taiwan women represented 50, 39, and 26% of the enrollment in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level of study in 2005 respectively (Taiwan Ministry of Education, 2005). Comparable figures in Hong Kong were 66% (sub-degree), 54% (undergraduate), 51% (taught postgraduate), and 43% (research postgraduate) for 2004 (Hong Kong University Grants Committee). In Korea, the comparable figure of undergraduates was 37% in 2005 (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In China, it was 44% in 2002 (China State Statistical Bureau, 2004). In Singapore, it was about 50% in 2005 (Singapore Department of Statistics). Whether in basic or higher education, increase in women’s participation always happened at times of drastic expansion. Women’s progress has to be placed in the context of declining value of education at a time when, as a social opportunity, it is no longer a scarcity. This progress confirms the long-term pattern of women as secondary and reserve in the social distribution of resources. Also, in the public view, more education is not always better for women. A few decades ago, a secondary education was considered good enough. Today, most urban parents see a university education as the threshold to a good life for their sons and daughters. But postgraduate education has a negative connotation as parents fear that “too much” education will prevent their daughters from marriage. Such worry shows that East Asian societies have yet to get used to the reality of large numbers of well-educated women. In China, the uneasiness turns into blatant discrimination. Despite state policy on gender equality, women holding postgraduate degrees encounter discrimination in job application. Employers fear their service will be interrupted by imminent marriage and childbearing. Women doctorates are publicly sneered at as “weird beings.” This view is common in the mass media and in daily encounters, even from officials or academics whose work involves promoting gender equality. It is these casual instances that expose the split between rhetoric and belief in gender equality. As long as the split
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continues, improvements in women’s status originate from instrumental motives rather than a genuine commitment to equality. Gender gap in distribution by subject remains marked, though there are signs of narrowing. Whether in secondary or higher education, school subjects are gendered. In the latter, the arts and social sciences continue to be heavily feminine, and engineering heavily masculine. The extrinsic value of different types of knowledge is articulated with development strategies. For example, in China and Taiwan, the government allocates more student numbers to disciplines such as engineering, which correspond closely to manpower needs. There are fewer places in less marketable disciplines, such as humanities and social sciences, resulting in keener competition for women for admission to universities (Hsieh, 1997; Mak, 1997). The same bias is found in vocational education. Girls tend to be enrolled in nursing, beauty care, garment making, etc. The training has the dual impact of empowering them with waged employment, but reinforcing their traditional gender roles. Some of the disciplines that have become popular in recent years, such as business or communication, are more gender-neutral and have attracted a relatively high number of female students.
Economic Participation New employment opportunities in the cities and expansion of basic education contributed to the rise in women’s economic participation rates (Table 5). In Asia, 33% of economically active women in cities held production jobs, a much higher rate than the rest of the world (United Nations, 1995, p. 41). Women’s total economic participation rates ranged from 46 to 54% in the Tiger economies (Table 3). The much higher rate (72%) in China was an outcome of combined government policy on gender equality in entry to the labor force and labor-intensive industrialization in the current era. Viewed in terms of labor share, women constituted 64 to 71% of the male rates in the Tiger countries and 86% in China. Urban opportunities have had a feminizing impact on rural population. As men migrate for work in cities, rural women are left behind to tend the land and head the household. Sometimes, both husband and wife have left, leaving behind grandparents and children. The ripple effect of urbanization has caused serious social problems in China. Table 5.
Increase in women’s labor force participation rates, various years Period
Hong Kong, China SAR Taiwan Singapore Korea
1961–1995 1961–2001 1957–1997 1965–1995
Women’s LFP rates (%) From
To
37 36 22 36
51 46 51 48
Source: Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department; Taiwan Bureau of Statistics; Singapore Department of Statistics; Lee and Cho, 1999, p. 288.
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In the process emerged a visible new group of women workers, especially in the 1960s–1970s, who toiled in the factory during the day and attended school at night. They bring a much needed supplementary income to their family, including supporting their brothers’ schooling. Traditionally, daughters, deprived of economic earning opportunities, were viewed as a liability to parents. These women are the first generation of daughters in East Asia whose function in the family is transformed from one of liability to asset. They are the millions of unsung heroines upon whose youth and sweat the prosperity of East Asia was built. Education has a positive impact on women’s labor force participation. The participation rates of Taiwanese women in 2005 with educational attainment at lower secondary or below, upper secondary, and post-secondary levels were 32, 54, and 63% respectively (Taiwan Bureau of Statistics). A similar pattern is found in the other countries discussed here. What is interesting is that the gains in labor force participation rate declined after a certain ceiling. In Korea, the ceiling (68%) was at junior college level; it declined to 62% at the university level and above in 2006 (Korea National Statistical Office). In Hong Kong, the ceiling (76%) was at the junior college level in 2001; it declined to 72% at the university level in 2001 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department). A plausible explanation is that a secondary or junior college education leads to clerical or para-professional positions in healthcare, which favor women. However, marriage has a negative effect on employment. In 1970 and the mid-1990s, the labor force participation rates of unmarried university educated women were 50 and 70%, respectively; those of their married counterparts were 20 and 30%, respectively (Lee & Cho, 1999, p. 4). Comparable rates in Hong Kong in 1991 were 77% for unmarried women and 69% for married women (Mak & Chung, 1997, pp. 25, 27), showing the mediating effect of marriage on education in economic participation. Other cross national data confirm the tension between education and marriage on women’s economic participation. Horizontal segregation is obvious in the labor market. Women are consistently overrepresented in assembly line jobs and services, but under-represented in manual and mechanical jobs in industry (Table 3), showing the gendered nature of participation in economic transformation. Vertical segregation is a twin feature. The most recent available figures still put women as a minority among professional and technical workers (Table 4). In this group women are mainly found in the feminine occupations of nursing and teaching. As in education, women are secondary recipients of new opportunities in the economy. Even in teaching, an occupation most open to women, vertical segregation is strong. The pattern in Taiwan is typical: women made up 98, 68, 61, and 32% of teachers at kindergarten, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels respectively in 2004 (Taiwan Ministry of Education). In Korea, women made up 71, 62, and 38% of elementary, middle and high schools (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In all these societies, the proportion of women school leaders is much lower than that of teachers. The Taiwanese data suggest a tenuous association between urban areas and openness to women leadership – Taipei is open, but Kaohsiung, the second largest city, is not more so than the rest of Taiwan (Table 6). How does one explain the vertical segregation? A case study of women in Singapore higher education management suggests that their career trajectories are shaped by the interaction of cultural values, structures and state legislation. Rather than the Western
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Women as a proportion of school teachers and leaders, Taiwan, 2005 Women as a proportion of teachers
Taiwan as a whole Taipei Kaohsiung
Women as a proportion of school principals
Primary school
Secondary school
Primary school
Secondary school
68 77 74
68 73 71
25 45 28
26 56 20
Source: Taiwan Ministry of Education.
explanation of the glass ceiling as enacted by men, the experience of these women suggested women-women and culturally-specific crafted informal patronage as factors in promotion (Luke, 1998). Much more research is needed to find out the extent of culturalspecific explanation on the glass ceiling in Asia. Gender discrimination in earnings is considerable. As argued earlier, urban residence is the single most important prerequisite for a good life in developing societies. For example, in 1999 the annual per capita income was 5,854 and 2,210 yuan in urban and rural areas, respectively, in China (National Bureau of Statistics, 2000). This difference places urban women among the haves. However, the earnings structure in waged employment, an urban economic activity, shows the continuing discrimination against women. Generally, increase in education brings higher earnings to women. Thus, in absolute terms education has a positive effect on women, but in relative terms the effect is mixed. In Korea, more education brings a slightly higher earnings ratio, at 62% (middle school), 67% (high school), 68% (junior college) and 68% (university), respectively of what men earned in 2004 (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In Hong Kong, the ratio was the highest at the upper secondary level, at 0.833 (2001) (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2002, p. 139). In Taiwan, it topped at the post-secondary nondegree level, at 0.776 (1997) (Hsieh, 2003, p. 478). In Singapore, the comparable figure was 0.76 at the university level for women in the 25–34 age range, 0.67 in the 35–44 and 0.59 in the 45–54 age range in 1995 (Singapore Department of Statistics). Why does the equalizing effect of education stop at the university level? And, in the case of Singapore, why did it decline with age? Interrupted work history due to motherhood and vertical segregation provide partial explanations. The other possibility is continuing male dominance in skilled positions which tertiary education leads to. Wages in China are calculated on a complex formula that includes basic pay, allowances and bonuses. The weighting of bonus in the total wage has much increased today, but women tend to receive little bonus. The intervention of state policy is limited. There is no constitutional guarantee of gender equality in Singapore. In China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, where guarantee exists, it is enforced in the public sector only. Improvements in the situation of educated urban women in part rest on the support provided by domestic and international migrant workers. For young women with little education from poor rural families in China, nannies, maids, or factory workers are the jobs that, with luck, they can land (Davin, 1999). Much like the poorly educated young women that filled the sweat shops in the early stage of industrialization, these rural women fill the vacuum of cheap labor today. Urban women’s well-being is therefore
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inseparable from the service, sometimes exploitation, of rural women. Migrant work turns into remittance to rural homes, at the cost of not only manual and menial work, but also youth, sweat and tears. Some migrant women settle down in the cities to new family and gender relations; others bring back their savings, skills and values home to start micro-businesses. Urban exposure enables them to become change agents in rural areas. In societies without rural areas, for example, Hong Kong and Singapore, migrant women are sourced from poor neighboring countries, notably the Philippines and Indonesia. Again, urban women’s well-being is impossible without support from international migrant workers (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002). A sad destination of some of the rural women is prostitution, through women trafficking or other means. Urban residence is not always a plus for women. Poor women in cities are much worse off than those in rural areas where support from the extended family and neighborhood is readily available. With the relocation of labor-intensive industries to cheaper regions, women are the first to be shed from the labor force. In China, unskilled urban women in their 50s suffer twice. Many of them as secondary students were sent from the cities to labor farms during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Those who returned in the late 1970s took up low-skill, low-pay jobs in the cities. At times of staff reshuffling, these women are the first to be laid off. Age discrimination is on the rise as employment becomes saturated. Women in menial jobs are increasing young, good-looking, and well-dressed, not to say those in clerical jobs. Such are the cleaning ladies in the posh hotels in Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. They are a sign of exploitation rather than one of progress. One can then sum up that the significant improvements in education have not been reflected in waged employment. Women are subordinate and vulnerable to layoffs. Much of this discrimination concerns enduring demand of the family on women.
Family Of the three obligations on the family on women, namely, marriage, maternity, and housework, the last one is the first to be overcome where resources are available. Educated urban working women can be relieved from household chores, although the gendered nature of homemaking is hardly altered in that these women’s involvement has elevated from menial to managing role. Where such resources are not available, women have to cope with the double demand of the work and family. Urbanization, education and waged employment do not necessarily liberate women from gender inequality (Whyte & Parish, 1984, Ch. 7). There is evidence to show that urbanization and limited evidence that tertiary education allow women the option of non-marriage (Jones, 1997). Data on Singapore in 1990–2000 showed that women with an upper secondary or a university education were more likely than those with less education to be single. For men it was the opposite – men with less than a secondary education were more likely to be single (Singapore Department of Statistics). More education allows women the choice of non-marriage; less education denies men the choice of marriage. Society attaches a negative connotation on non-marriage and often views it as regret in one’s life, a cost women pay for their achievements. Increasingly, women are unmarried by choice rather than due to
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the lack of suitors. Many of these women enjoy the state of non-marriage. Colleagues, friends and family are important significant others in Asia; they provide the social and psychological support in lieu of a conjugal relationship. Non-marriage as choice, economic independence and a sense of purpose in urban life give women autonomy which is a departure from their traditional dependency on men. The degree of choice of non-marriage varies with culture. Cities with a longer history of internationalization, like Hong Kong and Singapore, allow for greater autonomy, whereas in China, unmarried educated women are drawn into marriage by match-making efforts of those around them. The situation is gradually changing, as Chinese cities accept new norms and values in the process of opening up to the world. There is substantial literature on the contribution of adding to a mother’s schooling to fertility decline and improving her children’s health, schooling and adult productivity (United Nations, 2000, p. 89). In the context of a strong culture of achievement and competition, urban life in East Asia is extremely stressful. Women cope with the double burden by having few children or none. In East and Southeast Asian cities, fertility is below the replacement level, with Hong Kong hitting the record low of 0.9 birth per woman in 2000–2005 (Table 1). Apart from education and economic participation, state policy on population control, with the one-child policy in China as the most extreme form, has also reduced fertility. However, when the decline reaches an alarming level, the government in Singapore (since the 1980s) and in Hong Kong (2000s) revert to encouraging women to have more children. These fickle population policies illustrate the state’s instrumental view on women’s productive and reproductive capacities. An interesting point of departure lies in Hong Kong and Singaporean women’s weak response to government appeal. In the tension between society’s need for more young population and a variety of personal factors – career fulfillment, economic consideration, the stress of city life and uncertainty in economic restructuring – women opt for the latter. The security of urban society allows them this choice. However, one aspect of tradition stands – son preference and discrimination against daughters. In his inspiring article, Sen (1990) suggested that millions of girls were missing at birth or even before birth worldwide, but especially in Asia, as indicated by unnaturally high sex ratios (number of males per 100 females) at birth. Another investigation revealed the startling fact that across Asia, daughter discrimination in the forms of excessive child mortality and withholding of health and education is on the increase despite economic development, declining fertility and improved women’s status (Croll, 2000). Moreover, in China, Taiwan, and Korea, education and urban residence have shown little impact on reducing son preference (Croll, 2000). A study of China found that son preference strongly affected the probability of having a second and third child, even more so than level of education, degree of urbanization, and population policy (Li, 1995). Son preference has actually intensified between 1990 and 2000, with the sex ratio by birth order in 2000 as follows: first (107.1), second (151.9), third (159.4) (China State Statistical Bureau, 2004). This trend was actually stronger in urban areas (Table 7). A plausible explanation is the strict enforcement of the one-child policy in urban areas, resulting in more use of gender-specific birth control technology. In Korea, the sex ratio by birth order in 2004 was as follows: first (105.2), second (106.2), third (132.0), fourth and subsequent born (138.4) (Korea Women’s Development
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Sex ratio by birth order, China, 2000
Urban areas Rural areas
First
Second
Third and above
109.4 105.7
151.0 152.1
175.6 157.0
Source: China State Statistical Bureau, 2004.
Institute). Singapore and Hong Kong, however, did not exhibit strong sex preference of children. In fact, more young parents prefer daughters. Daughters tend to care more for their parents. Cities are not patrilocal and do not rely heavily on male physical labor like rural areas. Urban pragmatism, at least in the cases of Singapore and Hong Kong, suggests a turning point in son preference. The discussion above then points to a mixed picture of women’s status in urban East Asia. Generally, expansion in education and industrialization created new opportunities for women, resulting in greater confidence, economic independence, and choice in marriage and childbearing. When gender is included as a salient analytical category, an evaluation of the benefits of development yields a different answer. The trickledown effect has varied along class, race/ethnic, and national lines and new forms of inequality and women’s subordination have emerged (Chow, 2002). It is also clear now that the state’s rationale in facilitating women’s improvements rests on utilitarianism more than an ideology of equality. One has to turn to women themselves for change potential. The new values and behavior of a new generation of well-educated urban women provides insight into how change is possible.
New Urban Women and Change A new class of middle-class women has emerged alongside their male counterparts. While there were always a select few elite women, their existence as a considerable social force is historically significant in East Asia. This generation of women, many from humble origins at the early stage of development, were among the baby boomers who took advantage of the new opportunities. Urban residence and the right timing set the stage for them. They are typically well-educated, gainfully employed, married or unmarried, and if married, with few children or none. Their awareness of their privilege is reinforced by juxtaposing it with their mother’s plight in the recent past and the have-nots today. They are a class in themselves, and the most elite ones among them probably have more in common with elite women from other Asian cities than poor women from their own country. These women interpret the gender factor differently in their social positioning. One approach is to defend their prestige in a male-dominated society by emphasizing femininity in appearance and external behavior. The elegant dress code of women in senior positions and a gentle style of speech would be the strategy that is invariably termed the “iron butterfly” or “iron fist in a velvet glove.” Some of those who are married attribute their career success to a supporting husband and children, and declare,
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sometimes in a practiced manner, that their family always comes first. The emphasis on the family fits the Confucian norms of fulfillment of womanhood as wifehood and motherhood. The studies that attribute women’s subordinate position in the public sphere to “fear of success” may be valid 20 years ago. The explanation needs re-visiting today, as women achievers by definition are not products of fear of success. Rather, they seem to try to present their success in order to reduce men’s fear of women’s success. In some urban occupations for women, Asian femininity is cultivated and manipulated. Witness the advertisements of Asian airlines that portray their flight attendants to fit the ideal form of femininity in the male gaze, or the commodification of the female face and body in beauty contests. The second approach is to negotiate against traditional gender role for a new one. These are feminists in different professions – creative writing, fine arts, performing arts, academia, or community organizing. Women’s voices have emerged, asserting a feminist perspective in hitherto gender-blind fields. Although not in the mainstream, their voices are clear and begin to be heard, at least by some. How did these women come of age? From memoirs of unrelated individual women emerged a collective picture of their trajectories. For example, some women professors managed to do well in diverse fields like biochemistry, engineering or linguistics (Tie et al., 1995). In her memoirs, Lim (1996), a professor in Hong Kong, looked back on her identity formation in colonial Malaya. Chuang (2001), trained in both western and traditional Chinese medicine, is actively involved in the cancer prevention campaign in Taiwan. The latest addition to the list is the appointment of Han Myeong-sook, a feminist lawmaker, as the first woman prime minister in Korea’s constitutional history. Education is central to these women’s success. Perhaps the most dramatic example of how education and urban residence changed one’s life is Yang Erchenamu (1997). Yang is from the Mosuo ethnic minority, one of the few remaining matriarchal communities that live a primitive life of subsistence farming and trade by barter, in the remote mountains in southwest China. Her talent in singing took her to the county, provincial capital, and then a college of performing arts in Shanghai, where as a teenager she began to learn Chinese, the language of the Han majority. She later migrated and ran a business in the United States and China, and is now a jetsetter. Her memoirs are full of instances of culture shock from encounters between primitive and industrialized societies. While not a feminist in the common sense of the word, Yang’s openness on sexuality, a feature of her matriarchal upbringing, gave her a curious association with feminism. However, one would say that she uses the advantage for personal gains. A more radical group of women tried to change the male-dominated framework. These include feminist academics who research on taboo topics in sexuality (Ho, 2004, 2006; Ho & Tsang, 2002, 2005) and are among the trail-blazers in breaking away from conventional sexual norms. Of interest is also the emergence of activists in non-governmental organizations in China whose work aims at empowerment of women, the poor, and ethnic minorities. Based in cities, they work with rural communities and are a small, quiet force that is beginning to contribute to the formation of civil society in China. Equipped with education and skills, groups of women negotiate their gender roles differently. Some conforming to them to gain acceptance by the public; others challenge them and assert a new set of roles. These strategies signify whether these women’s gains stay at the
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personal level or extend to the collective level. The women who extend personal action to political action in the form of women’s movement seek to use their gains to promote collective gains, and subsequently make their personal perspective a group one. The approaches described above are in general terms the conservative and the radical. There is yet a new approach which is hard to classify. These are the educated young women who are tired of the male reference in framing their gender role. Growing up at a time of abundance with working mothers, they find the struggles and feminist mindset of their mother’s generation irrelevant to their situation. Some of them deny gender as a factor in conceptualizing their gender roles, but may at the same time accentuate their sexiness. Sexual mores are also changing. Urban and better educated women in China tend to be more open about premarital sex (Wang & Yang, 1996). This is a departure from a strong traditional emphasis on female chastity in East Asia. The bold depiction of the sex life and values of young women in Shanghai today in a recent novel raises the eyebrows of many readers (Wei, 2001), though the interest in it is more political to China watchers than literary. The diversity among women that try to reconstruct their gender roles in the broad social transformation parallels the diversity of today’s society in general. One of the visible forces is an impatience and dissociation from feminism of the old school. There is more organized effort to assert the voices of gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights. Similarly, the women’s movement comprises many more types of groups and concerns than before. Apart from academic and labor feminists, there are religious, sex workers, and other non-conventional groups, whose activities contribute to the larger human rights movement. There are also conscious efforts to localize these multitudinous forms of feminisms. While comparisons with Western feminist theories and practices continue, local feminisms appear more selfcontained than 20 years or so before, which may be seen as a coming of age of rights defenders in East Asia. Also, there has been an increase in intra-regional networking in Asia. Technological progress in the forms of internet and video-recording, widespread air travel, women’s improved knowledge and economic status, and an increasing awareness of their Asian identity have made active intra-regional collaborations possible. Feminist studies have found a place, albeit a marginal one, in university programs.
Concluding Remarks This chapter began by asking whether development benefits women and which groups of them. The consequences of development on women have been widely debated. From a mainstream perspective, development benefits women just as it does men. From a gender perspective, women’s gains in education are not necessarily related to economic development, and gains in education do not change female subordination in the economy (Boserup, 1970). As this chapter illustrated, the outcome of an assessment of urban women’s status in the context of economic transformation in Asia is mixed. There have been significant improvements in absolute terms as well as persistent inequality in structural and relative terms. The use of education is as strong as its limitation as a change agent. Policies toward women are driven by instrumentalism, much like the liberal view of male reformers on the outcome of education on women as better mothers for the next generation and in turn national development. The seeds
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of change have to be located in how women use the conditions generated in the policies. Change occurs not from more of the same, but in women’s construction of new gender roles, and when they extend their personal gains to collective gains. It occurs when womanhood no longer equates wifehood and motherhood, but rather is autonomous personhood. Sen (2000) argues that development goes beyond economic growth; it should be interconnections between freedoms that include economic opportunities, political freedom, and social facilities and security. The focus of women’s movements is changing from the welfare approach, which identifies women as patients, to the agency approach, with emphasis on women as active agents of change. The latter is important in removing factors that depress women’s well-being (Sen, 2000, Ch. 8). The last 20 years witnessed the rise of diverse women groups and individuals that direct their efforts to the agency approach. Policies provide the platform. In the end, it is women themselves who steer their cause toward new forms of freedom.
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19 FRAMING LIVES: LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH ON LIFE PLANNING AND PATHWAYS IN SINGAPORE David Hogan, Trivina Kang, and Melvin Chan Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Introduction As children become adolescents and adolescents become adults, they learn – and they have to learn – new roles, competencies, and identities. While contemporary researchers recognize the importance of biological maturation in this process, the transition of modern adolescents into adulthood is understood to be just as much, if not more, a social as a biological process (Hutson & Jenkins, 1989; Klein, 1990; Wallace & Kovatcheva, 1998). The conventional picture of modern life transitions and pathways drawn by historians and sociologists is that life pathways have become increasingly standardized, compressed, rationalized, institutionalized, and regulated by the state over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Elder, 1997; Kett, 1977; Kohli, 1986; Kohli & Meyer, 1986; Mayer, 2005; Modell, Furstenberg, & Herschberg, 1976; Modell & Goodman, 1990; Uhlenberg, 1969). Kohli (1986), for example, argues that the organization of public services, transfer payments and employment opportunities by age rendered the life course more orderly and calculable. Similarly, Buchmann (1989) suggests that the rationalization of the economy and the polity – for example, through enhancing the number of rights that individuals had access to on a universal basis, above all to education – over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries promoted the standardization and institutionalization of the life course. Contemporary sociological accounts emphasize, however, that contemporary life pathways appear to have assumed a distinctively “postmodern” rather than merely “modern” character – that they are increasingly characterized by temporal decompression and de-sequencing of key life transitions and pathways, involving greater compression of some pathways, and extensions of others, and that the life course as a consequence has become increasingly de-standardized, disordered, individualized, reversible, and fluid (Buchmann, 1989; Giddens, 1991; Kohli, 1986; Mayer, 2005). The deregulation of the labor market, ascendancy of contract work over life-long employment, the proliferation of educational duration and levels of training, the winding back 359 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 359–380. © 2007 Springer.
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of welfare state entitlements, increased divorce and remarriage rates, the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and the dispersion, sequencing, and duration of agegraded events (e.g., first marriage, transition from school to work, retirement) have transformed and even scrambled the conventional modernist organization of life pathways. Mayer (2005), for example, suggests that the life course has been transformed by increasing “de-standardization, differentiation and heterogeneity across the population” (p. 10). Similarly, Wallace (1995) describes this de-structuring process in the following terms: Age-status transitions have been de-structured … Transitions are no longer associated with any particular age, or with each other. Youth has become more and more protracted with a long period of “post-adolescence” … at the upper end which is indeterminate. The outcomes of transitional phases are uncertain or risky – education is de-coupled from work, training is de-coupled from work, childbearing is de-coupled from marriage, marriage is de-coupled from work, leaving home is decoupled from marriage and so on. People’s options and identifies are no longer fixed or certain and their futures can take a number of directions, the end point of which is not always clear … . Age-transitions are open-ended – they can go on for a long or a short time. (p. 10) Similarly, Frank Furstenberg (2000) suggests that the “transition to adulthood is now occurring over a longer span of years than was the case during the middle of the twentieth century,” and that, as a result, “youth … has become a more prominent state of the life course” (p. 899). Importantly, Furstenberg goes on to note that “relatively little in-depth or even survey data on the processes of identity and the establishment of goals and commitments is available that would complement these demographic data” (p. 899). Indeed, he suggests, “just how young people construct adult identities in a world in which attaining the traditional markers of adult status has become more difficult (or at least considerably delayed) is an issue worth pursuing in future research” (Furstenberg, 2000, p. 899). The Singapore Life Pathways Project, part of a comprehensive program of research developed at the Centre for Research and Pedagogy at the National Institute of Education in Singapore focuses on both the institutional organization of life pathways and the nature and social logic of the life choices that young people make, and remake, over the course of their adolescence and early adulthood. The project is a large (n 30,000), multi-cohort (age 10, 13, and 17) accelerated longitudinal design that commenced in 2004 and that we hope to continue until 2013, if not later. Theoretically, the project draws upon multiple fields in contemporary social science research: the sociology of modernity and subjectivity (particularly current controversies about the postmodern “de-traditionalization” and “de-institutionalization” of social organization, identity formation and the reflexive self ), the structure/agency debate in social theory, life course research, a generalized theory of capital formation (human, social, cultural, civic, identity, agentic), neo-institutionalist theories of social organization, and a generalized model of school effects research. Contextually, the project is focused on Singapore, one of the most globalized cities in the world. But it is a city state that has a strong commitment at the policy level to
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maintaining “traditional,” yet rationalized, cultural formations and patterns of social identity and attachment under the careful guidance of a powerful state committed to maintaining its successful record of rapid economic modernization and development in a rapidly globalizing world (Wee, 2000, 2002).
Longitudinal Studies Across the World The origins of life pathway studies can be traced back to the 1920s, when longitudinal studies, most notably the Oakland Growth Study and the Berkeley Growth and Guidance Studies, were launched. But whereas these studies primarily focused on child development, contemporary studies focus on a far wider range of life outcomes. Yet, although varying in specific objectives, scope, sampling design, and sample size, a limited range of policy-related preoccupations are still evident. One theme focuses on educational outcomes, including school performance, completion/non-completion of high school or compulsory schooling, participation in post-secondary/tertiary institutions, and educational attainment. The National Educational Longitudinal Studies (NELS) in the United States and the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (LSAY) are particularly focused on this theme. A second broad theme focuses on labor market outcomes, encompassing school-work transition experiences as well as employment/ unemployment experiences, occupational choices, career trajectories, and pathways to/from full-time and part-time work. The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) in the United States and the Australian Longitudinal Surveys and Australian Youth Surveys (AYS) exemplify this preoccupation. The third broad theme focuses on youth social experience/outcomes in areas such as physical and psychological wellbeing, behavioral problems, delinquency, suicide, teenage pregnancy, health, relationships, and marriage/ family formation. Although most recent longitudinal studies still focus on school-work transitions, there is an increasing trend in newer studies like Canada’s Youth in Transition (YITS) and Australia’s LSAY towards obtaining information on a broader spectrum of social experiences. However, these studies usually only begin looking at experiences from middle/high school. Moreover, to date, no other large-scale study apart from the British Birth Cohort Study (BCS), and more recently, the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), has sampled children or infants and followed them through adulthood, taking child/youth development as their primary emphasis. In part due to the wider scope of the projects, contemporary longitudinal datasets have been mined by researchers from different disciplines to inform varied issues. For example, in 2004 alone, the NELS: 88 dataset was used in analysis on a wide range of issues that included the effect of parental involvement on school completion (Anguiano, 2004), the effect of entrepreneurial parents on scholastic progress (Davila & Mora, 2004), school effectiveness (Gill, Ashton, & Algina, 2004), the black-white achievement gap (Morgan & Mehta, 2004), the relationship between volunteer participation and early voting behavior (Frisco, Muller, & Dodson, 2004), youth substance abuse (Hollar & Moore, 2004), and the effects of athletic participation on immigrant youth education outcomes (Kao, 2004). More broadly, over the years, researchers from various disciplines have utilized the NELS: 88 dataset to investigate the effects of streaming,
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subject choice, curricula, school organization and teachers on students’ educational outcomes (Croninger & Lee, 2001; Gamoran, 1996; Hoffer, 1997). Sociologists have used it to investigate the effects of socioeconomic background, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and social and cultural capital on outcomes (Dumais, 2002; Kao & Tienda, 1995; Morgan & Sorenson, 1999) while psychologists have used it to study issues like aspirations, academic self concept, esteem (Fan & Ping, 2003; Marsh, Parada, Yeung, & Healey, 2001). Economists have also used the NELS: 88 to examine the costs and benefits of schooling (Hagy & Staneic, 2002; Rice, Croninger, & Roellke, 2002). One reason why different disciplines have been able to pick and choose from these longitudinal survey datasets is that they have been geared towards collecting data to inform policy-related objectives in a range of domains. For example, the purposes of the NLS72, HS&B[N1] and NELS: 88 studies in the United States are to examine the educational, vocational and personal development of young people. Even though the NELS: 88 is broader in scope than the earlier NELS surveys because it followed students from an earlier grade, the initial aim of the NELS: 88 is to provide trend comparisons with earlier studies. Thus, instead of an overarching conceptual framework that attempts to explain the linkages between domains and how they influence outcomes, NELS: 88 is loosely categorized into broad substantive areas of secondary education, high-school work transition, post-secondary education, career attainment and life cycle transition after college, motivation, aspiration self-concept and psychosocial issues. While NELS: 88 has diversified from its initial concern with education to include a collection of data on attitudes to work, work experience and work-related training, sexual behavior, marriage and family, leisure time and volunteer activities, and voting behavior, there has not been a development of an explicit framework to specify their links. Instead, the onus is often left to the users of the dataset to use the facts as collected to generate research questions and address policy and research issues. The lack of conceptual frameworks and the piecemeal “add-on” nature of longitudinal surveys is in part also a product of the policy evaluation emphasis that underlies such projects. This is not surprising, since longitudinal survey endeavors are extremely costly to design and implement, and often funded by government organizations and centers that have specific agenda. For example, in Australia, this was “to examine questions regarding the education and training pathways of young people as they move from school to work, and their experiences in the Australian labor market” (LSAY, 1996, p. 23). It was only in the 1990s, with growing youth unemployment, that policymakers recognized the need to understand the factors involved in young people’s initial labor market outcomes. This eventually resulted in revisions found in the LSAY. In a similar vein, the initial purpose of the NLSY79 in the United States was specifically to “help policymakers and researchers evaluate the expanded employment and training programs for youths legislated by the 1977 amendments to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)” (NLSY, 2003). By replicating the NLS young men and young women surveys of the late 1960s, the NLSY79 was meant to help policymakers and researchers evaluate the expanded employment and training programs for youths legislated in 1977. However, over time, as the policy environment
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surrounding the NLSY79 changed, this survey became a much broader vehicle examining many aspects of education and the labor market. In Britain, the National Child Developmental Study (NCDS), which began in 1958, was limited in its initial scope “to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early infancy” (Plewis, Calderwood, Hawkes, & Nathan, 2004). However, by the time of the BCS 1970, birth cohort studies were presented as multidisciplinary studies “monitoring representative cohorts of young Britons on their physical, educational, social and economic development” (Plewis, Calderwood, Hawkes, & Nathan, 2004). The more recent Canadian YITS’ attempts to have a wide range of objectives from the onset drew heavily from past research in the United States. The ten objectives of the Canadian YITS study encompass transitions within and from school, educational outcomes, pathways, labor market outcomes, attitudes and aspirations, and the outcomes of “at-risk” sub-groups (StatsCan, 2000). However, we have not seen any documentation of a coherent conceptual framework that specifies the relationships between the different domains or transitions. In the next section, we turn to the Singapore Life Pathway Study. This youth pathways longitudinal study is unique in that it is explicitly theory driven, and relationships between key variables have been specified in a model (Table 1) that has guided the conceptualization of the design as well as the analysis of the research questions this study addresses.
Theoretical Framework Some years ago the English sociologist and social theorist Anthony Giddens published an extremely influential account of the nature of what he terms “life planning” and the “reflexive self ” in conditions of “late modernity” or “postmodern” society. Giddens (1991) argues that late modernity is characterized by the shrinkage of space and time and the increasing decoupling of individuals from institutional norms and traditional attachments and identities. He describes these processes in terms of what he calls “de-traditionalization” and “de-institutionalization” and argues that these processes have reshaped the character and the demands of the existential condition in the contemporary world. The postmodern existential condition, he argues, is characterized by “compulsory individualization”– the progressive de-coupling of the self from traditional institutional ties and settings – and the development of life trajectories that are a function of individual choices by “reflexive selves” and life pathways that are more flexible, non-linear, and unpredictable. For Giddens then, identity formation is not so much a process of discovering the self, as in romantic models of the “authentic” self, but of choice and agency, invention and construction, in highly de-institutionalized social contexts. “Self identity is not a distinctive trait, or even a collection of traits, possessed by the individual,” Giddens writes. “It is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography” (Giddens, 1991, pp. 5 & 53). For Giddens then, the great existential challenge of high modernity is to construct a coherent sense of self and to frame and lead a meaningful life in circumstances that increasingly weaken the access of young people to the moral, intellectual, and existential
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Personal and family background Schooling ❍ Achievements ❍ Experience and perceptions Transition to work
Studies the progress of young Australians as they move from school into post-secondary education and work Identify factors influencing pathways and outcomes Educational and occupational changes of successive cohorts can be tracked overtime
General description of study
Key survey elements
Annual survey of 3 cohorts (Y95, Y98, Y03) aged 15– 25 years; a total of 35,000 participants were surveyed.
Description of sample
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1996
Administration of first survey
Longitudinal survey of Australian youths (LSAY)
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Personal and family background School effects/resources School engagement ❍ Academic ❍ Social
Examines key educational transitions and the initial transition from school to the labor market To better understand school to work path ways and the factors influencing pathways Identify pathways that provide a smoother transition to the labor market Understand the impact of school effects on educational and occupational outcomes
Biennial survey of 2 cohorts aged 15 and 18–20 years; a total 30,000 and 23,000 participants were surveyed for each cohort respectively.
2000
Youth in transition survey (YITS) (Canada)
Table 1. Comparison of major longitudinal life pathways studies
1997
National longitudinal survey of youth 1997 (NLSY97) (United States)
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Personal and family background Schooling ❍ Type of school Factors influencing later progression
Comprise 12 overlapping cohort studies beginning in 1985 It is main source of survey about the education, training and work experiences of young people after compulsory education Factors associated with the probability of staying on in education Characteristics of those who leave school joining labor market with or without government sponsored training
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Personal and family background Schooling ❍ achievements ❍ institutional capacities
Studies the newest cohort of the NLS dataset Studies American youth as they make the transition from school to work and to independent households (e.g., marriage, job mobility, and career changes)
Surveys an academic year-group or Annual survey of 9,000 young “cohort” of young people (typically people born between 1980 and 16 year old) after compulsory 1984. education annually until participants are 19–20 years old. Survey is currently in its 12th cycle. Approximately 35,000 surveyed.
1985
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Key findings on pathways
Educational and occupational plans and expectations Participation in training programs Financial characteristics Level of educational attainment Participation in post-school education Lifestyle characteristics Psychological well-being Political socialization
Vocational pathways: ● Those likely to choose vocational pathways: ❍ Poor academic performance lower parental education, lower engagement, and satisfaction with school ● More likely to enter labor market than further education Enrolment in tertiary education: ● Those with higher socioeconomic backgrounds are higher correlatedwith tertiary performance
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Achievement Transition to work Educational and occupational aspirations Participation in training programs Financial characteristics Experiences of first year post-secondary program (older cohort) Social, cultural and civic capital Parental involvement/style Work, family and education balance Career planning Peer relationships and deviant behaviors Health and psychological functioning Skills acquisition ●
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Aspirations for education and Attitudes to education Attitudes to education Characteristics of vocational and academic pathways Participation in training programs ●
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Outcome expectations of life events Participation in training programs Financial characteristics Social attitudes, behaviors, and time spent Created variables of: ❍ Environment ❍ Event history
(Continued )
Tertiary pathways: Vocational pathways: Effect of part-time jobs: ● Diverse and individualized as ● Increased proportion of young ● Intensity of frequency of students moved in and out of part-time time jobs increased people in full-time vocatinal education as students progressed through tertiary education ● 36% of students made at least ● Students with better academic High School ● Graduation rates were performance tended to opt for one transition general academic route (i.e., A 40% of post secondary graduates correlated with amount of time levels) than vocational pathways (e.g., certificate or diploma) spent in part-time work returned for more education ● Those with less educated parents, ● Where academic results were having dependents, and who similar, females were more likely than males to enroll in vocational worked long hours in their institutions part-time jobs were less likely to be in post secondary education
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Those in independent schools have better tertiary performance than Catholic schools, followed by government schools ● High confidence, conducive school environment and high parentalaspirations contribute strongly to tertiary performance Effect of part-time jobs: ● Working more than 5 hours per week reduced likelihood of completing secondary education ● Part-time jobs helped to secure vocational and apprenticeship positions after secondary education
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Sources: LSAY, 1996; NLSY, 1997; StatsCan, 2000.
Key findings on pathways
Longitudinal survey of Australian youths (LSAY)
Table 1. (Continued)
Labor market pathways: ● Diverse school to work transitions; from school to work, and back to school, followed by full-time work ● Most common transition was from school to full-time work, even among those with part-time jobs ● Those not working or schooling at age 20 typically returned to school at age 22 ● Those who started working at age 20 typically continued working at age 22
Youth in transition survey (YITS) (Canada)
Effect of part-time jobs: ● About half of all students held a part-time job ● Characteristics of those without jobs: ❍ having poor results, have one parent unemployed or live in region with high unemployment ❍ those from independent schools and with highly educated parents ● Significant negative impact on grades for those working 10–15 hours per week
Youth cohort study (England and Wales, UK) National longitudinal survey of youth 1997 (NLSY97) (United States)
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resources of tradition, custom, and locale. For other observers of the fate of the self in postmodernity, this is something of a forlorn hope. Stuart Hall, for example, drawing on a long line of postmodern and poststructuralist accounts of the “death of the subject,” observes that “identities are never unified and, in late modernity, increasingly fragmented and fractured: never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourse, practices and positions. They are subject to a radical historization, and are constantly in the process of change and transformation” (Hall, 1996, p. 4). He goes on: The question of “identity” is being vigorously debated in social theory. In essence, the argument is that the old identities which stabilized the social world for so long are in decline, giving rise to new identities and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. This so-called “crisis of identity” is seen as part of a wider process of change which is dislocating the central structures and processes of modern societies and undermining the frameworks which gave individuals stable anchorage in the social world. For those theorists who believe that modern identities are breaking up, the argument runs something like this. A distinctive type of structural change is transforming modern societies … This is fragmenting the cultural landscapers of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and nationality which give us our locations as social individuals. These transformations are also shifting our personal identities, undermining our sense of ourselves as integrated subjects. This loss of a sense of self … [constitutes] … the dislocation or decentering of the subject. This set of double displacements – decentering individuals from both their place in the social and cultural world, and from themselves – constitutes a crisis of identity for the individual … (Hall, 1992, pp. 274–275; see also 276–277, 284, 286–287). For Hall, then, a progressively deinstitutionalizing and decentered postmodern world produces increasingly fragmented and decentered postmodern selves. This view of the fate of the self in postmodernity is widely shared in broad outline by many other observers of the postmodern existential condition.1 In an era of de-traditionalization and de-institutionalization, the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the creation of a coherent sense of self is rendered increasingly problematic by the decline of institutional forms of traditional authority, the rejection of traditional authority by growing numbers of adolescents, and the apparent inability of existing institutions to provide decisive guidance to young people. Yet other observers of the postmodern existential condition note that one increasingly common response of many individuals across the world to de-traditionalization and de-institutionalization is not so much the individualization of life planning, or the decentering of individual identities, but a defensive retreat to “primordial” social identities. Manuel Castells (2004), for example, while agreeing with Giddens’ overall characterization of the social organization of late modernity, insists that “reflexive life planning” is essentially an elite minority response to the existential demands and pressures of globalization and the rise of network society: “The search for meaning takes place then in the reconstruction of defensive identities around communal principle,” he writes (p. 11). Most of social action becomes organized in the opposition
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between unidentified flows and secluded identities. For Castells then, unlike Giddens or Hall, personal and group identity, as expressed for example in language and literacy practices, are “fast becoming the main, and sometimes the only source of meaning … . People increasingly organize their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of who they are, or believe they are.” (Castells, 1996, p. 3). Giddens, Hall, and Castells thus offer us quite different views of the fate of identity and the self in high modernity. For Giddens, high modernity deepens reflexive life planning and individualizes identity; for Hall, postmodernity decenters and deconstructs identity and the self; for Castells, globalization, de-traditionalization and the rise of the network society prompt a retreat into defensive identities in search for meaning. Of course, the three views are not necessarily antagonistic, since it is quite possible that the three views simply describe different responses to postmodernity. That, indeed, is our own view. It all depends on who we are talking about in what particular contexts and what particular resources and opportunities they have available to them to negotiate their life pathways. Importantly, these issues have been the subject of considerable empirical work in the social psychology and sociology of identity formation, as well as various efforts, some of them international in scope, to theorize the nature of the identity “resources,” “competencies,” or “capital” that young people require in order to successfully “manage” or “negotiate” the institutional and existential demands of postmodernity and to create a coherent sense of self. Côté and Levine (2002), for example, suggest that de-traditionalization and compulsory individualization places a premium on the agentic accumulation and strategic use of what they term “identity capital” in order that social actors might successfully negotiate and manage the demands of their institutional environment in the face of the “holes” in the social fabric resulting from the declining importance of tradition, custom and locale in the framing and pursuit of life goals. Of the international efforts, one of the most interesting (and relevant to our current purposes) is The Definition and Selection of Key Competencies (OECD, 2005) – The DeSeCo Project – being undertaken by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The project’s May 2005 report emphasizes, for example, that in an era of globalization and rapid social and technological change, young people need at least three kinds of broad competencies: ●
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Individuals need to be able to use a wide range of tools for interacting effectively with the environment: both physical ones such as information technology and sociocultural ones such as the use of language. They need to understand such tools well enough to adapt them for their own purposes and to use those tools interactively. In an increasingly interdependent world, individuals need to engage with others, and since they will encounter people from a range of backgrounds, it is important that they are able to interact in heterogeneous groups. Individuals need to be able to take responsibility for managing their own lives, situate their lives in the broader social context and act autonomously. (OECD, 2005, p. 5)
Of the three competencies identified by the DeSeCo Project, the third is of particular relevance to our argument. OECD terms the third group of capacities as “acting autonomously,” which they insist “does not mean functioning in social isolation” or independent of the interests of others. Rather, “it requires an awareness of one’s environment, of social dynamics and of the roles one plays and wants to play. It requires individuals
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to be empowered to manage their lives in meaningful and responsible ways by exercising control over their living and working conditions” (p. 14). The report then goes on: Individuals must act autonomously in order to participate effectively in the development of society and to function well in different spheres of life including the workplace, family life and social life. This is because they need to develop an identity independently and to make choices, rather than just follow the crowd. In doing so, they need to reflect on their values and on their actions. Acting autonomously is particularly important in the modern world where each person’s position is not as well-defined as was the case traditionally. Individuals need to create a personal identity in order to give their lives meaning, to define how they fit in. One illustration of this is with respect to work, where there are fewer stable, lifelong occupations working for a single employer. In general, autonomy requires an orientation towards the future and an awareness of one’s environment, of social dynamics and of the roles one plays and wants to play. It assumes the possession of a sound self-concept and the ability to translate needs and wants into acts of will: decision, choice and action (OECD, 2005, p. 14. Italics added). Importantly, acting autonomously also involves “the ability to form and conduct life plans and personal projects”: This competency applies the concept of project management to individuals. It requires individuals to interpret life as an organized narrative and to give it meaning and purpose in a changing environment, where life is often fragmented. This competency assumes an orientation toward the future, implying both optimism and potential, but also a firm grounding within the realm of the feasible. Individuals must be able, for instance, to: ● ●
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Define a project and set a goal; Identify and evaluate both the resources to which they have access and the resources they need (e.g., time and money); Prioritize and refine goals; Balance the resources needed to meet multiple goals; Learn from past actions, projecting future outcomes; and Monitor progress, making necessary adjustments as a project unfolds (OECD, 2005, p. 15).
Not the least of the objectives of the Singapore project involves identifying the kinds of institutional and existential resources, competencies, or “capitals” that young Singaporeans acquire, or do not acquire, as the case might be, in a rapidly changing world and to identify the kind of educational and social experiences that are likely to help young people develop the kinds of resources or competencies they need to frame and successfully pursue an existentially meaningful and rewarding and socially valuable set of life goals. Consequently, at least in its initial phase, the Singapore Life Pathways Project will not so much focus on changes in the social organization of the life course – the structure of the transition from adolescence to adulthood – as on
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the various institutional experiences, processes of capital formation, subjectivities and life aspirations and goals of large representative samples of primary, secondary, and post secondary students that we began surveying at the end of 2004. As the three cohorts proceed through school, however, we will obviously be able to map the life pathways, and changes in the social organization of life pathways, over time. In designing these empirical inquiries, we have been mindful of current debates about broader changes in the social organization of postmodernity or “high modernity,” particularly the speculation that in the West at least life pathways are increasingly characterized by the progressive decoupling of individuals from traditional social structures and norms, the “de-traditionalization” and “compulsory individualization” of identity formation and the agentic construction of the self as a “reflexive project” rather than as a socially-constituted bearer of traditional social norms and attachments. In principle, on this account, individual life choices and pathways are no longer a function of ascription and socialization that allocates them into “traditional” roles and positions in society, but agentically chosen under conditions of chronic uncertainty and constant change. The postmodern or high modern existential condition then is radically different from the existential condition of modernity since many of the cultural, social, and economic certainties of the past can no longer be taken for granted as they were before. Rather, the contemporary condition is characterized by the increasing individualization of life choices and the emergence of a new postmodern reflexive subjectivity – the “reflexive self ” – that is compelled by necessity to make choices in increasingly de-institutionalized contexts where the self is no longer coupled to traditional ties and settings that previously gave it stability and predictability. As a result of the process of modernization and the resulting conditions, individual life trajectories have become more flexible, less linear and less secure and predictable. Many of these arguments are highly speculative. Very little empirical work has been conducted to test them. While we cannot hope to test all of these arguments, the Singapore project offers an unusual opportunity to assess key claims. The fact that the study is being conducted in Singapore, one of the most globalized cities in the world but still very much committed as a matter of policy to upholding “traditional” patterns of identity formation and social organization, offers a unique opportunity to unravel some of the inner dynamics of postmodernization within a Southeast Asian city state that believes itself to be as much shaped by Confucian traditions as by computers.
Singapore: Modernization, Globalization and Tradition For theorists like Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992), globalization is a core condition of modernity. Hence when it is pronounced and pervasive, the multiplicity of choices resulting from de-institutionalization and de-traditionalization progressively demand greater individual reflexivity and agency. In fact, Giddens (1991) has suggested that globalization can be characterized as a process of “intensified reflexivity” that creates the conditions for “a world of clever people” because it is in effect a never ending dialectical phenomenon where local and global situations/relationships mutually influence each other, constantly stimulating the creation of new patterns of behaviors and
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lifestyles. Such views (Bauman, 2001; Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991; Hakim, 2000) of the postmodern reflexive condition have been extremely influential in the western world. The question for us is – how well do such theories of the “reflexive self ” and “individualization” hold up and explain adolescent subjectivity and the life plans and projects of young people in Singapore, a country that is acknowledged to be global, western, and modern, but yet determinedly proud of its eastern and traditional heritage? If we use globalization as a condition for modernity, in 2004, Singapore was rated second in the fourth annual A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine Globalization Index (Foreign Policy, 2004) a composite index that considers political, economic, personal, and technological globalization in 62 countries. This index reveals the extent of the openness of a country’s economy and its integration with other countries, and hence, measures how globalized the country is. To some extent, such rankings attest to the concerted and continuing economic and political quest since the 1990s to position Singapore as a “global city.” One of the key themes of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s 2005 National Day Address focused on the need to create a “vibrant global city” and that “to remake the economy and attract talent, we have also got to remake our city” (Lee, 2005). This is not a recent awakening. In the 1990s, John Friedmann reports, “in private conversations with senior government officials, it became clear to me what the government really wanted. Singapore was embarking on the ‘next lap’ (Government of Singapore, 1991), and officials hoped to hear from me how their city state might rise to the rank of ‘world city.’ The gold phrase because a badge of status, just as ‘growth poles’ had been in an earlier incarnation. There was little I could say that the government didn’t already know” (Friedmann, 1995, p. 36). But for all its global city ambitions and commitment to globalization, “competitiveness,” “innovation,” and “entrepreneurship,” the preservation of its multi-ethnic cultural heritage is viewed as equally important (Koh, 2005). In political speeches, traditional values and virtues of ethnic communities are repeatedly highlighted and positioned as having a crucial role to play in order that we do not “end up drifting with the tide in a borderless global village” (Lim, 2002). In schools, while young Singaporeans use English as the medium of instruction, it is mandatory that they take a mother-tongue as their second language. Since the bilingual policy was introduced nearly 40 years ago, its explicit purpose of transmitting moral values and cultural traditions still remains. The role of the mother tongue language in grounding young Singaporeans in Asian values in the context of globalization is illustrated by Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong (2004): In a fast-changing world and in an age of mass communications, we need a sturdy values system to define who we are and to anchor us to a place called “home.” The English language enables us to plug into the global grid and access the latest in science, technology and fashion. But mother tongue helps us access what is critical in us: our roots, culture and identity. Otherwise, we will be mocked as “bananas” – yellow on the outside but white inside. Singapore is not an Anglo-Saxon country nor are we situated in the West. Our neighbors are Asian. Moreover, our society will become more cosmopolitan. Hence, it is essential that we retain our Asian core. Our Asian heritage and values give us confidence in ourselves and provide the ballast in our society.
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I believe that without deep roots in our Asian culture and without a clear identity of our own, we will drift like a piece of flotsam in the sea of globalization, following mindlessly the latest trends and fads. We will be less confident of ourselves. But if we are anchored in our Asian culture, we will be like a tall tree, rooted to the earth which nourishes us, while at the same time, reaching up for the sky. The tension between global and local, modernity and tradition, and to some extent east and west, is not unique to Singapore. These are issues and challenges inherent in living lives in late modernity. However, in Singapore, because of its cultural, historical, geographical, political, and economic context and developmental history, these issues have been magnified and intensified. Indeed, the government has devoted considerable energy to what Wee (2002) refers to as a policy of “national culturalism” based on “the flexible statist management of culture” dating back to the 1960s in an ongoing effort to rationalize cultural formations in ways consistent with both rapid industrialization and globalization on the one hand, and a stable multi-racial social order, on the other. Initially this involved the homogenization and disciplining of local cultural “irrationalities” and identities that appeared inconsistent with the demands of universal modernizing capitalism. But from the late 1970s the government changed tack as it grew increasingly fearful that its older cultural management policies might lead the population to cultural de-racination and rootlessness and unable to cope with the demands of modernization. Consequently, from the late 1970s on, it began to reject the idea of a single, Western or universal model of modernization and to advocate and promote instead an “Asian” (and more specifically, a “Singaporean”) modernization program that celebrated Asian values and reinforced ethnic identities and languages within a highly regulated and integrated Singaporean multi-racial and meritocratic social order.
Singapore Life Pathways Study: Analytics The Singapore Life Pathways Study is a five year, multi-cohort, multi-level, repeated measures longitudinal study of a large representative sample (N 30,000) of primary, secondary and post-secondary students in Singapore. Round 1 of data collection for the post-secondary (Grade 11) cohort began in 2004, while round 1 for the primary (Grade 4) and secondary (Grade 7) cohorts began in July 2005. The key objective of this study, which is the first of its kind in Singapore, is to measure, map and model changes over time in the life experiences, opportunities, capacities, attainments, choices, and pathways of the three cohorts of young people in Singapore.
Research Questions The key research questions driving the study are as follows: ●
Institutional Experiences: To what extent and in what ways do the key formative social experiences of young people in institutional settings – families, schools,
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communities, friendship groups, cultural markets, labor markets, consumer markets, and political society – vary across population groups and cohorts? The Self /Subjectivity: How is subjectivity constituted among young people in Singapore? Does the organization of the self change over time? If so, in what ways? Does the “constitution” of the self vary across population groups? If so, in what ways? How do traditional and postcolonial cultural discourses of subjectivity interact with globalization (e.g., marketization) and “the postmodern condition” (e.g., de-institutionalization, compulsory individualization) to shape the constitution of the self in Singapore? To what extent are Singaporean adolescent subjectivities traditional, modern, postmodern or hybrid? Institutional Capacities/Capitals: What kinds of institutional capacities, resources or “capitals” – generative individual-level domain-specific skills, understandings, dispositions and identities – do young people acquire over time? To what extent and in what ways are different forms of capital – educational, economic, cultural, social, civic, existential, agentic – interrelated? To what extent and in what ways do processes of capital formation vary across population groups? Why? To what extent do variations in processes of capital formation reflect (class-based?) differential strategic judgments about the necessity of different forms of capital accumulation, or are they primarily a direct function of the social position of social actors? Life Aspirations, Goals, Expectations, Plans, and Choices: What life aspirations, goals, expectations, plans, and choices do young Singaporeans set for themselves? How do these change over time? To what extent, in what ways and why do the life aspirations, goals, expectations, plans, and choices of young people in Singapore vary across population groups, between cohorts and over time? To what extent and in what ways, if at all, do the life goals, plans, and choices of young people in Singapore reflect the impact of globalization and post modernity? What constructions or narratives of their life experiences, opportunities, resources, aspirations, goals, and choices do young people develop? Social Agency: Institutional Participation and Attainment: To what extent and in what ways do young people exercise social agency to participate in the institutional life of Singaporean society – in families, schools, friendship groups, community groups, labor markets, consumer markets, cultural markets, political society? What levels of institutional attainment do young people achieve? Are these patterns of attainment related? How and why do patterns of participation and attainment vary across social groups? What factors explain variations in institutional participation and attainment? Life Transitions and Pathways: What distinctive life pathways do young people have in Singapore? How do cohorts differ in their pathways? To what extent, in what ways, and why do the life pathways of young people in Singapore vary across population groups? To what extent are life pathways a function of life goals, plans and choices rather than social structural position? To what extent has the temporal relationship between key life events or transitions altered in recent decades? Postmodernity,Agency, Schooling and Policy: To what extent and in what ways are the life experiences and biographies of young people in Singapore characteristic of “the postmodern condition”? How should we understand human agency and the role
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it plays in shaping individual lives in specific institutional contexts? What is the relationship between academic outcomes and the (broader) social outcomes of schooling in Singapore? Controlling for the influence of other factors, what impact do variations in school experiences have on the constitution of the self, subjective well-being, capital formation, social agency, and life goals, choices, and pathways? What policy initiatives can the government take to improve the quality (and measurement of) the broader social outcomes of schooling, including patterns of capital formation; expand access to, and the range of, life pathways available to young people; moderate the impact of social disadvantage on processes of capital formation, institutional participation and attainment, and subjective well-being; moderate the negative consequences, if any, of the postmodern condition on the lives and wellbeing of young people in Singapore; and moderate tensions within and between different modalities of capital accumulation and institutional participation? Key individual-level outcome measures to be mapped and modeled in this study include: ●
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Educational outcomes: Academic performance (self-reported results across all high stakes assessments; cognitive performance in repeated measures of English and Maths assessments for the secondary cohort); educational participation and attainment (years of schooling by type of schooling); educational dispositions (interest, motivation, engagement, aspirations, and expectations). Labor market outcomes: Human and economic capital formation (specific arrays of work-related understandings, dispositions and skills, including acquisition of a broad range of “new economy capacities” including attitudes to risk and uncertainty, IT competencies, knowledge management, initiative, self-regulation, etc., and intercultural understandings necessary for successful participation in contemporary labor markets and workplaces; labor market participation; occupational attainment. Social participation outcomes: Participation in school and community groups; friendship (number by ethnicity) and sociability patterns; participation in commodity, popular and high culture markets; access to social networks and the development of interpersonal and institutional trust and attachments; participation in adult or risk behaviors (drinking, drugs, smoking, sex); respect for others, intercultural understanding and tolerance. Civic outcomes: Civic dispositions; civic knowledge; civic skills; civic participation (civic agency); civic identity, and sense of membership and attachment. Life goals, plans, and pathways: Individual goals, plans, and choices with respect to: Education and training; work and career; marriage and family formation; friendship; religious belief and practice; community participation; national citizenship; participation in commodity markets (consumption); participation in popular and high culture markets; residency/emigration Subjective well-being: Sense of (subjective) agency (sense of efficacy, internal locus of control, sense of confidence, positive future goal orientation, persistence, decision making skills); identity formations: normative, social (class, gender, ethnic, consumer); reflexivity (understanding of self and social experience); life
Institutional characteristics and practices (incl. alignments, opportunities and resources) in the various institutional contexts in which young people lead their lives: families, schools, friendship groups, community groups, religious institutions, labor markets, commodity markets, cultural markets, and political society
1. Institutional Contexts, Resources, and Opportunities
Social construction of the self
Opportunities
Resources
Table 2. Schematic model of Singapore life pathways project
Social Learning & Reflexiveness
Subjective agency Reflexivity Interests, Goals and Choices Identity practices and projects Social Values Habitus Skills/Capacities/Capitals
2. The Self /Subjectivity
Social Agency
(socially structured, culturally embedded & temporally situated intentional social agency in specific institutional contexts: schools, workplaces, friendship groups, cultural markets, consumer markets, community groups, political society )
3. Institutional Participation
Narrative / reflexive self-understanding
Reinforcement
Performance
Realignment of institutional opportunities & resources
Biography (“narrative”) of choices and pathways through time with respect to education, work, marriage, citizenship, religion, friendship, residence, consumption, community participation, and self- formation
5. Life Pathways
Outcomes
Domain-specific attainments in domain-specific institutional settings: School, Family, Work, Friendship, Consumption, Community, Political Society, Religion, Cultural markets, The Self
4. Institutional Attainments
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satisfaction (domain specific, global); mental health (depression, anxiety); existential aspirations and sense of well-being; trust (in persons, institutions); attachment (to significant others); resiliency/adaptability Table 2 is a formal schematic representation of the conceptual framework of the Singapore study.
Method In collecting our data, we rely on self-reported responses from survey instruments administered online to students while they are at school. The sample of students is a representative random stratified sample of students in 102 selected schools (37 primary, 38 secondary, 27 post secondary institutions) for each of the three cohorts we are sampling: primary 4, secondary 1 and post-secondary 1. In the two youngest cohorts, we administer four survey instruments on a one in four basis. For the post-secondary cohort, we administer three survey instruments on a one in three basis. The survey instruments are differentiated in terms of their key outcome measures (economic and social capital, subjectivity and subjective well-being, subjectivity and life planning, and citizenship) but share relatively common predictor modules. This arrangement is made possible by the sample size and in turn permits the inclusion of an unusually broad and comprehensive array of items/scales. Each instrument includes selected outcome measures from the other instruments to facilitate linkages across instruments. Within each form or survey instrument, key outcome measures have been and will be included in each of the four planned administrations in order to facilitate longitudinal growth modeling of the outcome measures. Key predictor variables will also be measured on an annualized basis where we have reason to believe that their values might change over time. Approximately 98% of the scales were pre-tested prior to the first administration and assessed for their psychometric properties, including variance, skewness, unidimensionality, reliability, goodness of fit, and construct, discriminant and predictive validity, using SPSS Descriptives and Exploratory Factor Analysis and AMOS for Confirmatory Factor Analysis. In addition, we are administering two assessments instruments – one in English and one in Maths – to the secondary 1 cohort. These assessments will be calibrated and given each year to the cohort, permitting multi-level longitudinal modeling of academic performance as well the relationship between the various outcome measures and academic achievement. Each of the assessments have been, and will be, subject to Rasch modeling procedures.
Conclusion The Singapore Life Pathways Project is a unique, comprehensive, theoretically-driven, policy-conscious, multi-cohort longitudinal study of the life experiences, opportunities, capacities, subjectivities, attainments, choices, and pathways of large representative samples of three cohorts of young people in one of the world’s most globalized
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cities, Singapore. As far as we know, no other study like it has been undertaken elsewhere, or is currently being undertaken elsewhere. It therefore promises to generate important theoretical insights into the sociology of adolescence and the sociology of postmodernity in one of the world’s great cities.
Note 1.
See, for example, Gergen (1991) and Woodward (1997). Woodward, for example, suggests that postmodernity is characterized by a “crisis of identity, where old certainties no longer obtain and social, political and economic changes both globally and locally have led to the breakdown of previously stable group membership. Identities in the contemporary world derive from a multiplicity of sources – from nationality, ethnicity, social class, community, gender, sexuality – sources that may conflict in the construction of identity positions and lead to contradictory fragmented identities” (Woodward, 1997, p. 1).
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20 NEW URBAN TERRAINS: LITERACIES, WORLD KIDS, AND TEACHERS Karen Dooley*, Cushla Kapitzke*, and Carmen Luke† *
Queensland University of Technology, Australia; University of Queensland, Australia
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Literacy is a long-established focus of urban education. Given the populations of migrants, refugees and transient populations of industrialized Western cities, it is a target that has been understood historically in terms of linguistic and cultural difference, as well as poverty. In Australian educational research and policy over the last three decades, there been an ongoing recognition not only of links between poverty and educational outcomes, but also of schools’ failure to serve aspirations of migrant and refugee families of non-English-speaking background concentrated in industrialized cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Newcastle (Cahill, 1996; see Blackmore, 2007). Today, literacy achievement of urban populations is again a focal point of considerable public and media debate, which although appearing to focus on issues of curriculum and instruction, readily turns to debates over declining morality, deterioration of cultural values and national traditions. Yet, questions about the impact of new media technologies on youth culture, and implications for conceptualizations of school literacy education are at the core of contention in Australian educational development and public debate. These questions have generated increasing research activity in the last decade, with several major federally funded projects into youth literacies, new technologies, social identity and educational issues (Alloway, Freebody, Gilbert, & Muspratt, 2002; Department of Science, Education and Training, 2002a, 2002b; Hill, Louden, & Reid, 2002; Louden et al., 2000; Luke et al., 2002). However, ongoing work is required because the rapid development and dissemination of new communication and information technologies into communities has serious ramifications for social relations, work, and youth cultures. Historically, measures to address inequitable language and literacy outcomes in urban Australia included funding for disadvantaged schools that was often directed to literacy intervention, a national English as a second language (ESL) program, and a succession of policies of multicultural, inclusive, and antiracist education directed at both mainstream and non-English-speaking background students (Cahill, 1996). These measures were constructed primarily within various liberal discourses of compensation and tolerance of 381 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 381–394. © 2007 Springer.
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social diversity, moving from assimilatory and transformative social ethos in the early and latter parts of the period respectively. The general aim was to address lower achievement outcomes and higher marginalization of students living in poor and ethnolinguistic minority communities. These students, concentrated in urban schools, were amongst those who benefited least from literacy education in the modern industrial nation-state – an education designed to train and homogenize socially diverse peoples through inculcation of basic print skills and selected print literary heritage, in the standard written variant of the national language (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). In this first decade of the twenty-first century, developments in media technologies, and the economic, political and cultural shifts now commonly defined as part of the phenomenon of “globalization,” coupled with concerns about literacy education in urban schools, inequality and marginalization, have come together to form a new configuration of educational problems and possibilities. A new order in the places and wired spaces of the urban is emerging, one of social difference and poverty/affluence, of lifeworld experiences and literate practices that are at once converging in new media and diverging in access to traditional print competence. In Australia, as in other advanced capitalist democracies, literacy education in urban schools is a site of anxiety – if not moral panic – and struggle over social change and the emergence of new cosmopolitan and multicultural youth identities. For more than a decade, research findings and test results that indicate relatively low literacy levels of ESL students and students living in poverty have been cited regularly by politicians and public commentators as evidence of a “literacy crisis” (Donnelly, 2004; Howard, 2006). Neoliberal discourses of fiscal austerity, global competition and national economic crisis are set against compensatory logics, even as new compensatory measures have proliferated (e.g., phonics training vouchers for students not reaching national literacy benchmarks). Low literacy levels are attributed to deficits of individual or group ability, motivation, and work ethic on the part of students and families, and to failures of pedagogic will and method on the part of self-interested, inadequately trained, and ideologically suspect teachers, teacher unions, education academics, and state education department bureaucrats (Editor, 2005b; Turtel, 2005). Adopting an antidote from US and UK policy, mandatory phonics programs, a national regime of high stakes testing of print literacy basics, and publication of league tables of literacy test results are on the table. At the same time, liberal multicultural and transformative social logics are in tension with resurgent conservatism around race and immigration and, following 9/11, national security. Furthermore, fear of the eclipse of Western high culture (a fear ramped up by the “clash of civilizations” mentality) is evident in national media campaigns for the excision of popular and digital literacies, non-canonical texts, and critical literacies, from syllabii and external examinations. As this text goes to press, the Prime Minister has publicly condemned critical literacy and the national newspaper, The Australian, has adopted the strategy of labeling an array of educational reforms, some not at all connected, as the product of postmodernism and “political correctness” (Editor, 2006). Newspaper editors and columnists, non-Education academics, politicians and others weigh in on discussions of what teachers are, what they are capable of, and how they should do their work (Editor, 2005a).
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Alternative visions of literacy education have been developed in Australia – from the various curriculum projects around critical literacy to foci on new digital literacies (Luke, Freebody, Land, Booth, & Kronk, 2000). The international multiliteracies project is one high profile example (New London Group, 2000), and the Learning by Designs project conducted in Australia and Malaysia (Kalantzis, Cope, & the Learning by Design Project Group, 2005) is another. These projects argue for literacy curricula and pedagogy that engage with literate practices and identities constructed by school youth in popular and digital cultures ignored or dismissed by practitioners and proponents of historically venerated forms of literacy education. For teachers, alternatives such as these entail new identities, literacies, and work practices. But even while the majority of Australian states now have components of critical literacy and multiliteracies built into their state curriculum documents – and Australian teacher education will routinely engage students with debates over critical literacy and multiliteracies – this is a field that is not yet well charted. Our aim in this chapter is to suggest some potentially productive research directions to support the imagining and enactment of forms of literacy education alternative to arrangements that only ever served part of the population well, and are of reduced benefit in futures entailing new media technologies, literacies, and urban cultures. Although written from Australia, this chapter is directed at a wider audience. One of the marks of this historical moment is that social conditions of educational practices and discourses bear some significant similarities and synergies across national borders. For example, diversification of urban school populations is a fact of globalization that is construed in Western nations – in socially and historically contingent ways – across variants of similar discourses on race, immigration and national identity. Likewise, in the Anglo-American democracies, the shift to skills-based training in, and high stakes testing of standard English language print basics, has emerged in some common structural conditions and discourses of neoliberal economic rationality. For instance, in Chicago’s metroregion, Lipman (1998, 2004) reports that, increasingly, community and teacher resistance to bilingual education is taking a hold – schools have become a new nodal point where racial, ethnic, class, linguistic, cultural, and economic diversity are pitting communities against each other, struggling with new relations of power and privilege. In the shifting sociodemographics of inner cities, edge cities, and metroregional suburban “cities,” “schools are being reconstituted as multiracial, multilingual, multiethnic, multiclassed spaces with a new set of social and cultural dynamics” (Lipman, 2004, p. 158) which require new and different pedagogic and curricular approaches, research questions and analytic lenses than those formulated under the 1980s’ liberal “multiculticulturalism” or current neoliberal agendas. In the first section of the chapter, we look at shifts of the urban terrain. Here we identify what counts as “urban” in contemporary times, highlighting aspects of urban worlds that are becoming increasingly critical for research on youth culture and literacies. In the second section, we look at some research on everyday popular and digital literacy practices of urban youth. The purpose is to map trajectories of investigation that may enable alternatives to nostalgic conceptualizations of school literacy education. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research to support forms of literacy education commensurate with shifting economic conditions, social worlds, and individual lives in urban futures.
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Shifting Terrains of the Urban We begin by offering three arguments for why research on urban youth literacies does not take the “urban” as co-terminous with inner city places. These constitute, literally, a reshaping of the social geographic space of the city and its communities, a “virtualization” of urban youth culture, and the expansion of these cultures into what were hitherto “non-urban” sites and places. First, as is evident from debate over notions of “edge cities” and “global cities” (e.g., Clark, 2003; Smith, 2001), the relatively self-contained monocentric industrial city of the West has given way to more complexly-linked polycentric urban agglomerations. As a consequence, social problems of poverty and inequality historically associated with inner cities have not only deepened with global economic restructuring, but also spread across sprawling urban and suburban regions (Castells, 2004). De-industrialization and gentrification of inner cities have led to a diaspora of poverty in the rural hinterlands and edge cities of Australian urban areas. Mismatches of cultural resources required for school success, disengagement with historically venerated forms of pedagogy and curricula, and “unruly” behavior are some of the problems encountered in schools of these new communities of disadvantage (Luke & Carrington, 2002). Meanwhile, in the schools of gentrifying inner cities, “nurturing giftedness” now competes for priority with “remediation” and “compensation” (Jacobson, 2002). When one of us (Karen) moved from teaching in edge city to inner city schools during the 1990s, there was a certain continuity of urban concerns. The remedial teacher, the speech pathologist, the guidance officer, the special education teacher, and the ESL teacher remained frequent visitors to my classroom. But the territory was unfamiliar too. This was a school where children of Asian restaurateurs and yuppies living in renovated queenslander homes enrolled alongside kids from rental flats and rundown houses, and children of the unemployed, kitchen hands, and prostitutes. In this school, there was the cultural stress of students driven to outperform others and themselves constantly, and demands for more and more difficult work from successful students attending after-school coaching academies. Meanwhile, there was that group of boys (ranging from “gifted” to “dyslexic”) that rushed through print work to get to the computer to do what, precisely, at every chance? These were the same students that invented elaborate subterfuges to hide gameboys which would have had to be confiscated had a teacher seen them. The literacy practices and preferences of these urban and suburban boys point to a second characteristic of contemporary urban terrains of literacy: the urban is as much a virtual, representational and imaginary space as it is a physical site. Contrary to some 1960s predictions with origins in myths that have been in circulation during more than a century of technological innovation, intensifying use of new media technologies did not undermine the existence of urban areas. Rather, ICTs have become integral to accelerated and global processes of urbanization (Castells, 2004; Florida, 2005; Graham, 2004). One consequence is the colonization of urban youth and culture by digital representation. Furthermore, with the virtualization of urban cultures, youths’ lifeworlds have become infinitely expandable across space and time. New media technologies and contemporary means of travel have resulted in the wider circulation of cosmopolitan ideas, images, technologies and sociocultural practices historically associated with the city.
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As a consequence, it cannot be assumed that the lifeworlds of youth in Chinese factory towns for example (Smith, 2001), or in the places of remote, rural and provincial Australia, are outside circuits of the cosmopolitan, nor that they do not overlap in virtual spaces. Youth who hang out in the shopping malls, on the basketball courts and the Internet in these urban places and spaces have been described as “world kids.” Yet, as before, the worlds of these kids are stratified by wealth: poverty positions some more as consumers than producers of youth culture (Luke & Carrington, 2002). In addition to changes to what counts as “urban,” it seems that the urban is becoming at once more and less heterogeneous. Unprecedented global flows of people and culture are, for example, multiplying languages in urban places and virtual spaces even as linguistic diversity per se seems threatened by English qua global lingua franca. At the same time, intralingual diversity is expanding. In the case of English, the lingua franca functions of the language are leading to increasingly specialized technical, professional and lifeworld registers. In this context, it is almost axiomatic for youth to note the incomprehensibility of registers of their digital literate practices to teachers (Sefton-Green, 2005). Furthermore, interlingual contact, between English and other languages in particular, is likewise creating intralingual diversity, whether in standard “world Englishes” of Nigeria, Singapore and so forth, or in online hybrids of local languages and English (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). Paradoxically, individuals’ experience of linguistic and cultural difference is not necessarily commensurate with the degree of social plurality in urban areas. Historically, the city was notable as the place of encounter with difference (Soja, 1996). But there seems to be a new order of class and racial segregation in at least some urban places of the West. As evidence of a re-making of urban problems of social discrimination and exclusion (Gilroy, 2002; Stevenson, 2003), urbanists point to gated communities, privatization of public spaces of leisure such as parks and playgrounds, shopping megamalls as sites of consumption, entertainment, healthcare and daycare, family time, dating and so forth, surveillance and profiling of demographic “others” feared by the affluent and powerful (e.g., poor, young, male, ethnolinguistic minority). Student identities, for example, were bounded strongly by race in Karen’s inner city school in the period leading up to so-called national debates on race, Asian immigration, and indigenous affairs. When money went missing from the classroom, a group of Asian students suggested that “a black person” was the thief. Meanwhile, two southern European immigrants refused to ever paste anything bearing Chinese characters into their scrapbooks. And during a whole class discussion, some of the white boys asked the color of the person sought by police after the arson attack on the classroom, provoking some of the white middle-class girls to declare that color “doesn’t matter and talking about it isn’t nice,” a position not shared by the girl who asked why the Aboriginal flag was not flown for her uncles at the school’s Anzac Day ceremony. Coupled with the eclipse of mass media by niche communications, fragmentation of populations by race and wealth is implicated in the emergence of myriad segregated subcultures in contemporary urban areas (Gilroy, 2002; Stevenson, 2003). It has been suggested that reconstruction of the Western city, or at least some Western cities, as well as mega cities in the south and east (e.g., Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Shanghai or Jakarta) is underway after the fallout of economic restructuring and technological change (Caldeira, 1996; Hutton & Giddens, 2001). Growing valorization
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of urbanity, street life, civic culture, and symbolic architectural forms are all cited as evidence of a new culture of cities in urban regions. Connectivity, shared meaning, and public places are key themes for planners, architects and designers of the physical spaces of the urban (Castells, 2004). Others are less sanguine, seeing these same phenomena as manifestations and causes of urban segmentation, noting for example, that gentrification forces the poor from inner cities (Jacobson, 2002; Watson, 2006). In the vernacular, as sprayed on a wall above an inner Brisbane city (Australia) building site: “Yuppies kill ghettos.” And yet, the urban cultural and linguistic mix which is widely argued to have eroded modernist nation-state affiliations, “citizenship” and sense of belonging (Harvey, 1996; Holton, 1998), also creates new allegiances and alliances, new political commonalities based on shared local(ized) resistance rather than monocultural national identifications. Caldeira (1996), for instance, argues that local political participation among groups of diverse cultural origin may be increasingly necessary “to make those cities liveable and to improve the quality of life of the impoverished population, increasingly consisting of immigrants” (p. 326). In light of what Sennett (2000) calls the urban elite’s “abandonment” of the public realm to the culturally diverse middle and lower class urban goods and service workers, “people contest each other for places in schools, use of street space, the imprint on leisure spaces like parks and pubs. These are the city’s raw social edges, but they have a defined class character” (p. 181). In other words, what Sennett argues is that the engine of gentrification powered by the “new money” global elite living and working in the inner city of London or New York, pushes out inhabitants of decayed inner city precincts, reclaims and renames warehouses and tenements, and reconstructs an inner city economy of restaurants, lofts, galleries, private schools and childcare centres, which are serviced and cleaned by the working class poor – service workers that have either been left behind, new migrants just arrived in the inner city, or else evacuees displaced from the city to cheaper edge cities from which they commute to the centres where they once lived. Sennett argues that “new money uses the city but makes little effort to run it … [it] reigns over restaurants and flats [but] has shown little desire to govern those hospitals, schools, libraries and other public aspects of the city” (p. 181). It is among the mass of people at the “bottom,” not ruled by but servicing a privatized elite “above,” that struggles over social and economic goods and privileges in the public realm (e.g., education, healthcare, housing, etc.) are waged. This, we would argue, requires a new kind of literacy education – one that is both cultural and political – that makes transparent the workings of capitalism and globalization in the places of everyday life; and the spatial and textual shaping of identities, whether through spatial segregations or homogeneity in neighborhoods or shopping malls (Davis, 2006), or in “old” and “new” media texts. It would include a critical literacy of the texts (e.g., bureaucratic forms and procedures) and processes of democratic governance, community building, rights and responsibilities, and what we might call “intercultural” communication in order to achieve the possibilities of Caldeira’s (1996) or Freire’s (1972) “resistance” as common ground among difference, as shared resources and building blocks to contest the city hall, to reclaim edge or inner cityscapes, the public spaces and services abandoned by the new Brahmin army of the cosmopolitan urban elite.
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It is a literacy of public culture and citizenship in the broadest sense, engaging with print and visual texts of old and new media, with “old” established texts and rules of community governance, municipal bi-laws or procedures for submissions to district hospital, parks, or school boards, and with creating “new” texts in various media with which to generate change and reform, to garner diverse community support for a shared goal, or to “take on city hall.” Literacy education has historically been a national project, invested with political interests of assimilation, forcing homogeneity on heterogeneous diversity, and depolarizing the co-optive agendas of public schooling, all the while enacting an ideology of erasing and subjugating difference; or else recasting difference as deficit in need of special and remedial education guaranteed to lead to exit certification that would provide fodder for working class jobs, and re-entry into the social class habitus and constraints that students’ parents hoped their children could escape. In a controversial theory that raises doubts about the ultimate sustainability of the contemporary compact of economic radicalism and social conservatism, Florida (2005) suggests that tolerance, diversity and inclusion characterize cities that flourish in the “creative economy” (described by others as “the knowledge society,” “information society” or “high-tech economy”). The claim is that it is their cultures of “cool” (urbanity, street life and so forth) that enable such cities to attract talent integral to economic success. From this perspective, it is suggested that economic and social fissures that are deepening in general, and in leading creative regions in particular, might be reduced by bringing vastly more people into the technologically new and creative economy as producers, a move that requires careful nurturing of talent and intercultural understanding. Florida’s (2005, p. 176) claims about Australia being one of the “smaller, more nimble countries that have well-established mechanisms for social cohesion and are able both to mobilize their own creative energy from all segments of society, and to compete effectively for global talent,” might be considered overstatements by many Australian urban theorists (cf. Gleeson, 2006; Peel, 2003; Thomson, 2002). Nonetheless, we contend that visions of Australian urban reconstruction prompt some interesting questions for educational systems: What kind of teacher of literacy can be envisioned for world kids? Which pedagogical practices do they enact? How does such a teacher engage with technologically and socially heterogeneous literacies among world kids in schools located on socially fractured urban terrains? What sorts of post-national education systems are needed as contexts for new teacher identities and work? What sort of teacher preparation is required to shape teacher knowledge, professionalism, social inclusion and social justice commitments? In the next section of this chapter, we review research investigating youth literacies at the core of these questions about the future of urban education.
English as a Second Language Literacies in Popular and Digital Youth Cultures Australian researchers have investigated digital and popular culture practices of urban Australian adolescents from migrant and second language speaking families. These students now constitute approximately a quarter of all Australian school-aged children.
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Their work describes and de-mythologizes technologically and linguistically diverse literacies of second language users and learners. In this sense, it is part of wider efforts to map global flows of language and culture in online and popular cultures, including those of ethnolinguistic diaspora (e.g., see the collections edited by Karim, 2003, and Snyder & Beavis, 2004), and also to describe everyday literacy practices of digital youth (e.g., Alexander, 2006; Snyder & Beavis, 2004). This work marks a more general turning away in the ESL field from long-held assumptions about difference as fixed, pre-existing factors contributing to language outcomes, addressing instead ways that learners become diverse through engagement with second languages (e.g., Benson & Nunan, 2004). But it is distinctive in the second language field in its theorization of: (1) language as symbolic capital and site of identity construction; (2) language acquisition as situated learning or socialization into communities of practice; and (3) multiplicity and fluidity of identities of second language users as agents investing in linguistic and cultural capital (see Pavlenko, 2002 for a comprehensive review of this emerging body of research). Two projects of particular interest for urban education are described in some detail below. An interesting set of ethnographic studies with immigrant Cantonese-speaking students in a west-coast US city (Kramsch & Lam, 1999; Lam, 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Lam & Kramsch, 2003) compared and contrasted school literacy education with everyday language, literacies, and identities constructed in popular and online cultures, including: ●
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English language homepages, chat and email of an online Japanese pop music community of Asian youth from the US, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong and Canada; a Cantonese/English bilingual chat room frequented by youth from Hong Kong, North America, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia; a website in an English/Japanese/Cantonese trilingual anime community of youth from North America, Australia, Asia, Europe and Latin America; and transnational Cantonese/Japanese/English subcultures of readers of comic books from Hong Kong, Japan and the US.
The studies described new forms of language, identity, language learning, and literate practice created by urban youth. Chatroom language, for example, was a distinctive mix of the visual code of emoticons with the linguistic code of English studded with romanized Cantonese terms of address and particles. Identities constructed through this language differed from those of monolingual speakers of either Cantonese or English, offering possibilities for opposition to the hegemonic power exerted by the nation-state on its heterogeneous population through homogenizing English language education. Moreover, identities of esteem as friend or webmaster, and success as language learner, were created in contrast with low achiever, low status identities ascribed in remedial, ESL and mainstream placements at school with its regime of print basics and standard/ized English literacy tests. There was evidence too of young people constructing portfolios of web-page literacy practices, and capabilities in creative thinking, project management, collaborative work, and autonomous learning in tune with the demands of new economy workplaces (Kramsch & Lam, 1999; Lam, 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Lam & Kramsch, 2003).
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In research on Japan, Malay and Australian youth, Pennycook (2003a, 2003b, 2005) documented new forms of language, identity, language learning, and literate practice in urban rap/hip-hop music and culture. The basic premise of this research was that rap/hip-hop is a global urban youth subculture, not an essentially African-American cultural form imposed upon or appropriated only parodically by others. As in Lam’s research, there was interest in creative agency, resistance, and appropriation, at the local level in the face of the structural power of global English. The focus was on ways that language use constitutes identity through performativity of culture, specifically, through identification with English, and mixing of English with other languages in situations of transcultural contact. Playful or mock uses of language were of interest, especially in relation to transcultural flows of mass media and youth marketing styling “the other.” Pennycook (2003a, 2005) concluded that English is not a foreign language in Japanese rap music and hip-hop culture, but part of Japanese language and culture. In one of the study songs, for example, (ethnically Japanese) rappers identify as Japanese through references to places in Tokyo written in kanji, and as culturally mixed through use of romaji/English script alongside kanji, katakana and hiragana. At the same time, the English of the songs sometimes echoes African-American English lexically and phonologically (e.g., the iconic “yo”), while at other times, the phonology and syntax of the English are distinctively Japanese. Through this mixing of Japanese and English, the rappers create a language – a non-standard English or “raplish” – which they speak as native users. And by using this language, they constitute identity; they perform, invent and re-fashion a transnational Japanese identity through selective investment in English. Different, but related dynamics of the Japanese rappers’ hybrid, cosmopolitan experience of postindustrial signifying practices are evident in Anglo-American youth subcultures, and, through complex flows, in hip-hop cultures in urban and inner city centers of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Lam and Pennycook valorize emergent Asian youth cultures, and turn a more critical eye to the implications of these new practices for current approaches to school literacy education. They raise a series of both research and development questions: How might schooling take ESL students seriously as creators and successful teachers and learners of forms of the global lingua franca? How might culturally affirmative models of literacy education disrupt (or contribute to) reproduction of racially stratified urban economic and social orders in different cultural and political economic contexts? How might they promote ways of being and doing necessary for populations of urban schools to participate powerfully in global economic and social conditions? How might they engage with young immigrants’ racial identifications, encouraging critique of material conditions, and creating literate practices that enable meaning and connection across difference? On a theoretical and methodological level, poststructuralist linguistic and sociological approaches yield very different findings from conventional psycholinguistic and cognitive developmental approaches to second language literacy research and development. The latter, historically, have tended to position multilingual urban, minority and migrant youth as in need of ameliorative, augmentative or specialized educational treatment in order to “catch up” with or “compete” with dominant, monolingual academic
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and school cultures. And yet we need much more methodologically and paradigmatically diverse research on urban and edge city sociodemographics. Lipman’s Chicago research (2004) is a case in point. The new multilingual educational scapes of urban education requires critical blends of social and cultural geography, political economy, labor market studies, urban studies, and current interdisciplinary research on cosmopolitanism, globalization, creative industries, and so forth. Frameworks capable of mapping language and literacy investments, and struggles for identity, will remain necessary as popular and online urban youth cultures continue to evolve in transnational flows of language and culture enabled by new media technologies on the one hand, and forced by labor migration flows and mass-scale community displacements on the other. In the face of demographic and cultural change of this magnitude and, indeed, uncertainty, the response of Australian education systems has been notable. Over the last decade, there have been general attempts to streamline curriculum organization, focusing on assessment models built around “outcomes-based” education. In overall systems rhetoric, Australian state and federal policies have gradually embraced the common discourses of OECD and East Asian education, resetting the production of skilled human capital on the ostensible requisites of “knowledge economies.” These have led to tertiary content emphases on the new biosciences, information technologies, and business, accountancy models. More recently, especially post-9/11, curriculum debates have returned to issues of values, national history, and intercultural understandings. The generic skills in such models beyond the basics are those of critical thinking, independent problem-solving, group work, life-long learning, and entrepreneurship. Yet the substantive educational reforms have principally followed American and UK Neoliberalism, with marketization of schools, commodification of curriculum, and increased standardized achievement measures put in place. With the exception of Queensland’s 1999–2005 “New Basics” curriculum reforms (Luke, 2004), there have been few attempts to envision contemporary models of curriculum and pedagogy that capture the realities and capital resources of new urban youth.
Catching up with New Youth Literacies What kind of literacy educator and literacy education do we envision in the range of new community fusions, spaces and places we have outlined above? A critical literacy pedagogy insists that educators engage students in a critical dialogue with capitalism, globalization, commodity culture, cultural difference and diversity, patriarchy and gender politics, geographies of power and privilege, and new material conditions (e.g., Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). While some more fundamentalist approaches to education will continue to stress traditional print literacy basics, a return to national values, and a reconnoitering of industrial-era secular values around family, work and community, our view is that these are, at best, “holding actions,” and at worst, act as deliberate ideological misrecognitions of the very profound educational issues at hand. The very idea that core, simple and literal truths are the best cognitive, developmental and
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epistemic tools for navigating the dynamic, volatile and unpredictable landscape of educational change seems to us at best naïve. What the emergent work on new youth cultures in Australia and Asia tells us is that education systems that take this holding pattern response risk becoming progressively less relevant, other than mere official credentialing “routes.” The creative energies of many urban youth today are focused upon the generation of new texts, from messaging and blogs and webpages, to the embodied face-to-face performance of music, rap and dance. In the debates over teacher education, there has been a strong concentration on “filling up” teacher gaps in traditional disciplinary knowledge, and in refining behavior management strategies and techniques for teaching the “basics” of print literacy. Our view is that the baseline requisites of teaching in new conditions will require teachers who: ●
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fluently engage in the lingua franca of youth culture, possessing a familiar range of cultural forms and modalities, both old and new, residual and emergent; exercise everyday access to the new creative commons of the digital archive (Kapitzke & Bruce, 2005), and are as resourceful with these as their predecessors might have been with the encyclopedia, dictionary and print canon; build intercultural and global connections, virtual and material, with teachers, researchers and educators across borders; develop a critical “take” on the complex push/pull effects of cultural and economic globalization as these impact the life pathways, experiences, motivation structures and values of their students and colleagues.
A critical literacy education built around concepts of multiliteracies has the capacity to enable students to look at themselves, others and their everyday lifeworlds in selfreflexive and critical ways. This can entail understanding how text and image create preferred and counter “reading” positions; how they broadcast and narrowcast lessons about others (e.g., the global roll-out of a virulent “them” and “us” discourse following the 9/11 terrorist attacks); while simultaneously exploring and expanding students’ repertoires at using text/image, but spatiality to position others (e.g., bullying; classroom and teacher seating arrangements), to represent ourselves, to get things done, and so forth. This is already occurring online, in study and chat rooms, in videogaming environments, and in homes – where many youth act as “go-betweens” not just between migrant or indigenous and dominant cultures, but between print and virtual cultures, between the industrial lifeworlds of their parents and those digital worlds where they and others will work and play. It is in this context – of the virtual urban – that educators cannot afford to carry on with business as usual, hammering away at content without attending to the localglobal interconnections that inform students’ engagement with their local lifeworld. Rather, educators “need to take account of emerging synergies among cultural formations and practices, new technological initiatives, and emerging populations and markets” (Green, Reid, & Bigum, 1998, p. 22). That is to say, we cannot look at literacy, pedagogy, or curriculum independent of issues around the politics of globalization, rapid ICT development, new synergies among culturally and linguistically diverse
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populations, new topographies of poverty, and new economic and social networks. Students may well be globally connected in fusion rap talk with friends across the globe whether through email, internet, satellite, digital video or other cultural flows, yet live in family and community circumstances of poverty and neighborhood crime. Yet these same (migrant) families may well be “upwardly mobile” breadwinners of a much larger family network which relies on transnational remittances from Sydney to Jakarta or from the Ethiopian taxi driver in Chicago to much poorer extended family back home. In that sense, we can see different possibilities “for new forms of agency “from below” (Smith, 2001, p. 109) and different kinds of local-to-local links via transnational flows of globalization. What this suggests to us is that the kind of literacy we would advocate engages students in more fine-grained analysis of cosmopolitan identity, community, the social, the political, the complexities of experience of global citizenship (on- or off-line), the contradictions of power, poverty, privilege. The educational stakes are become clearer, the rough parameters for a reconceptualist curriculum contract that constructs the new human subject for these contexts are being negotiated – but most important, youth are busying themselves with reinventing teaching/learning relations, textual practices and their life pathways in virtual and real spaces other than the urban school. It may be an unprecedented historical moment: where the technological capacity, cultural understandings and critical engagements with new economies and societies of youth sit in advance of those designing, developing and teaching curriculum.
References Alexander, J. (2006). Digital youth: Emerging literacies on the World Wide Web. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Alloway, N., Freebody, P., Gilbert, P., & Muspratt, S. (2002). Boys, literacy and schooling: Expanding the repertoires of practice. Canberra: Department of Science, Education and Training. Blackmore, J. (2007). Equity and social justice in Australian education systems: Retrospect and prospect. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 249–264). Dordrecht: Springer. Benson, P., & Nunan, D. (2004). Learners’ stories: Difference and diversity in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cahill, D. (1996). Immigration and schooling in the 1990s. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Caldeira, T. (1996). Fortified enclaves: The new urban segregation. Public Culture, 8(2), 303–328. Castells, M. (2004). Space of flows, space of places: Materials for a theory of urbanism in the Information Age. In S. Graham (Ed.), The cybercities reader (pp. 82–93). London and New York: Routledge. Clark, W. A. V. (2003). Monocentric to polycentric: New urban forms and old paradigms. In G. Bridge, & S. Watson (Eds.), A companion to the city (pp. 140–54). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge. Davis, M. (1990). City of quartz: Excavating the future in Los Angeles. London: Verso. Davis, M. (2006). Planet of slums. London: Verso. Department of Science, Education and Training. (2002a). The application of information and communication technologies in the assessment of literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling. Canberra: Department of Science, Education and Tanining. Department of Science, Education and Training. (2002b). Literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling: An overview. Canberra: Department of Science, Education and Tanining.
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21 URBAN EDUCATION IN EUROPE: SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Elisabet Öhrn* and Gaby Weiner† *
University College of Borås (School of Education and Behavioural Sciences), Sweden Umeå University, Sweden/Centre for Educational Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
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Urban education is not a familiar term in Western Europe. It is a recognizable phenomenon but used in different ways based on geography, history, and political perspective. For example, the Spanish consider urban education as largely associated with compensatory education, and the integration of immigrants (Rambla & Bonal, 2007; Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007), while in Finland, urban education is a multiple discourse associated with inner-city, poverty and disadvantage but also silencing the problems of rural communities (Gordon, 2007). It may refer to the cultural demands of the sophisticated and rich, associated with the arts and business, or as a signifier of school failure and problems of social class. It is also used in theoretical discussion involving bodies and spaces, as in understandings of how urban citizenship is constructed and supported or restricted by education. Another meaning put forward by Gobbo (2007) is as a way of learning civil manners, desirable or necessary in urban contexts. The aim of this section introduction is to provide a rationale and overview for the contributions that follow. In reflecting on the wider Western European context and as an introduction to the section chapters, our aim is to dismantle or deconstruct the phrase “urban education” to show its complexity and multiple usage. In particular, we draw on our own work related to this topic, for example, Öhrn’s empirical work on gender, ethnicity and class in urban classrooms and Weiner’s exploration of concepts involving Europeanness, gender, “race” and ethnicity (e.g., Öhrn, 1998, 2005; Weiner, 2000, 2002). We begin with a consideration of what being European means in the current context followed by a discussion of European urban education, including teacher education. We then explore common themes ascribed to education in urban contexts such as gender, ethnicity, and racism; disaffection and identity, social class, democracy, and intervention. The introduction ends with an overview of the individual articles that make up the Western European section of the Handbook.
397 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 397–412. © 2007 Springer.
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Urban Education Western or “Old” Europe What does it mean to be a European? According to various dictionary definitions, a European may be someone who belongs to Europe as an inhabitant or who is born within the boundaries of the continent of Europe. It has also been used to refer to a “person of European extraction who lives outside Europe; hence a white person, especially in a country with a predominantly non-white population” (Simpson & Weiner, 1972, quoted in Coulby & Jones, 1995, p. 50). The assumption in this definition (later removed) is that “Europeanness” and “whiteness” is synonymous. As Coulby and Jones point out, however, rather more flexible concepts of Europeanness are needed. The trouble is that if a European is seen as a long fixed, rather than constantly changing category, significant groups of the European population are excluded, being seen in some way, as non-European. It therefore should come as no surprise that the European-born descendants of more recent groups of immigrants into Europe in the post-war period are seen as some sort of non-European “invasive” group of people by sections of the population. (Coulby & Jones, 1995, p. 51) Moreover having the right to identify as a European, and actually doing so, are different matters. As the 1980s British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher so frequently pointed out, for many people living within the boundaries of the UK, being English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British may have far more meaning than any association with “continental” or “mainland” Europe. The “imagined community” as Anderson (1983) put it, of the British state in the 1980s was constructed by Thatcherism as anti-European. Perhaps this weak sense of European identity is one reason why, in the early 1990s, the EU actively constructed its own “imagined community” with its creation of a flag, anthem, passport, and citizenship (Brine, 1999). The concept of imaginary in relation to Europe is useful in that it acknowledges emotion and identity as well as social reality. It can be employed, for example, in defining the European Union itself or in terms of the “old” Europe, represented by the traditional European states. Alternatively, imaginary might be conceived in relation to the wider Europe incorporating “new” Europe (i.e., countries of Eastern Europe which in 2004 entered the European Union); or as a means of holding the line against the encroachment of the USA. Braidotti uses the concept of imaginary to envision a hopeful future for Europe. She argues for a post-nationalist imaginary of European identity and flexible citizenship, drawing on the feminist politics of location as a method and strategy. My question therefore becomes: how do you develop such a new European imaginary? I think that such a notion is a project, not a given; nonetheless, this does not make it Utopian in the sense of over-idealistic. It is even the contrary: It is a virtual social reality which can be actualised by a joint endeavour on the part of active, conscious and desiring citizens. (Braidotti, 2004, pp. 139–140)
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Less and more optimistic notions of Europeanness are echoed in several of the articles in this section; notably, by the Hip Hoppers of Gothenburg who view Europe as an oppressive, false or excluding reality (Sernhede) or by the Spanish emerging from the Franco era, who see it as a modernizing force or entity (Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007). Nevertheless, Delanty (2005) argues that Europe has a social (and economic) reality that cannot be denied. Thus Europeanization has a form which is more than just a vision or combination of states working together. It is a supernational entity in tension with the nation entity. “It is possible” Delanty (2005, p. 410) argues, “to speak of the rise of a Europe cultural model, in which social realities emerge out of discursive frameworks.” Therefore perhaps at the present time, it is useful to envision Europe as an idea (or imaginary) which has multiple and often contradictory meanings and also a social and economic entity with a GNP approximating to that of the USA.
What is the Urban in Urban Education? As we have seen, European urbanities and suburbanities are differently constructed and realized. In France and the Nordic countries, for instance, ethnicity and class are suburbanized, whereas in Germany and Spain minorities and working class cohabit more within the city – although sometimes residing in different parts. For example, van Zanten (2005) notes an ongoing differentiation in France, especially in Paris, where the bourgeoisie have been found to consolidate its presence in a number of locations. She also points to a general tendency for lower-class groups to be driven out of big European cities by rising housing market prices and the development of business districts. This is enhanced by a process of “gentrification” which transformed old lower class and industrial areas into settings adapted to middle-class interests and tastes. Similar tendencies are seen in the USA. For example, Nolan and Anyon (2004, p. 136) note the “new economic and spatial arrangements found in urban areas as a result of globalization” with interconnectedness between concentrations of poverty and “glamour zones” (Sassen, 1998, quoted in Nolan & Anyon, 2004, p. 137). Gordon reminds us that those most likely to operate as global or “glamour” flaneurs are white, middle-class men. Moreover, social exclusion relating to deprived (sub/urban) areas in European countries differs in some respect from the USA. Building on the work of the French sociologist Wacquant, Sernhede (2002, p. 58) stresses that European ghettos are not related to “race” in the same way; “race” in Europe is less decisive in marking social divisions, but rather arises from a marginalized position in the labor (and we would add, housing) markets. European cities and urban areas have become especially important due to migration in the course of the globalization process with excluded groups moving west- and northwards. Also migration has different meanings in contemporary Europe compared with earlier times. Whereas earlier post-war immigration policies aimed at development and growth and were relatively permissive, immigration is now viewed as a problem and to be tightly controlled (Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007). As also shown by Gobbo (2007), each country has specific “internal minorities” or indigenous peoples, whose situation needs to be addressed alongside other minority groups. She highlights the situation of the children of fairground people who have a weakened position within for-
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mal education with their right to formal schooling diminished by a school system insensitive to the occupational nomadism of their parents.
What does Urban Plus Education Mean? As already mentioned, urban education is an under-explored phenomenon in Western European research, though more common in the United States. Where it is perceived of as relevant, it refers to the interrelationship of poverty, immigration, bad schooling etc. in inner-city areas. Location and space are important to Europe. For example, cities need not necessarily be segregated; lower-class workers are needed to service industry across the city resulting, to some extent at least in a social and ethnic mix. Van Zanten (2005, p. 166) suggests that for the lower-class groups, such a mix might bring about educational and other opportunities. Although research shows that some schools are more effective and more equalising than others, the factors leading to a reduction in the gap between lower-class and middle- and upper-class children are much more frequently present in schools where the majority of the student body is of middle- or upper-class background. The social and ethnic composition of urban schools is thus crucially important. Similarly, studies suggest that parental school choices are related not only to their individual (educational) background, but also to the area in which they live. The “area effect” concerns parental tendency to make the kind of choices of the majority in the same area and thus, “Middle-class parents living in working-class neighborhoods choose private pre-schools significantly less often than on average. Working-class parents in middle-class neighbourhoods do the opposite.” (Pérez Prieto, Sahlström, Calander, Karlsson, & Heikkilä, 2002, p. 57). Within mainstream education, location also structures pupil expectations and is thus used as an individual “marker” of economic capital and status (in Britain, known as post-code selection). When accounting for patterns of pupil behavior and achievement in school, the location of neighborhood remains connected to social and cultural background. This multiple source can, it is argued, identify a “certain kind of child,” mostly deprived (Gitz-Johansen, 2003, p. 70). Location however is also sometimes romanticized, symbolizing the longing for an order or local culture long gone, as we see also from Gordon (2007). Stories largely draw on the presumed advantages of a culturally homogenous population (as opposed to the present ethnic diversity). Problems from earlier days might well be acknowledged, but are portrayed as more manageable or acceptable than those of today (Arnesen, 2002). In addition, it is important to address the silences of the non-urban within urban education. As argued throughout this section, “urban” and “urban education” are complex concepts, difficult to apply across national settings. Authors in the section highlight non-urban or rural areas which experience problems similar to or greater than those in urban areas (e.g., lack of teaching resources, low academic achievement). Thus, to focus exclusively on the urban leads to the neglect of problems not visible in cities, such as the need for distance education due to the scarcity of close-at-hand
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educational provision. In some cases, access to education for children in rural areas means having to leave home, family and neighborhood, at least for part of the week. The rural here is a neglected silence at the heart of urban education, which tends to normalize rural settings as invariably safe, uncomplicated, and monocultural. Urban teacher education constitutes another silence. Garm and Karlsen (2004) maintain, rightly in our view, that discourses of teacher education tend to be national rather than local or urban/rural. Moreover as we see from the contribution by Bastien et al. in this section, the field is beset by regulations, and therefore tends to be responsive rather than generative, descriptive rather than analytical. Also, whilst the new educational reforms and rhetoric of the last decades have a clear national mission and agenda in many countries, the reforms may also be seen as an example of globalization with an emphasis on professional and political efforts, say within the European Union, towards greater homogeneity or harmonization. In the early 1970s, for example, the EU began to develop a common policy on education by means of “formal decisions about aims in the field of education and training, and use of intended means to achieve these aims” (Garm & Karlsen, 2004, p. 733). Other “harmonizing” elements involved EU mobility and exchange programs such as Erasmus, Soctrates, and Lingua, and the Bologna process involving the standardization of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and qualifications.
Current Themes in West European Research We attempt, in this section, to capture the wide variety of research which addresses urban education in Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is grouped in themes which also emerge in the articles of this section.
Gender A recent overview of the field of gender and education highlights a number of changes and emphases over the last decade and a half; in particular, in relation to gender identities, theory, and method, and more recently, educational policy, and management. The authors also note the relative over-representation of contributions from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada (Skelton & Frances, 2005). European urban settings more often provide a backdrop to gender studies, as associated with low achievement, poverty, immigrants, minorities etc. Problematizing both the urban and youth cultures has led to a greater research focus on boys and young men, also evident in this section. Thus, interest in formal and informal urban education mainly concerns (postindustrial) fears about out-of-control males running wild in inner cities, and the role that schools have in civilizing them. Young “immigrant” men continue to be demonized in Western Europe, as in the USA, where “Dominant media representations … depict urban youth of color as dangerous criminals and the source of urban chaos” (Nolan & Anyon, 2004, p. 134). In Europe, the media likewise constructs young, non-European men as more violent than others, particularly with respect to sexualized violence and violence against women. This has coincided with the so-called “moral panic” in many countries
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surrounding boys’ underachievement in schools (Epstein, Ellwood, Hey, & Maw, 1998; Lahelma, Hakala, Hynninen, & Lappalainen, 2000; Weiner, Arnot, & David, 1997). There have however been criticisms of youth researchers for not exploring the positions and activities of young women – nor indeed, taking a gender perspective on young men’s constructions of masculinity (Phoenix, 1997). Gordon (2007) likewise affirms that the concept of citizenship is strongly gendered in terms of its historical underpinning as associated with white men (and property). Thus, following the early work within gender and education that focused mainly on girls, the position reversed in the 1990s with more research on boys and masculinities which emphasized the various constraints related to their present situation. Young men are pictured as deprived of the options available to earlier male generations which has had an impact on their identity formation (see Lois Weis, 1990). The situation for young working-class girls has not nearly been as much discussed. Indeed, Trondman (1995) suggests that girls are advantaged in the sense that they might well expect a brighter future due to their better response to “market” demands for higher education. Öhrn (2000) notes the different ways from the 1990s onwards, in which girls and boys have been treated in gender studies. The focus for boys has been on poor achievement, poor behavior, and lack of work opportunities while, for girls, research has prioritized agency rather than subject positioning and different forms of femininity and subjectivity.
Ethnicity, Racism and Immigration The presence of racism and various forms of discrimination have been a longstanding feature of European culture, and indeed, it is rightly argued that “racism” was invented in Europe (MacMaster, 2001). Certainly its manipulation by political elites has extended over several centuries with often horrifying consequences, most recently, in the post-communist Balkan civil wars of the 1990s (Glenny, 1992). Thus, one of EU’s express aims is to eliminate as much as possible, the overt and destructive racisms which have laid Europe so low in the past, and to use education as a means of so doing. Europe has become a novel experiment in multiple, tiered, mediated multiculturalisms, a supranational community of cultures, subcultures and transcultures inserted differentially into radically different political and cultural traditions. The consequences of this re-imagining and re-making of a new Europe are seen variously to be threatening or utopian. (Modood & Werbner, 1997, p. vii) A contradiction currently facing Europe is the twin policy pursued; on the one hand of legislating against anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of discrimination, and on the other, of restricting immigration, tolerating explicitly racist parties, and barely taking any action at all against everyday racism. Thus, as Van Dijk shows, racism is a political object to be exploited and fought over. In Italy, Austria, Denmark and Holland more or less explicitly racist parties may win up to 30% of the vote and even become partners in government coalitions.
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On the one hand, such developments are at first officially condemned and decried, on the basis of the prevalent non-racist norm, as happened with Haider in Austria. But on the other hand liberal principles or Realpolitik usually get the upper hand, and tolerate racist parties as part of the “democratic” consensus – as one opinion among others, as is the case in Denmark, France and Italy. (Van Dijk, 2005, p. 13) This twin approach – condemnation and tolerance of racism – makes discourses of democracy and antiracism difficult to defend in schools, in particular, when racist messages are visible and to some extent approved in political speeches, pamphlets, on the Internet, and in everyday speech and interaction. So, it will come as no surprise, that most (though not all) teachers across Europe, when confronted with the necessity dealing with overt racism, tend to do very little – preferring to concentrate more on what they consider to be their core work as subject teachers. Teachers thus generally offer a range of arguments for non-engagement: for example, not part of teachers’ job description, no problem of racism in their school or classroom, not enough time available, too complex an area, lack of training to deal with issues, and so on (Gaine, 2005). However, it needs also to be reiterated that some teachers have in the past and continue to, take these issues very seriously indeed. Structural factors are certainly important. For example, one shared concern across Europe is that initial and in-service teacher education offers neither a sufficiently comprehensive introduction to student–teachers to the field of multicultural/intercultural/ antiracist education nor strategies to deal with racial conflicts and disputes when they arise in the classroom. Another concerns the failure of politicians and policy-makers to recognize the importance of allowing the establishment of faith (or religious) schools for religious groups other than Judo–Christian. The argument is that this failure creates feelings of grievance, unfair treatment and victimization, will sharply impacts on other areas of social life (Modood, 1997). The general failure also to recruit minority ethnic teachers, another structural factor, has also been difficult to resolve; possibly due to the traditional role of the teacher (and school) as transmitter of a nation’s culture and traditions. Controversies over the curriculum, and its cultural base have occurred in some countries, with the preference among educational policymakers for choosing Greece, Rome, and in western European Christianity as the main influences on the European curriculum rather than seeking for a more plural, inclusive curriculum model (Shah, 2000). Moreover, the existence of different forms of racism has added to the complexity of schooling. Modood (1997) identifies three predominant European racisms: antiSemitism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy, although more locally targeted racism, say against Roma, can be equally dangerous. These different forms have emerged in different countries at different times with varying degrees of force and danger, to some extent the consequence of national histories and political cultures. If, as in Scandinavia, it is possible to identify related but different forms of racism (anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, white supremacy), these are … related to national histories and national political cultures. The Nazi invasions of Denmark and Norway in the 1940s make it close to impossible to be a Nazi nationalist in these
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countries today in the way that is possible in Sweden. So, similarly, there are different forms of anti-racism, different conceptions of racial equality and different forms of multiculturalism across Europe. (Modood, 1997, p. 4) Thus Modood suggests that as the forms of racism and history of racism differ across Europe, so too will the strategies and educational policies needed, if they are seriously to challenge or eliminate racism where it exists and flourishes in schools. So, one-sizefits-all policy-making is clearly not an option here. Terminology is of a considerable importance in this context. Central to the Western European situation is the co-habitation of people from different ethnic backgrounds in marginalized urban settings. While a highly diverse group, they are frequently homogenized as not belonging to the majority, mainly through skin color and language of origin. In many European countries, minorities are referred to as “immigrant,” however long their period of residence. As shown by some of the contributions in this section, this labeling is conceptualized differently. Newly immigrant youngsters in northern Spain, interviewed by Zufiaurre and Peñalva, say they dislike being called “immigrants,” feel that their identities are lost in the word’s negative implications, and prefer rather to be called “foreign.” In contrast, those interviewed by Sernhede in Sweden claim a positive meaning of “immigrant” as a unifying concept. This latter group is well established and considers itself to be tight clique which shares a criticism of mainstream society and its position within it. For this group, claiming the concept of “immigrant” is a political act and practice.
Identity, Disaffection and Critique Aesthetic practices are central to the lives of youth today (McCarthy, 2004). Music, dance, and clothes are used by youth to define themselves, to develop a sense of community, and also as for instance in rap and Hip Hop music, to develop and voice social critique (Nolan & Anyon, 2004). Through this, they connect to other urban areas across the globe. Sernhede (2007) discusses the “glocal” consciousness of Hip Hop where north European youth relates to, and identifies with, Afro-American culture especially in urban US settings. Such global belonging indicates the political potential of youth cultures such as Hip Hop; and their importance for expressing social criticism by ethnically differentiated sub-proletariats in European urbanities such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Stockholm (Sernhede, 2002). However, we also suggest that in drawing heavily on Afro-American experiences and struggles, young people bring about a form of globalised “Americanisation.” Sernhede discusses the influence of American “gangster-rap” which is critical of racism yet also articulates contempt for women and romanticizes violence. Thus, identity and understandings are “exported” to areas with different materialities and social problems, where they crucially affect perceptions of neighborhood, gang conflict, peer and gender relations etc. Following Willis (1977), recent research also shows urban working-class boys, both “black” and “white,” as continuing to reject the intellectual ideals of schooling, as largely “feminine” and middle class ( Kryger, 1990). However, we can also see informal learning taking place in the sense of identity work which challenges hegemonic
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understandings related to class, “race,” and gender. More systematic attempts to foster non-hegemonic understandings can be seen in the work, for example, of Reay and Mirza, (1997) who studied Saturday or evening schools run locally by groups in the community. Sernhede (2007) likewise shows informal teaching and learning where young urban men teach the younger ones about “black” or native Latin American history and religion. By so doing, this informal teaching develops understandings of the present and the past, about nations and the global, that challenge those presented in formal schooling.
Social Class Analyses of social class have largely disappeared from the mainstream agenda, with criticism of grand theories that “championed” social class over other research issues (Archer & Leathwood, 2003, p. 228). However, there has recently been a renewed focus on theoretical analyses of social class to address prevailing social and economic inequalities. For instance, Walkerdine (2003, p. 239) argues for the application of class in relation to subjectivities “because the exploitation and oppression which class politics signals, though changed, has not ceased and no other political discourse has emerged to explain or mobilise around these issues … .” Skeggs (2004) claims a retreat from directly speaking about class within academic spaces, but while arguing for the need to “reinvigorate class analysis” (p. 186), also notes “more recently … a resurgence of interest in class in feminist theory, queer theory, geography, media studies, history, and in some parts of sociology” (p. 47). Ball (2003, p. 5) suggests that contemporary work on social class takes various forms one of which is: “class theory, the attempt to define classes theoretically, and recently to incorporate race and gender within such definitions … .” The latter is evident in recent research on gender, which theoretically emphasizes issues of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1995). It is argued that social class needs to be understood in relation to ethnicity and “race,” as these become increasingly relevant to contemporary Europe: Within this new principle of urban organization, the forms of socio-economic integration can no longer be understood solely in terms of class. More and more, class tends to be combined with ethnicity. This can be seen in France where debates over the poor suburbs and the efficacy of urban policy are systematically linked to the presence of immigrants of North African origin and their social and economic problems. (Cesari, 2005, p. 1016) Ball (2003, p. 6) also notes a recent upsurge of empirical interest in the middle classes but also that there is relatively little empirical or conceptual work on middle-class practices. An exception is Agnes van Zanten (2005, 2007) who identifies different meanings of globalization (in terms of greater international interdependence and supranational integration) in education which affect different sections of the middle class; for example, internationally-oriented entrepreneurs, managers, and professions have wider opportunities than those whose training, activity and networks are more nation-dependent, as in the case of public sector teachers and nurses.
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The employment of categories of class also differs between European countries (Weiner, 2001). In Sweden, for instance, it has been noted that social class is not a concept widely used in everyday life, as workers do not see themselves as belong to a specific class (Ahrne, Ekerwald, & Leiulfsrud, 1985). The situation shifted in the 1990s with a dramatic rise in working class identity (Cigéhn, Johansson, & Karlsson, 2001, p. 126) parallel to a period of economic restructuring involving reductions to the welfare state, a rise in unemployment and a widening gap between rich and poor (Bunar & Trondman, 2001). It is not evident, however, whether this trend is widely shared in Europe and/or whether class identity inevitably sharpens at times of economic retrenchment.
Democracy and Intervention Democracy has been a leitmotif for the European Union, for example, in demands for evidence of democratic governance before countries (such as Turkey) are allowed to join. On the other hand, calls to democracy are not evident in many European school or urban settings. Much European educational research has focused rather on the restructuring of educational systems, in particular, taking account of decentralization, deregulation, changes in governance, and advocacy of life-long learning. Studies have also revealed discourses of creativity, choice, flexibility and initiative as well as achievement and performance measurement, all seen as central to the development of individualized, market-oriented education forms (Beach & Dovemark, 2005). The emphasis on the individual is also visible in citizenship education, with a clear shift in focus from collective democracy to emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual and the freedom of individual choice (Englund, 2003). In contemporary education, issues of citizenship focus strongly on individual rights vis-à-vis the state and the teaching of factual knowledge rather than, on a more critical political literacy approach. Where democracy is consciously taught and practiced, it tends to focus similarly on how individual students can self-monitor their own school performance (Dovemark, 2004). While largely marginalized, more collective democratic forms are evident which, for example, call attention to the lack of equal rights among school students, the difficult situation of subordinated groups in schools and/or the existence of and struggles against, racist practices (Öhrn, 2001). A feature of the two Spanish articles in this section is the attempts at intervention and compensation made by different, mainly socialist and left-leaning governments, to equalize the educational opportunities and outcomes available. These forms of intervention have a strong historical precedent in the Headstart program in the USA in the 1960s which sought to provide compensatory educational activities for young children with families living below the poverty line, so that they had a better chance when entering formal schooling. More recent European compensatory initiatives, often targeted at urban schools, have likewise sought to help children benefit from conventional education. However, what has seemed most effective is the economic support given to low income families, rather than educational initiatives per se. However, most influential of all, according to Rambla and Bonal (2007), are general features such as the educational level of the region, public resources put into the local school system and availability of youth employment.
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Introducing the Section Articles The eight articles which constitute the basis of this section, come from seven countries in Western European; Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and Germany Most are based on empirical work at least to some extent, both qualitative and quantitative, though come from different research traditions. Most also contain a theoretical or explanatory element, though again this varies in degree between the different papers. All focus on urban education, but as we have tried to show in this introduction, this is differently interpreted and labeled depending on national context but also crossing national and continental boundaries as a consequence of globalization and “travelling” policy-making. The collection opens with Benjamin Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva’s article entitled Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain: Ethnicity and Multicultural Education which explores the impact of globalization on cities and the urban educational consequences. “Glocalisation,” it is argued, is evident in the creation of a product or service intended for the global market but customized to suit local cultures. The article explores how glocal/urban educational approaches may be organized in order to improve the experiences of newcomers, how citizenship can be achieved in global world, and the role of schools in achieving this. This is followed by Agnes van Zanten’s examination of the functioning of urban schools in France entitled Educational Policies, Local Dynamics, and Segregation in the Schools of the Parisian Periphery. She first presents a general model for analyzing urban schools, developed after extensive research in the Paris area, which examines the interplay between government policy, local education authorities, local political bodies, and environmental configuration. This is followed by an analysis of how urban schools respond to these various external and internal pressures. van Zanten identifies five ideal types of “logics of action,” from monopolistic, entrepreneurial, and polarized to anomic and engaged. The article ends with a discussion of the consequences for schools of these logics of action on school segregation, ending with an expressed hope for the future of “engaged” schools but also indicating concern about the lack of conditions generally for sustainable improvement. The third article in this section, by Tuula Gordon from Finland, is entitled Urban Citizenship. Cities are examined here as political spaces where rights and duties of citizenship can be enacted. Drawing on a range of empirical studies, both from Finland and cross-nationally plus an extended research review, Gordon argues that the central aim of schooling is the production of educated citizens capable of exercising such rights, duties, and responsibilities. However, teaching about rights is often limited to parliamentary democracy and the opportunity to vote, rather than addressing what is most important to young people in the urban context and in relation to urban citizenship. In particular, focus is placed on the ways in which the agency of young people in urban settings can be fostered and facilitated. The next two articles draw on substantial ethnographical and anthropological research studies which examine the relationship of specific groups of excluded young people, and their response to this exclusion. Ove Sernhede’s evocatively entitled article Urbanization of Injustice, Immigrant Youth and Informal Schooling, with the subtitle of The Global Tribe of Hip Hop and Immigrant Youth in “The New Sweden” examines
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how young people, seemingly marginalized by mainstream society and education, fight back to reassert a positive identity for themselves. Using as a backdrop the wider discussion of structural changes which have further exacerbated the living and working conditions of immigrant families and workers in modern European cities, Sernhede draws on his study of young males in a segregated, immigrant-dominated, Swedish city suburb to reveal a politically articulate group who see themselves as soldiers, representatives, and spokespersons for the “new underclass.” Sernhede notes further that this group of Hip Hoppers provides for itself, a form of alternative informal education involving a “critical theory of street” referring to their own situation in relation to the history of colonialism as well as to contemporary discrimination and inequalities in Swedish society. The excluded group that Francesca Gobbo explores in her study are the children of fairground people, in particular, “travelling attractionists,” that is, those responsible for presenting the entertainments at travelling fairs. Gobbo’s article Between the Road and the Town: the Education of Travelling Attractionists. An ethnographic study is included in this Handbook, because it shows that urban environments are not static but rather are ever-changing not only in historical terms but regularly throughout the yearly cycle of human activity. Based on a recent three-year ethnographic research study among fairground and circus families of the town and villages of the Veneto region of North Italy, Gobbo discusses the changing impact on urban life that traveling attractions have had since the end of World War II, the learning and teaching that a nomadic life entails, and the schooling experiences of nomadic children as problematic in terms of equality of opportunity. Gobbo concludes that the lives such families lead between the road and town reveal behaviors, attitudes, values, and skills that intertwine nomadic and urban cultures in an interesting way. Attractionists and their children develop a “double cultural framework” that enables them to accept aspects of the sedentary culture at the same time as holding on to their own style of life. The manner in which parents pass on their knowledge to their children through informal education, Gobbo suggests, helps researchers and teachers alike to question current educational givens and what needs to be included in the future. There is a change of direction at this stage, to the specific implications of educational policy, pedagogical practice and teacher education. In an article entitled The Limits of Compensatory Education In Spain: A Comparative Analysis of Some Autonomous Governments, Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonar offer an analysis of educational systems, policies and their implications for inequalities in the Spanish context. The main focus is a comparative analysis of compensatory education programs implemented by autonomous governments. What is revealed is that the most decisive factor in terms of completion of secondary education is family education level and educational aspirations, followed by regional development and policy implementation. It is these general factors rather than specially designed intervention strategies that seem most influential. However, Rambla and Bonar argue that educational interventions have their uses, in particular, in terms of stimulating the pedagogic imagination and opening new channels of communication. This is followed by a chapter entitled Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism by Yvonne Leaman from the Netherlands which focuses on the professional
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identity of teachers in urban schools. It begins with an overview of urban schooling in the Netherlands which emphasizes diversity and segregation, school success and the political context, and then examines two research projects relating to urban schooling; first, on the development of ethnically mixed schools, and second, regarding the promotion of respect and trust among pupils. The article concludes with a discussion of the professional skills needed for teachers in urban settings, namely the ability to learn onthe-job and combine teaching and care for pupils alongside a necessary professional detachment. The final article in this section is entitled Urban Regions and their Potential for Teacher Education: the example of Hamburg, written by Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen. In the article the authors argue that urban regions can be a fruitful ground for innovative teacher education for two reasons. First, in urban regions the organisation of teacher education can benefit from the proximity of institutions that contribute to the academic education and the in-service training of teachers. This closeness provides an opportunity for regular contacts between institutions and thus facilitates the development of innovative solutions. Second, in urban regions the content of teacher education can benefit from the challenges provided by the daily life of city schools. Social problems such as poverty, unemployment, or migration are more prominent in urban areas and therefore more challenging to schools and teacher education. Schools attempt to address these challenges through developing innovative pedagogical concepts and also seek to involve lecturers, students, and teacher-trainees in various ways. Collaboration between schools and universities, it is argued, are particularly helpful in the development of innovative solutions that can be generalized to, and utilized in, other educational settings. Examples are provided from a recent period of change in teacher education in Hamburg. It is our hope, from our introduction and the articles that make up the main part of this section, that readers gain a sense of the range of issues pertaining to urban education that are currently attracting the attention of educational researchers and practitioners in Western Europe. While clearly not a coherent field as perhaps in the USA, European urban education is potentially dynamic and productive and will, perhaps as a response to material and social changes within Europe, become a more conscious and coherent body of knowledge and research for the future.
References Ahrne, G., Ekerwald, H., & Leiulfsrud, H. (1985). Klassamhällets förändring. [Changes in the class society]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London & New York: Verso. Archer, L., & Leathwood, C. (2003). New times – old inequalities: Diverse working-class femininities in education. Gender and Education, 15, 227–235. Arnesen, A. (2002). Ulikhet og marginalisering. Med referanse til kjnn og sosial bakgrunn. En etnografisk studie av sosial og diskursiv praksis i skolen. [Difference and marginality in relation to gender and social background. An ethnographic study of social and discursive praxis at school]. Norway: University of Oslo, Unipub Forlag.
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Ball, S. J. (2003). Class strategies and the education market. The middle classes and social advantage. Oxon: RoutledgeFalmer. Beach, D., & Dovemark, M. (2005). Creativity, schooling and the commodity problem. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 3(2). - webpage www.jeeps.com Braidotti, R. (2004). Gender and power in a post-nationalist European Union. NORA, 12(3), 130–142. Brine, J. (1999). Under educating women: Globalizing inequality. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bunar, N., & Trondman, M. (2001). (Red). Varken ung eller vuxen. [Neither young nor adult.] Stockholm: Atlas. Cesari, J. (2005). Mosque conflicts in European cities: Introduction. Journal of Ehtnic and Migration Studies, 31, 1015–1024. Cigéhn, G., Johansson, M., & Karlsson, L. (2001). Klassamhällets återkomst Om klassidentitet, arbetsliv och fritid vid trˆskeln till ett nytt sekel. [The return of the class society. On class identity, working life and ˆ UmeA ˆ Studies in Sociology, no 116. leisure at the threshold of a new century.] UmeA: Coulby, D., & Jones, C. (1995), Postmodernity and european education systems: Cultural diversity and centralist knowledge. Staffordshire: Trentham Books. Crenshaw, K. (1995). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement (pp. 357–383). New York: The New Press. Delanty, G. (2005). The idea of a cosmopolitan Europe. International Review of Sociology, 15(3), 405–421. Dovemark, M. (2004). Ansvar- flexibilitet-valfrihet. En etnografisk studie om en skola i förändring. [Responsibility, flexibility, freedom of choice: an ethnographic study of a school in transition.] Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 223. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Englund, T. (2003). Skolan och demokratin – på väg mot en skola för deliberativa samtal? [School and democracy – heading for a school for deliberative conversations?]. In B. Jonsson, & K. Roth (Eds.), Demokrati och lärande. Om valfrihet, gemenskap och övervägande i skola och samhälle (pp. 49–74). [Democracy and learning. About freedom of choice, belonging and considerations in school and society.] Lund: Studentlitteratur. Epstein, D., Ellwood, J., Hey, V., & Maw, J. (1998). Failing boys?: Issues in gender and achievement. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gaine, C. (2005). We’re all white, thanks: The persisting myth about white schools. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Garm, N., & Karlsen, G. E. (2004). Teacher education reform in Europe: The case of Norway; trends and tensions in a global perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 731–744. Gitz-Johansen, T. (2003). Representations of ethnicity: How teachers speak about ethnic minority students. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Democratic Education. Ethnographic challenges (pp. 66–79). London: The Tufnell Press. Glenny, M. (1992). The fall of Yugoslavia. London: Penguin Gobbo, F. (2007). Between the road and the town: The education of travelling attractionists: An ethnographic study. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban eduction (pp. 481–504). Dordrecht: Springer. Gordon, T. (2007). Urban citizenship. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban eduction (pp. 447–462). Dordrecht: Springer. Kryger, N. (1990). Drengepædagogik? [A pedagogy for boys?]. In H. Jacoben, & L. Højgaard (Eds.), Skolen er køn (pp. 81–93). [School is gender.] Copenhagen: Ligestillingsrådet. Lahelma, E., Hakala, K., Hynninen, P., & Lappalainen, S. (2000). Too few men? Analysing the discussion on the need for more male teachers. Nordisk Pedagogik, 20, 129–138. MacMaster, N. (2001). Racism in Europe (1870–2000). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave. McCarthy, C. (2004). Thinking about the cultural studies of education in a time of recession: Learning to labor and the work of aestehetics in modern life. In N. Dolby, G. Dimitriadis, & P. Willis (Eds.), Learning to labor in new times (pp. 151–163). New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Modood, T. (1997). Introduction: The politics of multiculturalism in the New Europe. In T. Modood, & P. Werbner (Eds.), The politics of multiculturalism in the New Europe (pp. 1–25). London: Zed Books. Modood, T., & Werbner, P. (Eds.). (1997). The politics of multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, identity and community. London: Zed Books. Nolan, K., & Anyon, J. (2004). Learning to do time. Willis’s model of cultural reproduction in an era of postindustralism, globalization and mass incarceration. In N. Dolby, G. Dimitriadis, & P. Willis (Eds.), Learning to labor in new times (pp. 133–150). New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
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Öhrn, E. (1998). Gender and power in school: On girls’ open resistance. Social Psychology of Education, 1, 341–357. Öhrn, E. (2000). Changing patterns? Reflections on contemporary Swedish research and debate on gender and education. NORA, 8, 128–136. Öhrn, E. (2001). Marginalization of democratic values: A gendered practice of schooling? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 5, 319–328. Öhrn, E. (2005). Att göra skillnad. En studie av ungdomar som politiska aktörer i skolans vardag. [To make a difference. A study of young people as political actors in schools]. Göteborgs University, Department of Education, report 2005:07. Pérez Prieto, H., Sahlström, F., Calander, F., Karlsson M., & Heikkilä, M. (2002). Together? On childcare as a meeting place in a Swedish city. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 47, 43–62. Phoenix, A. (1997). Youth and gender: New issues, new agenda. Young, 5, 2–19. Rambla, X., & Bonal, X. (2007). The limits of compensatory education in Spain: A comparative analysis of some autonomous governments. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 505–522). Dordrecht: Springer. Reay, D., & Safia Mirza, H. (1997). Uncovering genealogies of the margins; black supplementary schooling. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18, 477–499. Sassen, S. (1998). Globalization and its discontents. New York: New York Press. Sernhede, O. (2002). AlieNation is my nation. Uddevalla: Ordfront Förlag. Sernhede, O. (2007). Territorial stigmatisation, hip hop and informal schooling. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 463–480). Dordrecht: Springer. Shah, S. (2000). Equality issues for the millenium. Aldershot: Ashgate. Skeggs, B. (2004). Class, self, culture. London: Routledge. Skelton, C., & Francis, B. (Eds.). (2005) A feminist critique of education: 15 years of gender education. London: Routledge/Falmer. Trondman, M. (1995). Vem talar för framtidens förlorare? [Who speaks for the future losers?]. In G. Bolin, & K. Lövgren (Eds.), Om unga män (On young men) (pp. 167–192). Lund: Studentlitteratur. van Dijk, T. A. (2005). Elite discourse and institutional racism. Downloaded May 6, 2005, from http://www. discourse-in-society.org/Elite%20discourse%20and%20institutional%20racism.html van Zanten, A. (2005). New modes of reproducing social inequality in education: The changing role of parents, teachers, schools and educational policies. European Educational Research Journal, 4, 155–169. van Zanten, A. (2007). School differentiation and segregation in the Parisian periphery: An analysis of urban schools’ logics of action and their effects. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 431–446). Dordrecht: Springer. Walkerdine, V. (2003). Reclassifying upward mobility: Femininity and the neo-liberal subject. Gender and Education, 15, 237–248. Weiner, G. (2000). “A critical review of gender and teacher education in Europe.” Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 8(2), 233–247. Weiner, G. (2001). Desiring knowledge as power: Class and gender in education in Sweden and the UK. The School Field: International Journal of Theory and Research in Education, 12(3–4), 44–48. Weiner, G. (2002). Uniquely similar or similarly unique? Education and development of teachers in Europe. Teaching Education, 13(2), 273–288. Weiner, G., Arnot, M., & David, M. (1997). Is the future female? Female success, male disadvantage, and changing gender patterns in education. In A. H. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown, & A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education, Culture, Economy and Society (pp. 620–630). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weis, L. (1990). Working class without a work. New York: Routledge. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour. How working class kids get working class jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House. Zufiaurre, B., & Peñalva, A. (2007). Globalisation and glocalisation in Northern Spain: Urban education, ethnicity and multicultural issues. In W. T. Pink, & G.W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 413–430). Dordrecht: Springer.
22 GLOBALISATION AND GLOCALISATION IN NORTHERN SPAIN: URBAN EDUCATION, ETHNICITY AND MULTICULTURAL ISSUES Benjamín Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva Public University of Navarra, Spain
Introduction: Global and Glocal Order of Development The long period of economic development from the end of World War II until the 1973 oil crisis, left the three decades that followed dependent not only on new technological development but also on the reconstruction of what had been destroyed. Political factors relating to world-wide liberalisation, international exchange and commerce also played a role. Until the 1970s, the Keynesian move (Trinidad, 2005) helped to push forward social welfare security systems, the most important of which were education, health, housing, and social policies. This happened in a scenario of almost full employment, where people had the purchasing power to become consumers. Across Europe, this model was applied in different ways according to the dominant political tendencies of each country. Scandinavian countries (e.g., the Swedish model) of social welfare however (Greve, 1996), offered a contrast with Italy or Spain. For example, the economic and political situation in southern European countries was not so optimal for investment in welfare, but just on pushing forward. But the move was also the result of a general political climate that favoured State supervision of market and production issues, and revealed a lack of confidence in free capitalism (Moreno, 2003). A conservative political revolution during early 1980s followed this “welfare turn” in Europe. At that time (1980), progressive internal policies aimed at pushing European prosperity forward were held to blame. The new move to the right affected both progressive and conservative positions (Mishra, 1989). One of the first consequences was that full employment was no longer considered a priority. At the same time, high salaries and a good standard of social security were considered a threat to the success of a globalized economy. The internationalisation of the economy, mass migration, and the very process involved in the construction of Europe transcending State politics, are all linked to this later move. In later years, citizens became disillusioned with politics during a time of energy crisis, political failures, and environmental chaos. This was the context for 413 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 413–430. © 2007 Springer.
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the non-stop war against “so called” international terrorism (witness on one side the consequences of September 11 in the USA, or March 11 in Madrid, but also the start of the long-term crisis in the British concept of multiculturalism after July 7, in London, and the crisis of the French Republican intercultural model (Aparicio, 2000) after 2005 autumn and winter revolts mainly in their cities). In the European context, discussion is now gathering apace over what is best for the future: liberal, or social market models. While the fall of the Berlin wall opened up the future for capitalism, with benefits for multinational enterprises, nearly a hundred countries across the world saw their economic situation actually deteriorate from 1999 onwards (Rifkin, 2004). Instead of reducing disparities, globalisation increased them. The consequence is that the poor do not benefit from the technologically advanced areas of global space (Estefanía, 1996). Many of them have no access either to the telephone or to electricity. Meanwhile, sustainable development and environmental protection have not found their proper space. Some countries and people waste and pollute, while others die of starvation. Capitalist-controlled globalisation, once justified as a way towards a peaceful and stable world, has left one that is less secure and gripped by fear, as disparities between countries and between people widen. A wide open market left to function on its own is an illusion; it does not evolve for the better but simply helps to concentrate power and money in fewer hands and widen welfare gaps. As a consequence, the rich get richer, while the rest of the world gets poorer, the environment is polluted, vast numbers of people migrate and whole territories are deserted. It is at this point that capitalism in need of new ways forward (Rifkin, 2004) entered debates already opened by anti-globalisation groups and various international organisations such as UNESCO, United Nations, Organisation for Cooperation and Development, etc. The argument here is that, in an interconnected world, we are all dependent on each other, all of us are vulnerable and need others in order to survive (Chomsky & Dieterich, 1997). The way out, or humankind’s hope, to use the words of Rifkin (2004), depends on finding a new balance between market enterprise and democratic development. It also means adjusting social programs and the social network to achieve an equitable redistribution of market benefits. It is at this point that the need arises for policies to favour the integration of immigrants (a consequence of global movement) into society. While from a conservative point of view this may be seen as the crushing of market incentives, from a progressive perspective, it represents a move towards managing development and/or improvement without jeopardising market incentives. This is the debate underlying the restructuring of the European Union and Europe’s Constitutional debate. From our point of view (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007), the outcome of this debate should be the adoption of strategies to deal with immigration at the social and educational levels, as a necessary condition for the future social integration and social mobility of ethnically mixed European citizens of the world. Migrations are a consequence of movement in the global capitalist order. The world’s excluded move northwards (mainly from Africa and South America) and westwards (mainly from Eastern Europe or Eastern Asia), and the less developed towards more developed spaces in the world (Coppel, Dumont, & Visco, 2001). Movement is also
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occurring within countries, between regions. The concentration of capital and uneven development world-wide, leads the world’s population to come together in more developed areas, which results in a variety of consequences for civil society and the reorganisation of development (De Lucas & Naïr, 1999). This raises new challenges: how to deal with environmental problems, how to find a balance in the organisation of urban areas or urbanities (which includes cities and their areas of influence), how to mix different people with different life-styles, cultural values and religions, and how to organise populated areas to be both open and secure. The central question here and now is how to build integrated glocal urbanities in a global open world. Globalisation and glocalization theories and practices can help us to focus this move. Some authors insist that this represents a new postcolonial move (McCarthy, 1994, 2004), others, that it is about thinking globally and acting glocally (Forrest, 2005). The point, is that the tides of growth in a cosmopolitan world, influence and transform the way in which the education of youth is considered. At a glocal/urban level, national and global considerations come together. Glocalisation takes on its meaning, say in the creation of a product or service, intended for the global market but custo-mised to suit local cultures (Roberts, 1997). The demand for more competent citizens to navigate in global, social, economic, political and educational arenas, and the varying contextual behaviours and experiences, can marginalise individuals or citizens from developing nations, either in their countries of origin or at the point of migration. Across the world, migration raises new demands. That is why issues of cultural and linguistic diversity need to be addressed while civil rights movements demand democratic equality (Forrest, 2005). The challenge of glocalisation is that it reveals knowledge of life experiences and cultures involved in a conception of “urban education” in a global context within which humans move. At local, national, and global levels, there is a web of interdependency in discourses, practices and services. Citizens in a global society need to be prepared for the wider world, once human options transcend conventional geopolitical and cultural boundaries. The identity of the individual, however, is shaped by local forces: knowing, acting, and caring, to use the words of Forrest (2005). That is why, in education, we need to focus on conditions for glocalization, equal participation in learning in society, interdependence and mobility of cultures, negotiation of space, time and resources, flexibility, and the mastery of generic but also transferable and trans-national skills.
The Co-existence of Multiple Cultures in Modernity As a consequence of globalisation and the internationalisation of economic development, modern States are changing, and new patterns of growth evolving. This calls for a new definition of world-wide citizenship which frames “urban education,” once immigrants assume a role in global construction. That is why the United Nations calls for actions,1 and proposes to double the admission of immigrants to Europe by the year 2050 in order to balance the ageing of the European population and low birth rate, and at the same time, includes protection of the diversity of cultural identities, and promotion of the political representation of ethnic and religious minorities. This represents the
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opening borders to new cultures, ideas and people, while also preparing a response to linguistic, religious, cultural and ethnic conflict, in order to balance the so-called, “clash among civilisations” (UNPD, 2004). However, according to the U.N., while measures are being demanded for the positive discrimination of disadvantaged groups in order to make the necessary changes in society (UNPD, 2004), little progress has been made towards progressive immigration policies in the developed world (Zufiaurre, 2006). On the contrary, the European Community Resolutions, for instance, have developed more restrictive policies to deal with the wave of migration that began with the economic crisis of the 1970s. As a result, the immigration issue is viewed largely with fear (Fernández, 2002, p. 535). This is taking place at a time when the European Union is in the process of prioritising a range of measures: for example, to promote fertility (France, Italy, and other countries have plans in place for this), legalise illegal workers (Germany has advanced in this direction), reform social services by promoting more generous social assistance within the framework of a more flexible labour market (the Scandinavian model), postpone the retirement age (currently under discussion in the UK and other countries), and open different countries to immigrants (there are no clear policies on this so far, De la Dehesa, 2004), but Spain2 has recently initiated a process. Paradoxically, while tolerance, social cohesion, peaceful coexistence, and pluralism, can be considered European ideals (Malgesini, 1988), immigration policies in Europe result in precarious job situations and poor living conditions for immigrants. As a consequence, while the numbers of illegal immigrants are growing, racism and xenophobia are also on the increase, and human rights undermined (Kymlicka, 1995) to protect Europeans in the name of security (Zufiaurre, Albertin, & Baquero, 2005, p. 35). In this process, we return to the idea of national states, plural but homogeneous, proposed by Heller (1993, p. 14) within the framework of a closed, essentialist culture that generates wariness towards foreigners. For the European nation-state, the trend with regard to immigration is for policies with common guidelines (Fernández, 2002, p. 535). Migration is restricted by laws aimed at integrating immigrants in a reflection of the familiar immigrants needed but not wanted paradox in so-called open Europe (Abad, 2002, p. 460). Immigrants cannot be considered full citizens while immigration policies are based on control, security, restricted entry, repatriation, job precariousness, etc. Thus, despite evidence that immigration contributes to activating the economy and promoting development, we are still a long way from implementing global reception strategies for the guarantee of entry and residence, integration, and the defence of common rights (Naïr, 2002, pp. 17–18).
The Formation of Nation States Western countries have been defined, not only historically, but also culturally, socially, politically and economically. Their very definition as countries is barely, if at all, problematic, unlike Eastern territories, according to Hillmann (2001) and Wallerstein (1999). A state in the western context is the joint political, legal and administrative institution,
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that manages, influences and controls a bounded territory and its population. States are defined as nation states when they involve one nation and the views of one people, and as pluri-nation states, when their dominion and influence extends over several nations or peoples. This means that pre-modern models of community cease to exist under the authority of modern nation states. However, to face a world global order, we should take account of past community organisations, and reference to urban contexts and medieval city states (Venice, for example) help us to frame our arguments from glocalisation perspectives. Nations, as historic phenomena, emerged, properly speaking, after the French revolution, as a combination of cultural, historic and economic characteristics. However, not every community is considered to be a nation; it first needs to be defined as a state and recognised and accepted by its citizens. The idea of nation appears linked to the socio-cultural reality of a group of people joined together by their cultural, ethnic, linguistic and historic characteristics, and habits (Touraine, 1997), while states, as legal and political realities, are the result of supreme power over the population inhabiting a territory. In a different sense, while states are not been framed with homogeneous populations but are identified and differentiated with specific national identities, for Habermas (1991) multicultural societies emerge from nation states as new social models were forged based on different groups of population with diverse cultures in imperial Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Hillmann, 2001, p. 848). They became organised under the framework of nation states, and/or multi-ethnic and multinational states (Kymlicka, 1995; Lamo de Espinosa, 1995), and developed following further migrations. In this sense, national diversity becomes a condition of multicultural nation states, even before recent migratory movements were characterised as post-modern. Modernity, as a cultural and ideological form, expanded beyond western borders during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its political, economic, social, cultural, geographic, productive and scientific ideas spread and colonized the world (Hillmann, 2001) with the development of communications, trade and economic power (Wallerstein, 1999; Warnier, 1999). As a universal model, modernity restricted other cultural and evolutionary options (Gray, 1995; Habermas, 1989) and evolved further into a model that reinterpreted other cultural bodies in its own image (Dumont, 1987, p. 42). Thus this modern project gave rise to a new universal order of production and distribution based on new urban organisations, which replaced former community spaces. During the nineteenth century, both cultural and economic modern forms became the most perfect expression of what it is to be a human being (Clifford, 1995) with political institutions created to safeguard humans, while economic institutions perpetuated modern civilisation in the form of national liberal democracies and under the framework of nation states. Cultural pluralism thus merged within unique national cultures. Now globalisation has changed this modern order with clear demands for change (see the debates around the new European Constitution, similar in a way to the debates concerning the new Statutes of Autonomy in Spain). New democratic models are needed to transform the order of modernity, and joint agreements or settlements need to be renewed. Democracy affects humans, and so far, issues of identity and the
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right to decide have been exercised mainly by the colonisers, not the colonised. The rights and duties in a democracy belong to humans, not to territories or whichever political power happens to be in control.
The Complexity of the Nation Building Process in Spain The transformation of Europe into a social and economic model (Vidal Villa, 1998, p. 15) has helped to bolster the world wide capitalist economic system. European societies became historically and culturally defined through a modern western cultural project, while economic and political development became redefined as the modernisation of societies based on social and productive development. What started as the economic change from agriculture-based capitalism to industrial capitalism was framed as worldwide modernisation based on technical and scientific progress. However, while the economic order in Europe is quite clearly defined, political organisation is in a state of flux. Similarly, in Spain, the political order which followed the decentralisation of the State in the form of the creation of Autonomous Communities is now in trouble, in particular, with the redefinition of the new Statutes of Autonomy started after 2005, and with the acknowledged demands of historic nations or nationalities such as the Basque Country and Catalonia. While modern nations, tied to their historic deficits, resist the changes of a global world that is no longer in need of the nation state but of newly developed, well-communicated, technologically equipped urbanities ready to produce and compete and ready to be educated and urbanized together, nation states are also resistant to the internal changes arising in the global–glocal move. European states resist European integration, while Spain also resists the necessary internal changes, another example of modernity resisting further evolution. The nation state building process in Spain was shaped in a different way from other European countries. While most European countries completed their national integration processes more or less successfully, the ruling class in Spain failed to lead the population towards a national identity (Brenan, 1962), or a common consciousness (Ortega, 1922). In this context, the organisation of the state into Autonomous Communities (1978, Constitutional Law) is simply an attempt to find a solution to historic deficits in the organisation of Spain as a nation state, an attempt to redefine the nation state building process dating back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.3 The question here, however, is whether there exists a common inclusive and democratic project in Europe, or Spain. Are the already diverse societies of Europe ready to open up to diverse cultures, multiple realities of life, and multiple languages? Can immigrants come to an already diverse Europe and/or an already diverse Spain, and be allowed to be diverse while at the same time become integrated in society? This drives us to further questioning from the point of view of the influence of civil societies in a multi-national building of Europe as a political entity, or of Spain as a multi national state. Is Europe becoming a collection of nation states, or national identities? And under this frame, where is space for a multi-national Spain? Will it be similar to a Europe of nation states, or a diverse Europe of citizens, or of people, as it is
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usually known? Are we just talking about an economic European Union based on state policies alongside trans-national moves? And what about the multiethnic, multicultural, plurilinguistic reality and development of the different Spains (Barrenechea, 1982; Brenan, 1962; Fernández Santos, 1982)? Certainly, to seek answers to these questions nation-state suggests different implications. Once modern nation-state building is characterised as a historically – determined body of construction in modernity, what is there to change through globalisation? And here we have to take account of the process of this body construction (Baumann, 2005; Bourdieu, 1990). For example, Anglo-American societies were built out of civil societies, through a liberal revolution (US), or middle class revolution (UK). Other European countries have been established by means of state bureaucracy (France, Germany, Spain and others). In the case of the latter, the nation-building process is a kind of political religion (or feeling of patriotism towards the nation state), which is resistant to change and outside influences (Gil Calvo, 2005). When we face a new global move all this is to be taken into account. We see that there are multiple implications. And it is at this point where urbanities or urban social contexts, based on common development and joint construction of interrelated and integrated areas and population, could develop a meaning. And it is here that “urban education” makes a sense.
Migratory Movements Shaping Cultural Life Migratory movements occur as a result of the search for somewhere to work and earn a living by people unable to work in their countries of origin as a consequence of globalisation and colonisation. Migratory movements, therefore, have clear economic, political, social and cultural implications (Naïr, 2001, 2002, 2003). However, while goods are produced and sold in one or other nation, school systems are built to prepare students to interact. Whatever that means in a borderless global market, it becomes important to build a multileveled community involving the blurring of political boundaries and the creation of collective identities. The factual global world with its migratory flows, cannot be represented merely as a clash of cultures set one against another. There exists an explosive mixture of scarcely integrated civilisations that present themselves not as homogeneous blocks but as complex and unwieldy. The world appears unified at technological, economic and, to some extent, cultural levels (Baumann, 2005), but the world becomes less unified when seen glocally. Globalisation spreads from the world of economy and finance to other perceptions of reality, but leaves aside important features of human organisations. While consumer market mechanisms exclude people and their human needs, the global context forces changes in human lifestyles. In the process, people struggle to break out of this vicious circle searching for a new definition of personal space and private life (Maalouf, 1999). It is here that “urban education” makes a sense while local and glocal references gain importance. In this context, it is no wonder that developed societies are indifferent towards the well being of immigrants, or how they should be treated. How can people who are themselves lost in the global move be expected to care for newcomers? The eternal
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enemy is the economic situation. When it is favourable, immigrants become mobile, find opportunities and spaces. When the time is less propitious, people turn against newcomers (De Lucas & Naïr, 1999). This is the current situation in Spain and in Europe, with a not unexpected negative effect on the process of European convergence. How, then, does the settlement of immigrants fit into the process of reconstructing national identities in Spain, with its pluri-national, multilingual environment? In Spain, this is particularly significant in Catalonia and the Basque Country, and to a certain extent, in Galicia and Navarra, although it may also affect other territories (Barrenechea, 1982; Fernández Santos, 1982; Ortega, 1922). Spain has rarely taken into consideration the perspectives or positions of national identities in its approach to the settlement of immigrants. While immigrants come in search of a place to work and live, resources are allocated only to control the tide of immigrants, not to provide better experiences for those who succeed in entering, or to help them integrate into a framework of different languages, and cultural and contextual priorities. As a result, the feelings and practices of national identities turn on ethnic debates and problems of violence (Zapata Barrero, 2004, 2005). These discourses neglect the conditions for successful integration, thus creating ghettos and lack of communication in plurinational global societies. In the Basque Country and in Navarra, two northern Autonomous Communities in Spain, cultural and linguistic values are now reaching a point of recovery. There is a long history relating to how Basque schools, the Ikastolas, contribute to defining a cultural identity. Their educational approach, based on the idea of solidarity and cooperation, is aimed at preventing the loss of the Basque national identity and culture while building a new framework of pluralism, coeducation and democratic values. Their sense of cultural recovery is based on the idea of dynamic identity factors (López Goñi & Aldaz, 2005) and on processes of linguistic acquisition, academic motivation, and effective active educational strategies for immersion in the Basque culture and language. In this cultural context, the as yet limited experience of the Basque schools with immigrant students, can be positively assessed for the level of care, attention and motivation. Minor nations, or Autonomous Communities as they are called in Spain, have rights, and should have the option to identify themselves as multicultural and be recognised. The immigration policies of nation states make things difficult for minor nations unless they have the resources to organise their own immigration processes. Immigration affects communal development processes in the different cultural communities, and unless the process is tied to the contextual reality of the territory concerned, it may fail and lead to racism, exclusion and undemocratic attitudes.4 Immigrants tend to adapt to the major cultures, that is, the universal and/or the mass media culture, and also to the basic dominant national cultural expressions. But since immigration has a kind of a mirror effect, both at the individual and social level, immigration policies needs new governing principles which should be locally adjusted, and autonomously settled, under a common framework in order to open the way for a political expression of national identity. This means, giving the initiative to citizens, rather than delegating it to modern state-based politics of representation, in order to solve the distances between citizens and politics, and also the tension between bureaucracy and citizenship.
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Immigration a Problematic Issue Changing Within Time Spain, a former exporter of immigrants to Europe and South America as a consequence of the Civil War (1936–1939), has experienced two separate migratory processes with different influences. On the one side, there have been internal migration from Southern, Central and Western parts of Spain, to the North and Northeast, where industry developed in mid twentieth century, which has been followed by later moves from rural to urban areas. Both processes have had their impact on North and East Spanish historic communities, or nationalities, such as Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Navarra. More recently, however, since the late 1990s, Spain has experienced a wave of an external first generation immigration from other parts of the world for various economic and political reasons, reaching the point at which a country that was a past exporter of migrants to other European countries, and to North and South America, is now a receiver. In 2002, for example, the immigrant population in Spain totalled 2,672,596, or 6.3% (rounded up to one decimal point of the total population, an increase of nearly 40% since 2001, no less than 1% of the total population per year). In December, 2005, the figure stood at nearly 4 million, not including illegal immigrants (INE, 2005). The country’s total population was just over to 44 million, and of these, 9% were legal immigrants.5 This means that the number of immigrants multiplied seven fold since 1995 (by 2007 over 10% of the population), the birth rate having risen from 1.1 to 1.3%, while the proportion of inter-country adoptions also increased by around 40% these last years (Sandell, 2005). Immigration in Spain exhibits similar characteristics to various European countries which require special attention and special measures, not only at central state level and/or in Autonomous Communities, but also at urban and/or glocal levels. However, while the different migratory groups share some similarities in Spain, they are also diverse (Zufiaurre, 2006). South-Americans share the same language, politics and social relations; East-Europeans share some cultural values and a new project, that of Europe; North-Africans share a common neighbourhood. They all move, like others, such as the Asians, because of their own specific needs. They contribute to the development of the country while the framework for the provision of immigrants is influenced by different approaches to multiculturalism based on different European models: (1) cultural assimilation aimed at a common citizenship; (2) a form of liberal, social diversity, framed by labour market needs; (3) the needs of the labour force but not as equal citizens (Aparicio, 2000); (4) targeted towards common citizens. It is in this context that Spain has to deal with issues such as co-existence, tolerance, national identity, social cohesion, etc., within a common framework of nation state, but also in relation to national identities and cultural pluralism. And now that there has been a break from Europe’s former permissive immigration policies aimed at development and growth, that is the “colonial model” that fitted the situation in the Europe of the 1950s (Abad, 2002), or in Jones (1983) words: “at the time of post war consensus,” immigration is currently viewed as a problem that affects Spain like other developed countries, as a result of the Third World’s inability to support its adverse economic situation (quoted in Ghosh, 1988, pp. 25–27).
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Spain thus faces an urgent need to address the consequences of immigration in a positive way (Zufiaurre, 2006). In other words, the moment has come to create an integrative intercultural model based on democratic principles and a participatory dynamic of socialisation and educational inclusion. Social and educational measures are necessary to aid immigrants, since by doing so, they help Europeans to maintain the crucial balance between an active population and the elderly (Moreno, 2003). At this point, if we consider the problematic of immigration from the point of view of workers needed but not wanted (Abad, 2002, p. 460), it should be noted that the estimated working population of Europe (or those available for work) will have fallen by about 40 million by 2050 and, by that time, there will be 40 million more pensioners (De la Dehesa, 2004, p. 6). The clear consequence, therefore, is that Europe needs immigrants and that we should care about how they arrive and what kind of life awaits them once they are here (Zufiaurre et al., 2005, p. 38).
The Integration of Immigrant Students: Trying to Find Explanations Our enquiry into immigration and schooling is a part of a wider research project aimed at analysing and assessing the educational, social and labour situation of immigrants in Spain. In this overall process, we have investigated the conditions in different schools, social settings, and families, both in urban and rural areas, which has produced some interesting results with respect to how Spain is approaching the issue of the inclusion and exclusion of immigrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a, 2007b; Zufiaurre et al., 2005; Zufiaurre, 2006). This includes reflections on issues such as school attainment, the social expectations of immigrants, options for socialisation, the integration of cultural diversity, the influence of immigrants’ family backgrounds, the importance of school partnership, the problematic of school languages, the influence of school course content and behaviour, and so on. In this paper, we report on surveys conducted during 2002 and 2003 in four Secondary schools in the city of Pamplona and its outskirts, in the Autonomous Community of Navarra, a relatively wealthy region in northern Spain. In each school we surveyed a total of 12 students in two groups, a 12–14 year-old group and a 14–16 year-old group, with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level, and three students from each school grade. The four schools concerned were selected for two reasons: firstly, because they were in the city of Pamplona or its outskirts and had the highest immigrant populations in the whole city; and, secondly, because the teachers in these secondary schools were willing to co-operate. In July 2004, we tried to re-interview the same students, but nearly half of them were no longer at the same school. They had either left school for work, or moved school due to changed housing availabilities. In these cases, we exchanged impressions with school supervisors about attendance and expectations among immigrants in the school. For the surveys in the schools mentioned, detailed questionnaires were followed up by group interviews, round table debates with the eight groups (two in each school), interviews with head-teachers and supervisors, exchange of impressions with immigrant
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families and with various associations involved in assisting the needs of immigrants. Further surveys in 2003, 2004 and 2005, were also conducted in a primary school with about 80% immigrants in the city of Pamplona, working in a form of urban–rural communality with just over 30% immigrants and where the school and social environment combined to provide conditions conducive to immigrants. We also surveyed a secondary school in the Basque Country, in an area near the city of San Sebastian, where an innovative immigrant student reception programme had been devised and implemented. From all these experiences, we have been able to make overall comparisons and draw conclusions about how young immigrants develop at school, among their classmates, in different social and cultural settings, and with different global and glocal customs and languages. In addition, we conducted parallel studies into how immigrants and their cultures and countries of origin are treated in secondary schools social science textbooks (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a). Thus the conclusions presented here are drawn from research into the roles of immigrants in a global–glocal society where they move in search of work and the chance to make a new life. We are particularly interested in how they behave, how they are treated, how they cope with social networks, what options immigrants have at school, and how they improve their chances for the future. It is our belief that an explicit understanding of these issues will enable us to make comparisons with the conditions of immigrants in other parts of Spain and other European countries. The social and educational realities are as follow: young people’s migratory process had generally been planned by their parents, one arriving first, and followed later by children and other members of the family. The geographical and cultural origin of the students concerned varied: 20 are from Ecuador, 6 from Colombia, 3 from Argentina, 2 from Brazil, 1 from Peru, 1 from Chile, 1 from Honduras, 1 from Dominican Republic, 3 from Bulgaria, 2 from Romania, 2 from Ukraine, 3 from Morocco and 1 from Senegal (in other surveys, these have been more Eastern Europeans’ and Africans’). Sixty percent of these students had been in Pamplona for one year, 32% between one and two years, and 8% between two and three years. Sixty-one percent live in Pamplona with both parents, brothers, sisters and other members of an often large family, while 29% live only with their mothers. Only 10% live with both parents, brothers and sisters. In all circumstances, we report on recent immigration, mostly between 2000 and 2005. However, when we tried to revisit the research settings a year and a half later, we found that we could not exchange impressions with the same students, since more than half had left the school, and we could have easily inferred that cohabitation between the native population and immigrants occurs on a regular basis while integration policies and practices do not have much support. Fourteen and fifteen year-old youngsters are mature enough and cognitively developed to have their own ideas about the social, cultural and educational reality they live, and also their future possibilities. These students, have indeed had previous school, social and cultural experiences. They have been uprooted and compelled to leave their friends and relations behind. Consequently, they have a provisional view of their circumstances of life. They must move house and school if their family circumstances and labour situations demand it, and they also have to change their linguistic, cultural and personal values if they wish to adapt to their new migratory situation.
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These students dislike being called “immigrants,” preferring to be considered “foreign students.” Many are at the adolescent stage when they are suffering major physical and psychological changes, which make them insecure, emotionally disoriented, and low in self-esteem. In relation to this, the questions in the survey focused on issues such as the differences they noticed at the educational, social, and cultural level, between their previous and current surroundings. These included different ways of working at school and interacting with teachers, difficulties in school subjects, the expressions they use, rough behaviour, rough speech or swearwords used by their classmates, different cultural values, differences in social behaviour, different meals and types of food, different ways of conducting interpersonal relationships, lack of neighbourliness, and so on. These youngsters report experiencing the loss of their personal environment and former friends, and the effects of changes on their frames of reference, cultural models, cultural customs, social settings, family structure, academic and social references, daily habits and customs, etc. They are forced to make a double or even triple adaptation: new friends, a new way of life, new school and social norms, new spaces and new people to get used to. They need to find their identity in their global context, but also in the new glocal context. Different cultural values, and different cultural identities are thrown together as a consequence of their migratory movements, while different individual identities form a fragmented crossbred cultural framework. They are faced with the difficult task of acknowledging and integrating such diversity. Barbadillo, (1997) calls this the “collective imaginary,” where young immigrants are viewed as different, and are socially perceived as different, and unequal. At least this is what youngsters report. Immigrant students report feeling segregated throughout the whole process of social, cultural and school integration, and in their new glocal space, feel relegated to a lower status. Most of them have transferred from private to state schools, where they are required to behave differently, change the way they live, dress, eat, and behave, to be accepted. But they feel lost and insecure because they are not familiar with the dominant socio-cultural patterns. It is hard for them to establish new relationships in new geographical surroundings with a different culture and urban environment, and, although they are reluctant to see themselves as part of a ghetto, or separate group, they are aware of being considered different, not fully accepted. While still at school, it is easy for them to become friends with their schoolmates. They mostly trust school staff and feel close to them. However, it becomes more difficult, especially with non-immigrant friends, once they leave. They feel quite lonely, with no one to confide their secrets to. They feel that their relationships are cold, although they get by with one or two close friendships. Their relationships with their teachers, however, is closer than in their countries of origin, while mentorship and school guidance schemes help to draw them into the school community. The security they find at school stems mostly from this professional attention, as a first condition in the organisation of proper “urban education” practices. Their worries for the future are related to their family, their friends, how their lives will evolve in Pamplona and Spain, and whether they will be able to attain a better life in future employment after leaving school. They all want to study before seeking work,
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in order to improve their living conditions. Their family, job and health concerns can be addressed in these new surroundings. They feel odd but determined to progress while trying not to think too much about returning to their countries of origin. They belong to a global culture, but they have to cope in a glocal context with its different norms and customs, and they claim always to be ready to integrate into the new cultural values, Basque, Spanish, or whatever, if they are offered opportunities to do so. Their references for integrating are those of the dominant culture, despite their different identities. They feel fragmented, but the uncertainty of the future pushes them to do their best in order to prosper. How long will they accept this situation? This is not at all clear, since society is not willing to give them the same opportunities as other citizens. Immigrants notice, for example, that their fathers (90% of the cases), or mothers (95% of the cases), or other relatives in the labour market, are in second class jobs with little chance of promotion. So, they lack confidence in the future, and feel socially marginalised, though less so at school. This shows the seeds for problems which arise later. They do not feel represented in textbooks, newspapers or the mass media in general. Ninety percent of them describe this as exclusion, while over 70% maintain that their friends, or classmates, do not know about their countries of origin, or cultural values. While 64% of classmates appear interested, they know very little. The media offer little news about their countries, and what is offered is often quite negative. Social prejudices and stereotypes cause their true identities to be lost in one overall negative characteristic: being an immigrant. Furthermore, they feel marginalised (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a), while not knowing the real reasons why. They are nostalgic for what they have left behind, are worried about the future, but anxious to do their best to improve their situation.
Intercultural Education: How it is Approached in Spain From the research, it has become clear to us, that when universalism and multiculturalism work simultaneously, ethnic cohabitation and peaceful cultural contexts can be normalised. If, on the other hand, cultural diversity in a multicultural context, or the affirmation of multiple, separate cultures (Coelho, 1998), result in polarisation and confrontation, each group moves in search of its own place in the public sphere. From this, it is easy to appreciate that there are clear reasons why the identity of immigrants and that of the receiving societies have to fit into a common mixed cultural identity in the public sphere. This is so, despite the fact that the demands and requirements (national identities and the demands of immigrants) are contradictory and difficult to reconcile. In this paper we report on examples in Navarra and the Basque Country in Spain, but we could cite situations in other areas of Spain, such as Catalonia (McNair, 1980). The integration of immigrants in the Spanish education system is largely viewed from a “special needs” perspective. The practice is, therefore, to attend to individual needs (Warnock, 1989) in compulsory schooling, and create streaming mechanisms for socially disadvantaged pupils.6 Other approaches based on inclusive principles and practices, and geared to integrating all types of pupils (e.g., the disabled, or members of minority groups), are rarely considered, so far at least.
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Obviously, further action is required to develop optimal educational provision for cultural minorities. Hence, it becomes clear that modern-day western school systems need to think about how to adapt school structures, educational content, teaching methods, school organisation, attitudes, working strategies, educational priorities, and institutional implications. They also need to introduce major changes in areas such as initial and continuing teacher training, democratic school participation, community development, research in action, etc. An integrative school system requires new solidarity among citizens, and co-operation and social consensus, since migrants move from one country to another principally because of the North–South development gap. The arrival of other groups, cultures, and people, leads to changes in the social reality. That is why, by thinking about how to intervene, or how to plan school action in order to provide a way towards an “inclusive education” for cultural minorities, we want to construct an inclusive school system in which cultural minorities may be absorbed. To do this, it is important to bear in mind and respect the different cultural backgrounds, languages, ways of life and social attitudes, which are also linked to the skills and abilities immigrants are able to develop, if allowed (Zufiaurre et al., 2005, p. 39). On the other hand, all these demands involve a degree of political participation, religious freedom, legal pluralism and equity, which also fit into the Spanish model of regional autonomy. Education could be a great equaliser and it is here that “urban education” makes sense. To move beyond merely reproducing hierarchies (Kemmis, 1990, 1993) means that, as people increase their levels of knowledge and skills, they increase their scope of access and marketability, and are able to use their cultural capital far beyond the local community reaching global interests. Although further research is required on the meaning of cultural actions (Wertsch, 1998), cultural and human capital (Bourdieu, 1990) gain importance and meaning in glocalization moves, in which the links between human actions and the culture can be located in the historical and institutional contexts in which they occur. Glocalized education can be said to occur when global educational opportunities adapt to local educational interests (Forrest, 2005). Global trends which influence instructional practices are a bonus when students have achieved the necessary competencies by means of quality and equity features on the “urban education” agenda. That is why, since an inclusive educational model defends a good education for all, it must be geared to overcoming social and individual deficits and drawbacks. Inclusive schooling can potentially overcome the historic subordination of excluded minorities (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007b) that persist in modern times, while defending social justice and equal rights for all, together with participatory democratic development. A key question here is: what is the best way to deal with diversity, to develop a good flow of cultural interaction, and to provide a better guarantee of social participation and fulfilment of expectations? How should we address the socialisation and integration of newcomers? And also, how much awareness of cultural codes is needed to create a glocally cohesive society, ready for integration at the broad, global, worldwide level? In a complex reality, effective research strategies are essential when planning the political agenda for education. To the best of our knowledge, intercultural school project appear to provide a good school atmosphere based on teamwork (or at least this is the
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conclusion we draw from our experience in analysing how immigrants “integrate” into different schools). This can be achieved in the type of school that is open to collaboration and co-operation, and where values such as freedom, diversity, empathy, and trust are promoted to prepare students to share social rules, social customs, and social behaviour. Such conditions are conducive to teaching and learning in an atmosphere adapted to diverse social and individual circumstances.
Notes 1. A recent Report (UNPD, 2004), shows between 1980 and 2000, that immigration to developed countries grew by 75%, while about 900 million of the world’s population in Asia, Africa, and Europe, suffer religious, ethnic, racial and other forms of discrimination. Minorities, which comprise about 5,000 different ethnic groups in about 200 countries, represent 10% of the world population. 2. On January 1, 2005, the socialist Government implemented a plan for the regulation of immigrants under the initiative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, starting with work inspection. The aim was to push forward a plan to legalise the situation of illegal immigrants. The process of Regulation included all Autonomous Communities. At that time, 2,357,056 immigrants aged 16–64 were registered with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Of these, 1,197,383 were legally employed, while 1,159,671 were assumed illegally employed. From these figures, it was estimated that no less than 70%, that is, 811,771 were of working age. When the regulation process began, 690,676 applications were presented (58.76% men and 41.24% women). The only requirement was confirmation by an employer. As a result, 607,898 were admitted, 61,111 were still in need of new certificates, 21,670 were rejected for one reason or another, and 121,092 were declared ineligible, (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Immigration Report, VV. AA., 2005). The result is that over 8.7% of those enrolled in the social security system, are immigrants. 3. Under the 1978 Constitutional Law, Spain was organised into 17 Autonomous Communities that include regions and historic nationalities such as Catalonia, Galicia, Navarra and the Basque Country. These 17 Autonomous Communities are recognised, by their Statutes of Autonomy, as having the right to organise their own policy making and their own political and managerial structures, but always within the framework laid down by central State Government policy and regulations. The first two Communities to present their Statutes of Autonomy, were the Basque Country and Catalonia in 1979. They were followed, a few years later, by Galicia, Andalusia, Valencia, Canary Is. and Navarra. By 1995, all the Autonomous Communities were reorganised under this new decentralised strategy and all were recognised as having the rights for decentralised political management under State regulations. Thus they have full control over education and health, but less control over social services or labour, areas where the State enforces egalitarian norms throughout the whole country. In 2005, a new process to negotiate the Statutes of Autonomy has started and become clearly controversial. 4. With globalisation, the interrelationship between State and Nation is losing significance. There are Nations without States as a consequence of colonisation processes, while the imposition of the modern Nation State principles can lead to fragmentation and conflicts, as in former Yugoslavia (Razpotnik, 2005, pp. 69–87; Stankovik, 2005, pp. 53–68). In contrast to this, situations in centralised States, such as Spain, with Catalonia, the Basque Country, perhaps Galicia and others, and other European countries, such as Belgium, the UK, or France, require a different solution. Faced to this, there are interesting examples to be observed in Europe, with its 61 Euroregions and over 150 transnational programs and multilateral agreements Colomer (2005). 5. See Note 2 above. 6. In Spain, school organisation and practices with respect to immigrant students are similar to those used with disabled students. This means that students needing special help are not involved in a framework of multilateral school strategies to deal with minorities. The consequence is that the success of the integration of immigrant students depends on the school atmosphere and the school’s style of teamwork. The only specific educational provision made for them, if any, is in the form of Spanish language
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Zufiaurre and Peñalva courses, compensatory resources and support teachers for disciplinary subjects (after the new Educational Law – LOE-MEC 2005/2006, this is going to improve). School strategies are based on models of cultural assimilation for the whole immigrant population, whatever their origin. This is the case in all Autonomous Communities. School provision and decisionmaking and policies with regard to textbooks (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a, 2007b), are defined by Central State regulations, at least until the new Statutes of Autonomy bring about some changes. Diversity is a problem, and it is viewed as the inability standard class levels. The ability of school teams to assist immigrant students, their families and improve their social environment depends on school size, numbers of ordinary and support teachers, and measures of school guidance and supervision. Referring to this, we have argued elsewhere that the use of such measures creates a positive attitude among the students (Zufiaurre, 2006; Zufiaurre et al., 2005).
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23 SCHOOL DIFFERENTIATION AND SEGREGATION IN THE PARISIAN PERIPHERY: AN ANALYSIS OF URBAN SCHOOLS’ LOGICS OF ACTION AND THEIR EFFECTS Agnes van Zanten Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris, France
Introduction This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive view of the functioning of urban schools in the Parisian urban periphery with two main purposes. The first is to argue on a theoretical and empirical basis that, in order to understand urban schools and urban educational systems, it is necessary to take into account both external and internal factors and, especially, schools’ interactions with their social and institutional environment. The second is to analyze the two-way relationship between the logic of action of each school, that is, its leading orientation as it can be reconstructed from the analysis of discourses and practices, and academic, social and ethnic segregation of pupils. In order to do that, I use empirical material collected in a large study of the Parisian periphery, covering three different research projects; on the interaction between urban and school segregation, on competition between schools and on parental choice of schools. This study was conducted in four different urban areas (two predominantly white and middle class and two socially and ethnically mixed) and 25 secondary middle schools (22 state and 3 private). The first section of the chapter presents a general model for analyzing urban schools, which examines the interplay between policies, local dynamics, and the perspectives of educational professionals in schools. The second section discusses in some detail six ideal types of logics of action representing different responses to different constraints and opportunities resulting from policies, environmental factors, or internal dynamics. The final section of the paper is concerned with the interactive relationship between schools’ logics of action and segregation.
431 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 431–446. © 2007 Springer.
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A Model for the Analysis of Urban Schools: The Interplay of Policies, Local Configurations and Professional Perspectives Urban schools, as most schools, have frequently been analyzed in French research in education, from two main perspectives. The first one is “top down” and focuses on the impact of specific policies, such as educational priority areas, on school dynamics and results. The second is more of a “bottom only” perspective that focuses on internal relationships between managers and teachers and between teachers, and pupils in relation with individual and group aims, expectations, and practices (Bidwell, 2000). Both perspectives are fundamental, but not sufficient to understand school processes. In order to develop a global comprehension of schools as specific institutions and organizations, it is also important to take into account two specific kinds of local dynamics. The first has to do with community and parental perspectives and practices. The second concerns organizational interdependencies between schools catering for the same age group or for other age groups (Meyer & Rowan, 1978). These local dynamics are important to understand schools in general but also to observe subtler differences between schools unaccounted for in studies of policy impact or in research on schools’ internal configurations. It is indeed important that work on urban schools focuses not only on deprived schools but on other kinds of schools both to get a comprehensive view on the diversity of urban schools and to analyze urban educational systems as configurations where each school must be understood as being dependant on the functioning of other schools. In my own work, I first tried to integrate the four dimensions just mentioned (educational policies, internal configurations, community organization, and institutional interdependencies) in a model of analysis of deprived schools in the Parisian urban periphery (van Zanten, 2001). I have since tried to extend it to other kinds of schools in the same metropolitan area, that is to socially and ethnically mixed and to selective schools (Delvaux & van Zanten, 2006), and, more recently, in work in progress, to elite schools. This perspective has allowed me to gain better understanding of different school and urban processes and especially of school segregation, which is by definition a relational process between urban areas and between schools.
Policies Educational policies, understood both as normative orientations and as specific arrangements that render some actions more desirable and easier than others, are an essential element in understanding how schools function. It is important however not to conceive of policy as being only a clearly designed set of targets, objectives, arrangements, and resources and to move from the formal analysis of official prescriptions to the ethnographic study of policy-in-action at local levels of decision-making and schools (Ball, 1994). Contrary to a common view, this may be as important – and perhaps even more important – in still quite centralized systems like the French one as in decentralized systems because in the former the gap between national goals and procedures and specific situations produces a lot of “deviations,” which are either ignored or tolerated by educational officials. In addition, the French educational system, which has always been much more complex than it seemed, having for instance different modes of controlling state and private schools and each of the educational levels and types of schools, has
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become an intricate mix of centralized and decentralized processes of decision-making because of the growing intervention of political authorities at different levels (regions, departments, municipalities) and of limited but higher school autonomy than in the past (van Zanten, 2004). As concerns the impact of educational policy on segregation between schools, two domains can be briefly described. The first is pupil recruitment. Officially, while private schools operate under a system of free choice, state schools do not have any autonomy concerning selection as pupils are assigned to schools according to place of residence, each school having a clearly defined catchment area. This has had a profound impact on school segregation, as the social, ethnic, and academic composition of the schools is strongly dependant on that of catchment areas, which are, in metropolitan areas, strongly differentiated especially at the top and the bottom of the social scale. However, many studies conducted since the 1980s have shown that there does not exist a perfect correspondence between residential and educational segregation: Schools that are considered “good” have real catchment areas that are wider than official ones and their pupil intake makes them frequently more advantaged than their already advantaged surroundings while the opposite is true for many schools with bad reputations located in disadvantaged areas. These processes result from the interaction of professional and parental strategies that I analyze in more detail below but also from the attitudes of educational and political authorities frequently more receptive to the advantaged schools’ desire to attract good pupils and to middle-class families’ wishes to move out of disadvantaged schools and integrate into “better” schools than relate to the needs of disadvantaged schools and parents. A second domain where policies play an important role in school segregation is educational provision. While France still has a centralized common curriculum, which applies equally at an official level, to state and private schools, similar processes of differentiation as the ones described in the domain of recruitment are at work. State and private elite and “good” schools prepare their pupils to be always ahead of others either by providing extensions and enrichments to the core curriculum or by having pupils work on notions and exercises for the following academic year. In strong contrast to this, many professionals working in disadvantaged schools adapt the official programs in unofficial, sometimes even unconscious ways, by lowering their expectations or by focusing on elements of the curriculum that they think are appropriate and interesting for their pupils (Grospiron & van Zanten, 2001). In addition, there is more differentiation than is officially recognized in middle secondary schools due to the very unequal distribution of optional subjects (foreign languages, music, sports). Again, while differences between schools concerning the core curriculum and options result from the combination of professional and parental strategies, they are also the consequences of actions taken or not taken by local educational authorities in this area.
Local Configurations If policies play a central role, their effects are nevertheless mediated by specific local configurations. Many different local aspects could be considered here, for instance, urban geography, urbanism, or transportation. I will leave them aside in this chapter for purposes of economy and simplicity although they must be considered in more ambitious
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efforts to understand segregation processes, to focus only on the social and institutional dimensions. By “social dimension,” I refer to the social characteristics of the population in terms of social class, ethnic origin and academic level but also to local social dynamics such as demographic trends, living patterns, and community social and political organization. Although in France schools are less perceived as local institutions than in other countries both because they are not financed directly by local taxes and because they were clearly designed as instruments for political integration by the central state, local social configurations do play a role in their functioning. This is not only the case because the social characteristics of the surrounding population are reflected in schools, but also because concentration of specific social groups produces different social norms and different kinds of social and political action in communities and in their schools. In some of my recent research I have for instance shown that private schooling appears as the “good thing” for parents who live in middle-class communes around Paris, even for those who send their children to State schools and that these parents tend to organize in independent, unaffiliated parents associations to control schools. In contrast, in socially mixed communes, especially in those with a long political history of control by the Communist party, going to the local school is the norm and middle-class parents belong to parent associations that have strong links with local and national federations or political parties (van Zanten, Ball, Raveaud, 2005). The “institutional dimension” refers to the fact that schools are not only embedded in social contexts but in institutional contexts as well. Although many local religious, political, or cultural institutions catering for the same age groups may have an impact on schools, the most direct influence comes from other educational institutions. In previous and present research, I have been interested mainly in two kinds of two-way influence between schools. The first has to do with the relationships that exist among schools catering for the same age group, that is, in this case, between middle secondary schools located in the same local area. In France, the central, top–down control of schools has until recently made it officially unnecessary for schools to relate to each other in their daily functioning and the most current pattern is still that to each school working in isolation and developing individual relations with the community and with local educational and political authorities. This however has not prevented the development in metropolitan areas of processes of competition between schools mostly centered on pupils but also on educational provision of options (Yair, 1996). The second process I am interested in are linkages between schools catering for different age groups, that is between primary schools, middle and high secondary schools. While these relationships are again not supposed to exist as pupils are assigned to schools according to place of residence and schools are expected to focus on their own objectives without any coordination with lower or upper level schools, in fact there are privileged linkages between schools resulting from professional and parents pressures to build specific routes, especially those leading to elite institutions.
Professional Perspectives A third important element to consider in order to understand urban schools and differences between them has to do with the perspectives of professionals. These perspectives are influenced by their structural and generic role but also by the specific policy and
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local context in which they work. I will briefly analyze here the perspectives of two main kinds of professionals (head teachers and teachers) although I have argued elsewhere that in deprived schools in particular it is also important to take into account what other professionals (teaching assistants, persons in charge of pastoral care, counselors, school social workers) do and think (Kherroubi & van Zanten, 2002). Head teachers are particularly concerned with the interaction with policy-makers and with members of the local community as their position puts them at the interface between the school and its environment. Their efforts to interpret and adapt policies and to modify either their social or their institutional environment vary however strongly depending on their drive to act, which is linked to their past trajectory and desires for future career, to their vision of a “good school” and their analysis of the situation of the school and to external and internal pressures. It also depends on their capacity to act, that is whether they have access to external resources (money, information, networks) and internal ones (reputation, human resources, social consensus within the school). Both set of factors are strongly linked to local situations. Head teachers in elite or good schools feel less pulled or pushed to act but, if necessary, they have enough external and internal resources in order to do so. The opposite is true of disadvantaged schools where head teachers are more frequently convinced that they must act and are urged to do so but where lack of external networks, bad reputation, teacher turnover, or lack of consensus on what to do, hamper his or her attempts to change internal practices and external images. Teachers tend to be much more concerned about the internal functioning of the school than about policy changes, especially at the organizational level, or about community or institutional pressures on schools although they are very sensitive about parents’ interference in their professional activities. This can be explained by several factors. One is the “egg-crated” structure of schools with teachers working separately from each other and insulated from control by policy-makers and from pressures from external forces (Lortie, 1975). Another has to do with motivations for choosing teaching as a profession, training and work orientation. In many countries, young people who choose to become secondary school teachers are generally interested either in a specific subject or working with adolescents; their training does not focus on understanding policies or local dynamics and the prevailing conception of work, its constraints and rewards, is strongly related to interaction with pupils in classrooms (Tardiff & Lessard, 1999). Another reason has to do with the dominant ethic in the teaching profession which focuses on the child and is concerned with progress and caring much more than with policies and environments although the importance given to these factors varies across countries (Gilly, Broadfoot, Brücher, & Osborn, 1993). However, there is also considerable variation in teachers’ perspectives according both to pupils’ characteristics and to parental pressures (or lack of pressure) leading them to be more demanding and responsive in academically selective schools and less so in disadvantaged schools.
Schools’ Logics of Action: Responding to Policy, Market and Internal Pressures The specific combination of all these elements makes each school unique but also capable of changing over time in relation to external changes in policy or in the environment
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or to internal changes concerning school personnel and their perspectives. This however is not an obstacle to generalization. Although an infinite number of combinations is possible in theory, empirical observation leads to the conclusion that some combinations are much more frequent than others allowing for the construction of ideal types, that is, of typifications of schools according to the dominant logic that underlines their daily functioning. In my research, I found six main ideal types of schools. These types are strongly related to local configurations which determine the situation of each school in a local scale of reputation, which either protect schools from external competitive pressures or expose them to these pressures (van Zanten, 2006a). These types also reflect the way each school is perceived and acted upon by policy-makers and the way it responds to policy. Finally, these types also reflect the internal degree of consensus among head teachers and teachers concerning guiding ideals and practices for recruitment, provision and promotion as well as the internal organization of classes, pedagogy and discipline.
Traditional vs. Entrepreneurial Schools In schools located at the top or near the top of the local scale of reputation, both in terms of results and of the academic and social characteristics of pupils, two ideal orientations were observed. “Traditional” schools belong to a first type. These schools are usually perceived as the best schools in terms of results. Because they enjoy and frequently have enjoyed for a long time a very good reputation that is one of their main symbolic resources, they do not have to make any efforts to retain and attract good pupils and do not feel in competition with other schools. For the same reason, they are not under great pressure from parents or from educational and political authorities. In contrast, as concerns the latter, they frequently benefit, as schools which best fit the ideal of a “good” school, of additional resources such as more qualified teachers or more attractive facilities. The schools we observed which follow this category (the three private schools and five state schools all but one located in the two white middle-class communes) were not very innovative. They kept a high level of internal pressure on all pupils for good results and paid little attention to pupils with special needs. They also enforced a strict discipline through established rules, this being particularly the case of private schools whose good reputation depended more than that of public schools on this dimension. Their curriculum remained very classical, centered on Latin, Greek, and mathematics and pedagogy very much content- and teacher-centered, which appealed strongly to the “old” middle class they mainly catered for (Bernstein, 1975). The configuration of a traditional head teacher, former teachers with a long career in the same school and conservative parents, helped maintain an implicitly consensual orientation and a strong sense of purpose. It is important to note however that, while these schools have not had for a long time to promote themselves given their reputation, the social groups they orient their activities to constitute a smaller fraction of the middle class today than in the past. Therefore, although some parents from the “new” middle class are still very much attracted by tradition (Edwards & Whitty, 1997), they might be losing their monopoly. Moreover, the new generation of teachers, both in the public and in the private schools, does not support to the same extent
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as their elders the pedagogical ideals and practices of these schools. This may strongly erode the coherence and consensual character of their internal organization (Rayou & van Zanten, 2004). “Entrepreneurial” schools correspond to a second type of schools that behave very differently from traditional schools. Although benefiting from a good reputation based on good results at examinations and on the social and ethnic characteristics of their pupils, mostly white and middle class, these schools develop much more active strategies. The explanation for this logic of action can be found in the fact that the position of these schools, frequently “second best” in comparison to the local traditional school, can still improve. The development of entrepreneurial strategies can also be linked to perceived threats or opportunities in the surrounding social environment (either what are perceived as negative processes of urban impoverishment or as positive processes of “gentrification” of the population) or institutional environment (changes in the strategies of other schools) and to pressures or new offers from local educational and political authorities. The predominant means of action of entrepreneurial schools is provision of new options such as bilingual or “European” classes or musical classes. This supposes the agreement of local educational authorities and, in some cases, specific funding from local political authorities too, but the initiative, in the two state secondary schools that corresponded to this ideal type (both located in each of the two middleclass communes), was clearly on the side of the head teacher. In general, because the activities of these schools were oriented toward the external environment, head teachers played a central role. However, entrepreneurial strategies were successful because a group of teachers shared the head teacher’s orientation, were willing to teach in the new optional classes and participated in formal and informal ways to their promotion. Many other teachers in the two schools were nonetheless critical of the head’s attitude. Some were critical on the grounds that the real explanation for “entrepreneurship” was to be found in the head’s career strategies. He (both were men) would be doing more than was necessary to improve the position and attractiveness of the school to be favorably evaluated by local educational authorities in order to get additional responsibilities and move upwards towards more attractive positions. Others were critical on pedagogical grounds and pointed to the fact that the external engagement of the head in financial negotiations and promotional activities was detrimental to his internal engagement towards pupils and that, in order to maintain a good image and attract more middleclass pupils, much more attention was given to the best and average students than to students with special needs.
Polarized vs. Integrated Schools Mixed schools are the most common kind of schools in the Parisian periphery in direct relation to specific forms of distribution of the urban population. The Parisian periphery and French cities in general do not correspond to the dual model of global cities (Sassen, 1991). There is certainly strong segregation at both ends, that is very high levels of concentration of members of the bourgeoisie and of some fractions of the middle classes, especially managers and engineers, and also very high (although not as high) levels of concentration of unskilled French and immigrant workers and
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employees. Nevertheless, this concerns a minority of the population and a small number of urban areas. There is a much larger number of communes and neighborhoods where there is considerable social and ethnic mix between middle-class professionals working in the public sector and skilled employees and workers both French and immigrant (Oberti & Preteceille, 2003). These various social groups are thus “mixed” in state middle schools because, while a large minority (up to a third in certain areas) chooses to send their children to private schools and a substantial minority (up to 20% according to certain studies) to use whatever strategy they can (asking for specific options, pleading on specific child or family problems, giving false addresses) at least 50% of middle-class parents choose at this level to send their children to the local school (Barthon, 1997; Broccolichi & van Zanten, 1997). An important fraction of these parents is however afraid of the consequences of this mix and puts individual or collective pressure on teachers and head teachers to ensure that their children’s academic progress and socialization are not harmed by the less academic orientation and different cultural and social behaviors of other pupils, and even ask for some kind of special treatment. They feel morally entitled to do so given the fact that, in their view, they have partly sacrificed their personal interests about a successful school career for their children in the benefit of social integration, and reasonably confident that they will get satisfaction given the fact that they can always use “exit” to other public or to private schools as a threat in negotiations with the head and with teachers (van Zanten, 2003, 2006b). The direct pressure from these parents but also the indirect pressure created by the presence of a large number of French and immigrant pupils with learning difficulties, gives way to “polarization” within many mixed schools (seven out of the nine analyzed in the study), that is to efforts to cater differently for two different kinds of clients. Because they are aware of these pressures, although they rarely acknowledge it officially, local educational authorities generally give a lot of leeway to these schools by not exerting close control in respect of official regulations and norms. These schools are nevertheless less likely to obtain prestigious options than traditional or entrepreneurial schools unless there is a head teacher or educational and political authorities especially keen in developing them in these kinds of schools, which was the case in two out of the seven schools. They thus rely more frequently on student tracking (which is officially forbidden but frequently tolerated) both as an externally oriented strategy to retain middle-class parents uncertain about whether to stay and as an internally oriented strategy to deal with an academically, socially and ethnically heterogeneous student body. The only private school studied that was in this category also relied on selection on a behavioral basis to limit social mix. It did not aim for the best students in terms of academic profile, but for those with a good attitude towards learning and schools norms, and with supportive parents. All of these schools also focused on discipline, using exclusions but also assignation to special classes, compensatory devices and therapeutic procedures to reject or cater for “problematic” students in order to reduce their impact on the functioning of the school. These tactics worked to some extent in schools where there was an ambitious and dynamic head teacher, where teachers’ and other school personnel’s turnover was not very high and a significant part
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of them agreed to develop a differentiated curriculum and where there were active middle-class parents who supported the choices of school professionals and few protesters among lower-class parents. In many cases, however, these defensive tactics were not powerful enough to retain middle-class parents and to counter the more sophisticated strategies of entrepreneurial schools or the long-standing attraction of traditional schools. Less frequently (two in our sample) mixed schools develop a logic of action that can be called “integrated.” This logic is strongly dependant on the presence among parents of a more confident vision of their children’s schooling and of attitudes in favor of heterogeneous classrooms and equal treatment for all children. These parental perspectives result from the interaction of several factors. First, in the two schools, these highly educated parents felt they could trust their, until then, successful children to resist local negative influences, and their own cultural capital to compensate for the eventual deficiencies of the local school at home. Second, these parents attached a lot of importance to interactions among social and ethnic groups in public spaces as a way to build solidarity and integration in society while being more reserved about private interactions at home or friendship networks. Finally, these parents were willing to and capable of building collective forms of “social capital” in local schools through actions aiming at convincing other middle-class parents to leave the children in the school and at increasing the financial and cultural resources of the schools (including their own involvement in individual tutoring of students with learning difficulties) and through close collective control of the school through participation in school activities and administrative bodies (van Zanten, 2006b). This was made possible because a large group of teachers and other school personnel and the head teacher shared a similar perspective. They were willing to set up heterogeneous classes by limiting all forms of tracking and to provide various forms of aid to pupils with learning difficulties (tutoring in small groups, specific projects) without neglecting the others. They were also willing to discuss pedagogical choices and arrangements collectively, including all professionals in the schools and parents.
Anomic vs. Committed Schools Mixed schools, whether polarized or integrated, are perceived by those who work in them and by actual or potential clients as “normal” schools. This is so because, if they are not the best schools in terms of results, they still seem to accomplish their social function of melting pot. This is not the case of middle secondary schools where there is a strong concentration of working-class and immigrant pupils. These schools have not been abandoned by the State. They get extra resources on a “positive discrimination” basis from the central government through various programs, the main one being that of Educational Priority Zones, and in many cases from local political bodies as well. Nonetheless, in addition to the fact that these extra resources do not generally compensate for the resources that other schools have accumulated over many years in terms of reputation, pupil intake and teacher qualification and seniority, these schools get little support from local educational or political authorities in terms of advice, follow-up
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of activities and evaluation. They also lack in many cases parental support as workingclass and immigrant families frequently adopt a position of retreat either because they trust educational professionals to do what is best for their children or because they feel unable to help their children and fearful of teachers or because they are too worried by problems of unemployment, living conditions or family break-up to become strongly involved in their children’s education. Moreover, these schools also suffer from the turnover of educational professionals who frequently start their careers there and then, after 2–5 years move to “better” schools. For all these reasons, but also because it is extremely hard for schools catering for less academic pupils to develop a competing educational ideal to that of excellence and to design their curriculum and organization in accordance with that ideal, many of these schools become “anomic” in the sense that Durkheim (1930) gave to this term, that is they progressively sink into a state of disorganization and confusion. These processes were accentuated in the six schools studied that fell under this category, by their local bad reputation, the low morale of school professionals, their incapacity to set up a clear division of labor and their tendency to transform other professionals into scapegoats: head teachers criticized the lack of involvement of teachers and other school personnel, teachers, the lack of leadership from head teachers and the lack of collaboration of other personnel and so on. Not all schools where there is a large concentration of disadvantaged pupils are anomic however. Some of them are “committed” but this commitment can take two dominant orientations. In some schools, a common ideal emerges that can be called “humanitarian” because most of the educational professionals’ actions are based on a principle of compassion towards disadvantaged pupils rather than on a belief on their capacity to learn. Two schools of the present sample fell into this ideal type, which I have studied in detail in previous work (van Zanten, 2001). In these schools, that also lack support from local educational authorities and parents, there is frequently a group of teachers who have been there for several years and have developed good relations between themselves based on “resistance in hard times,” and who like children from these social groups do not want to move to other schools but who have developed powerful social and cultural stereotypes and negative academic expectations which are difficult to change. These teachers adapt teaching contents, methods and evaluation to fit what they think these children can do and develop “therapeutic” modes of control of pupils’ behavior. There are however other schools, also studied extensively in previous work (van Zanten, Grospiron, Kherroubi, & Robert, 2002), which, more exceptionally (only one in our sample), develop a perspective centered on pupils’ academic progress and are successful in improving pupils’ results. Corroborating findings from advocates of “effective schools,” these schools are frequently characterized by the presence of a head teacher who is able to play a leading role among teachers and other school personnel because he or she has a pedagogical legitimacy as innovator based on his or her previous work and accomplishments, and a clear commitment towards working-class and immigrant education. They are also characterized by a teacher turnover much lower than in anomic schools but higher than in humanitarian schools where stability leads to inaction. These schools also benefit from support from at least a small group of parents and from local educational authorities resulting from deliberate efforts to involve external groups in the activities of the school and get recognition from them.
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Schools’ Logics of Action and Social an Ethnic Segregation I believe that schools’ logics of action and the model I have developed to study them are interesting per se in that they allow a better understanding of the diversity of urban systems and of how different factors interact in complex ways in school organizations. What goes on in these schools acquires nevertheless higher scientific, political and pedagogical relevance if it is possible to show that they have effects both on individual children’s academic progress and socialization and on global dynamics concerning segregation and inequality. Unfortunately, there is not yet enough evidence concerning all these effects in French urban schools. This is due, on the one hand, to lack of qualitative studies on schools, especially on schools other than disadvantaged ones, and, even more, of studies combining top down, local and internal perspectives and, on the other hand, to lack of research combining a qualitative focus on processes and actors and a quantitative focus on determinants and results. In spite of this, I will briefly develop a set of hypotheses in this section concerning the two-way relationship between school segregation and logics of action, some of which are more consistent than others because they rely on a convergent bulk of evidence and some that call for more research in order to be accepted, modified, or rejected.
Selection, Excellence and Segregation Traditional and entrepreneurial schools are generally perceived as the best schools, in the first case as a sort of natural heritage and in the second because they are making efforts to remain or become so. This positive image is due to the fact that these schools have monopolized or try to monopolize material and symbolic resources: better premises, a more qualified and stable teacher body, a more diversified and sought-after choice of options and a good reputation. These factors have direct but also indirect effects on pupils’ results. Combined with the characteristics of the student body, they make it possible to have a clear regulating ideal, that is excellence, high expectations for students, good educational leadership from the head teacher and strong commitment from teachers as well as positive attitudes and behavior from students and support from parents. In short, these are the schools that are really “armed” to be effective schools and set themselves and be set by others, especially by educational authorities, as models while blaming other schools for not being able to obtain similar results (Thrupp, 1999). The ideal of excellence pursued by these schools can nevertheless be questioned in many ways. In traditional schools, there is little place for innovation, creativity and self-development while in entrepreneurial schools there is a tendency to instrumentalize knowledge, new options being developed mainly to attract middle-class pupils and not to lead to valued forms of intellectual development. In both, students with learning difficulties receive little help and are either expected to benefit from extra-tutoring by parents or private specialists or rejected toward less demanding schools. Much more important still is the cost of excellence for society as a whole. Excellence in these two types of schools is built through selection and separation of the “wheat” from the “chaff ” and has thus a clear impact for academic and social and ethnic segregation.
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Comparative international research shows however that the most effective educational systems are not those where pupils are sorted into different tracks and schools at an early age. In fact, it is rather the opposite that is true: while very good pupils may gain a little more from being set apart from others, less able pupils but also society as a whole benefit from comprehensive educational systems (Duru-Bellat, 2002). And although evidence on other domains is less conclusive because of the general and qualitative dimension of the questions involved, there are also indications that separate socialization of children leads to problems of management and cooperation in the workplace, to tensions in neighborhoods and local institutions, and to violent social behavior and political withdrawal of those who have suffered from exclusion since early schooling.
Tensions and Losses Related to Polarization If selection and its impact on the functioning of the schools are considered to have mostly negative effects in the existing scientific literature, it is also important to examine what happens in more mixed schools. Mix at the level of the school, combined with internal segregation within classes, is the most common model in the Parisian periphery for reasons explored above. It is thus particularly important to understand its effects, which seem, on the whole, more negative than positive. These negative effects are partly due to tensions and conflicts between educational professionals, which result from lack of agreement on a common goal, a common curriculum, and a common school organization. As opposed to selective, especially selective traditional schools, excellence in mixed, polarized schools is not conceived as being a realistic goal for all. Teachers and heads do not believe that all students can assimilate the same contents and benefit from the same teaching methods and this leads them to create different tracks. These tracks create in turn tensions and conflicts between pupils. While pupils attending mixed schools are quite insensitive to the privileges – when they are aware of them they do not always perceive them as real privileges – of students in selective schools, they are particularly sensitive to close-to-home hierarchies, reputations, differences in treatment between classes of the same school, especially when there is, which is most often the case, strong overlapping between academic, social, and ethnic forms of differentiation. A clear example of this is the fact that in several of the mixed polarized schools included in the study there were recurring incidents such as insults and fights between students placed in the “good” classes and the others and in all many parents and students from the “bad” classes thought such a separation as being unfair. Moreover, research shows that in the area of academic progress the classroom level, where the essential processes of teaching and learning take place everyday, is much more important than the level of the school. Imposing global mix in state schools might be good for the image of public schools and for favoring the development of a social and ethnic melting pot, although much internal work has to be done to move from formal to actual mix. Nevertheless, separation of pupils into tracks according to their academic profile does not only foster feelings of injustice and violent behavior but is unproductive and even counterproductive in terms of the improvement of the general education level. The progress of the best pupils might in that way be protected
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and their interest in learning carry along that of just-above-average pupils. While these factors alone seem sufficient to justify separation for a not-so-small group of parents and educational professionals, it is important to underline that research shows at the same time that average and below average pupils are not likely to make progress in “bad” classes and may even “unlearn” what they had previously acquired (Dupriez & Draelants, 2004; Duru-Bellat & Mingat, 1997). As they constitute a large majority of pupils this means a general loss in the capacity of schools to foster intellectual development and access to qualifications for the great mass of students.
Mixed and Segregated Integration The debate as to whether it is better to have a mixed or a segregated model of integration is a complex one. In France, public opinion and most researchers are in favor of a mixed model or perhaps, more distinctively, against all forms of communatarism that could be fostered by a segregated model of integration. It is of course easy to argue that social and ethnic mix in schools and classes will favor an integrated, open, cosmopolitan society as well as help raise the general education level of all pupils. Indeed observations and interviews conducted in the two schools of this type in our sample suggested very neatly that social and ethnic mix in the school and in all classrooms favored the development of a collective social capital both expressive and instrumental, that is close and trustful relationships between adults, and between adults and children, and better learning. Nevertheless, two caveats are important here. The first is that the good climate that exists in these schools is fragile. It depends on the strong commitment of a small group of individuals who may move away, tire or retire. It is also a matter of proportion. Middle-class parents will trust the school as long as there are enough middleclass parents like them but if even a small proportion leaves they will become much more cautious and end up by preferring exit to voice and loyalty (Hirschman, 1970). Teachers’ commitment also depends on the existence of a small group of teachers who is committed to comprehensive classrooms, who is able to develop a collaborative culture in the school and to communicate frequently with parents and other members of the local community. If members of this group leave or become less committed then trust will dissolve too. Segregated integration may compensate some of the problems that have been pointed out in studies of social and ethnic mix, that is unfavorable comparisons between children and subtle forms of separation for instance in extracurricular activities and social life out of schools (Shimahara, 1983). However, even if we consider only schools very much committed to success in learning, far away from the counter-examples of “anomic” segregated schools, a second caveat is that there are important problems in these schools concerning the transition from “good climate” to “good results,” which is in fact not at all automatic. A main reason is of course the educational background of most children and the poor teaching they frequently were exposed to in segregated primary schools. The gap between their knowledge and what is expected in the official programs but also, and perhaps more important, between their perspectives on learning and their relation to school work and that of the ideal pupil referred to in teacher training and textbooks, influence teachers’ expectations and how they conduct their
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classrooms in ways that lead frequently to a lowering of standards for attainment and regular work. A second not less important reason is that because of the difficult family situation of these children, of their behavioral and social problems, teachers, especially female teachers are more likely to try to comfort them than to push them to make efforts to learn. Only very strong collaborative cultures among teachers and among all educational professionals can counteract these effects (Lieberman, 1990). However these collaborative cultures – implying not only collegial support but collegial work, evaluation and advice – are not easy to develop because of very high turnover rates, of the very large and diverse number of professionals in the school and because of lack of a common realistic ideal to look up to. In addition to this, although some of the schools will help children make real progress in learning, because they set local standards that are different from those of other schools, they may not be able to help them move up in the system and succeed in more demanding schools. This also results from lack of support, follow up, and evaluation from educational authorities.
Conclusion Studies of school segregation have either focused on the impact of external factors (urban and educational policies and residential and educational choices) on levels of segregation or on the qualitative effects of segregation between schools on students’ aspirations, self-esteem, interaction with other students and academic progress (Hallinan & Williams, 1989; MacLeod, 1987). These studies have mostly considered social and ethnic segregation in disadvantaged schools. While very useful to understanding determinants, processes, and effects in the schools that have been typified in this article as “anomic,” or “committed,” these studies are not always useful to understanding the interaction between logics of action and segregation in advantaged schools, those that have been typified in this article as “traditional” and “entrepreneurial.” Above all, these studies tell us little about influences and processes in mixed schools. This study, on the contrary, has tried to approach that reality, which is central to understanding a large number of urban schools in the Parisian periphery and French educational metropolitan systems in general. It is nevertheless extremely important to go beyond the analysis provided here through qualitative and quantitative studies that explore in more depth and more extensively influences and developments on choices made in “polarized” and in “integrated” schools and their effects on pupils’ socialization and academic progress.
References Ball, S. (1994). Education reform: A critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham: Open University Press. Barthon, C. (1997). Enfants d’immigrés dans la division sociale et scolaire. L’exemple d’Asnières-sur-Seine. Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, 75, 70–78. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class, codes and control, volume 3. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bidwell, C. (2000). School as context and construction. A social psychological approach to the study of schooling. In M. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the Sociology of Education. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
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Broccolichi, S., & van Zanten, A. (1997). Espaces de concurrence et circuits de scolarisation. L’évitement des collèges publics d’un district de la banlieue parisienne. Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, 75, 5–17. Delvaux, B., & van Zanten, A. (Eds.). (2006). Les espaces locaux d’interdépendance entre établissements: une comparaison européenne. Revue française de pédagogie, p. 156. Dupriez, V., & Draelants, H. (2004). Classes hétérogènes vs classes homogènes: l’apport de la recherche à l’analyse de la problématique. Revue française de Pédagogie, 148. Durkheim, E. (1930). Le suicide. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Duru-Bellat, M. (2002). Les inégalités sociales à l’école: Genèse et mythes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Duru-Bellat, M., & Mingat, A. (1997). La constitution de classes de niveau par les collèges : Les effets pervers d’une pratique à visée égalisatrice. Revue Française de Sociologie, XXXVIII(4), 759–790. Edwards, T., & Whitty, G. (1997). Marketing quality: traditional and modern versions of educational excellence. In R. Glatter, P. Woods, & C. Bagley (Eds.), Choice and Diversity in Schooling, London: Routledge. Gilly, M., Broadfoot, P., Brücher, A., & Osborn, M. (1993). Instituteurs anglais, instituteurs français: Pratiques et conceptions du rôle. Bern: Peter Lang. Grospiron, M.-F., & van Zanten, A. (2001). Les carrières enseignantes dans les établissements difficiles: fuite, adaptation et développement professionnel. VEI-Enjeux, 124, 224–268. Hallinan, M., & Williams, R. (1989). Interracial friendship choices in secondary schools. American Sociological Review, 54, 67–78. Hirschman, A. (1970). Exit, voice and loyalty. Responses to decline in firms, organizations and states. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kherroubi, M., & van Zanten, A. (2002). La coordination du travail dans les établissements d’enseignement: collégialité, division des rôles et encadrement éducatif. Education et sociétés, 6, 65–91. Lieberman, A. (1990). Schools as collaborative cultures: Creating the future now. New York: The Falmer Press. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher. A sociological study. Chicago: Chicago University Press. MacLeod, J. (1987). Ain’t no making it: Leveled aspirations in a low income neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview. Meyer, J., & Rowan, B. (1978). The structure of educational organizations. In M. Meyer et al. (Eds.), Environments and organizations (pp. 51–78). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Oberti, M., & Préteceille, E. (2003). Les classes moyennes dans la ségrégation sociale. Le cas de la métropole parisienne. Paris: OSC. Rayou, P., & van Zanten, A. (2004). Enquête sur les nouveaux enseignants. Changeront-ils l’école ? Paris: Bayard. Sassen, S. (1991). The global city: London, New York, Tokyo. Chichester: Princeton University Press. Shimahara, N. (1983). Polarized socialization in an urban high school. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 14(2), 109–130. Tardiff, M., & Lessard, C. (1999). Le travail enseignant au quotidien. Expérience, interactions humaines et dilemmes professionnels. Bruxelles: De Boeck-Université. Thrupp, M. (1999). Schools making a difference: Let’s be realistic!. Buckingham: Open University Press. van Zanten, A. (2001). L’école de la périphérie. Scolarité et ségrégation en banlieue. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. van Zanten, A. (2003). Middle-class Parents and Social Mix in French Urban Schools: Reproduction and transformation of class relations in education. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 13(2), 107–123. van Zanten, A. (2004). Les politiques d’éducation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, coll. Que sais-je?. van Zanten, A. (2006a). Les effets de la compétition sur les logiques d’action des établissements d’enseignement. Raisons Educatives, 44, 20–31. van Zanten, A. (2006b). Les choix scolaires dans la banlieue parisienne: défection, prise de parole et évitement de la mixité. In H. Lagrange (Ed.), La cohesion sociale à l’épreuve des inégalités (pp. 315–350). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. van Zanten, A., Ball, S., & Raveaud, M. (2005). Le choix de l’école et ses effets sur la polarisation scolaire et urbaine à Paris et à Londres. Paris: OSC. van Zanten, A., Grospiron, M.-F., Kherroubi, M., & Robert, A. (2002). Quand l’école se mobilise. Paris: La Dispute. Yair, G. (1996). School organization and market ecology: A realist sociological look at the infrastructure of school choice. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 17(4), 453–471.
24 URBAN CITIZENSHIP
Tuula Gordon Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Introduction A central aim of schooling is the production of educated citizens capable of exercising their rights, duties, and responsibilities. However, often teaching about such rights may focus mostly on parliamentary democracy with an emphasis on voting. In such a context children and young people are implicitly thought of as citizens-to-be in the future. In this chapter the implications of this approach are considered, and the significance of rights, duties, and responsibilities of school students here and now are emphasized. Ways in which agency of young people can be fostered and facilitated are discussed. The concept “urban citizenship” is central in the analysis. Cities here are examined as political spaces where rights and duties of citizenship can be enacted. Pluralistic practices contained in social and cultural practices in urban spaces are traced. The starting point is that in local areas there are formations of political spaces where processes related to belonging, inclusion and exclusion are played out and contested. The ways in which schools enable, support or constrict rights related to urban citizenship are explored. The focus is also on practices of school students in their local areas and on ways in which these are reflected in the everyday life at school. How local membership is discussed and negotiated in encounters in urban areas is explored. The analysis is based on theoretical and empirical foci including literature review, site visits to schools and interview data with young people. In the context of Nordic countries issues around urban education have somewhat different inflections than those in, for example, US, or other countries with more social and cultural differentiation among school students, as well as with more pronounced income differentials. Neo-liberal politics and policies have eroded the idea of welfare societies in Nordic countries, not to mention other European countries such as the UK. Moreover, in Nordic countries there are sparsely populated areas where organizing educational provision is difficult, and hence rural education raises possibly more specific issues than urban education. In the PISA-survey on educational achievement Nordic 447 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 447–462. © 2007 Springer.
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school students in general, and Finnish school students in particular, attained excellent results (Lie, Linnakylä, & Roe, 2003). In Finland, children in more urban areas in the south performed better than children in the more rural areas in the north. As Popkewitz (2006) has suggested, the “urban child” is a cultural thesis, whereby some students become constructed as “urbane” and “cosmopolitan” rather than “urban.” Therefore “urban” is an “assembly of cultural categories,” and these categories position the “other” in schooling. Here the cultural thesis of urban education is engaged with through an examination of possibilities and limitations of enactment of rights, duties, and responsibilities related to citizenship.
Citizenship Generally citizenship refers to membership of a nation state. In the classical definition by Marshall (1963) citizenship was characterized as political, legal, and social. Political citizenship refers to the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections and legal citizenship refers to equality in the context of legislation. Social citizenship is a concept that has been used to strive for social justice. This means that equality between citizens is aimed for, so that political and legal citizenship would assume more socially just character as well. Social citizenship, promoted through the welfare state, is expected to provide universal access to education and welfare society provision such as health and income support as well as education, and support for those who are unemployed or too ill to work. In discussions on citizenship the number of dimensions that are considered to be connected to it have increased. Based on the theorization of Raymond Williams (1979) the concept of cultural citizenship has been introduced (cf. Miller, 2002). For example the significance of schooling has been emphasized as an institution promoting access to cultural citizenship. However it is also important that diversity of cultural practices is accepted in the context of those rights. But, as for example Seyla Benhabib (2004) has suggested in her discussion about universal rights, it is not acceptable that any single cultural group engages in practices that contravene ideas about equality and social justice. Moreover, gender is an important element to be considered in citizenship debates. Initially white men with property became citizens. They were considered to be able to rise above daily contexts and circumstances in order to obtain the abstracted position of citizenship. Gender, ethnicity, and age were categories on the basis of which practices of exclusion took place (Young, 2000). Gradually citizenship has been extended to different groups. However, feminists argue that women are still considered to be specifically female citizens, and in practice they do not have similar influence on relations of ruling and power in society as male citizens. Embodiment is also a dimension of socially just citizenship – for example accessibility of public places for people with disabilities is significant here. Children, usually, become citizens at birth. Nevertheless children and young people are treated, particularly in education and schooling, as if they are in the process of becoming citizens. For example there are schools restrictions on the basis of age. In the process
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of discussing when young people will be able to vote, consume alcohol, get married, or become (solo) clients of social welfare services, citizenship is usually thought to be achieved when full rights of adults have been obtained. But, more specifically, it is the case that children and young people have all the citizenship rights already, except those that are specifically defined as not yet applicable.
The Global and the Local In a world that has been characterized as transnational, citizenship is subject to debate. It is suggested that the through the processes of localization different parts of the world are becoming increasingly similar. The power invested in globalization is said to challenge local cultures, curtail them and diminish them. This new convergence is not as straightforward, and not as hegemonic, as is often suggested. For example Roche (2002) considers arguments for the so-called convergence thesis that emphasizes that there are both external and internal pressures towards convergence. He suggests that convincing arguments against the convergence thesis can also be presented. The responses constructed at the level of the nation state as well as political debates and decisions at local levels indicate that there is a range of possible ways of reacting to structural changes, as Roche claims. When considering citizenship rights in different countries, access to state-financed education is a crucial indicator of success in the maintenance of more localized rights. For example in Nordic countries public schooling financed by the state is still the most prevalent form of organizing education. As Nordic countries in general and Finland in particular have demonstrated, public education can produce considerable results, as the PISA-survey has demonstrated (cf. Lie et al., 2003). The discussions on such results have suggested various reasons for success. Access to public schools is important. Finland has a comprehensive schools system so almost all students are in state schools, with the exception of a small number of private schools such as Steiner and Montessori schools. A high level of teacher education is crucial. Provision of accessible health care is important too. Indeed generally the existence of the welfare society and more equitable distribution policies promote higher standards of learning. Indeed, Roche (2002, p. 71) suggests that the state’s commitment to the social rights of its citizens provides them with resources to tackle difficulties. This is particularly evident as some public services have been subjected to financial cuts. A number of discussions on globalization remain at a high level of theorization, such as considering trends of capital accumulation, internationalization of capital, and processes of convergence between countries and continents. Yet the relationship between the global and the local can be a great deal more complex. For example Stuart Hall (2000) has suggested that the global marketization of Hollywood films has actually stimulated the production of the so-called Bollywood films in India, rather than stifling it. When considering globalization and education in relation to local state practices, it can be suggested that state-financed education as a social right of citizens can develop and foster transferable skills that enable their occupants to move in global settings.
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At the same time such skills may facilitate the construction of resources in local contexts, so that for young people staying in their home becomes a possibility (Tolonen, 2005). Citizenship and cities are fundamentally associated. As Turner (2002, p. 262) suggests, “citizenship is most appropriately regarded as a modern concept that first emerged with the creation of autonomous cities in medieval Europe, but came to fruition with the revolutions that created the modern world, namely the American and French Revolutions.” Derek Heater (2004, p. 21) notes that medieval citizenship was based on ideas of freedom and fraternity. People had individual rights, but they also co-operated in order to secure common interests. Heater further suggests that the habit of local government rendered conditions suitable for urban citizenship. As Sassen (2000) has argued, citizenship rights are often claimed in urban contexts and in urban space. Therefore rights, duties, and responsibilities related to citizenship are negotiated in the cities and also in urban schools. The urban landscape that provides the context for such negotiations is complex and intricate. Nira Yuval-Davis (2000) refers to the need to see citizenship as a multi-layered concept. Developing this further, one of these layers is the localization of citizenship in urban spaces. Urban citizenship is, as Robert A. Beauregard and Anna Bounds (2000) suggest, significant in cities today. Public spaces are crucial for urban citizenship. For example people publicize their identities in city spaces, and therefore urban citizenship has been associated with freedom. Localized urban citizenship has assumed new kinds of significance in a globalized world, where transnational movement has increased. This can take the form of privileged cosmopolitanism (cf. Linklater, 2002) or more restrictive and less optional transnational border crossing in order to obtain work and to ensure daily livelihood, for example in domestic service or the tourist industry. These kinds of movements serve to diversify the localities – often urban spaces – where they take place. Therefore such spaces become places for encounters between people in different cultural and social locations. Whilst this phenomenon is not new, it has become increasingly significant and constitutes a shift in cities and societies, thus generating changes in the everyday places and spaces that people inhabit. There are cosmopolitan flaneurs who can be characterized as “flexible citizens” (Ong, 1999). Such citizens are at home in many countries and cities, and they are able to find the appropriate arts and culture. For others the shift can be more complex, and one characterized by locations in poorer, less privileged areas and availability of fewer resources for constructing everyday lives. The latter encounters, taking place in cities, are of particular interest here. Rose (2000, p. 97) refers to “citizenship games,” thereby drawing attention to practices where certain actions become thinkable and possible. Such games of citizenship contain possibilities for modification, and, as Rose notes, have particular implications in city spaces, where the capacity to act citizenship can be exercised. This is an interesting suggestion that further points to the significance of urban education and its potential to enable agency for social change within spheres and encounters of everyday life. Thinking about urban education and schooling, it is possible to ask how such enablement should be fostered. Pedagogic possibilities for cultivating diversity in citizenship practices are an important consideration when thinking about education in cities. The next focus in the discussion on the concept of urban citizenship examines ways in which local encounters are imagined and in which actual encounters are discussed.
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The emphasis is on searching for educational practices that promote inclusion and help young people construct resources that enable them to negotiate socially just encounters characterized by increasing inclusion. My argument is that urban citizenship can be taught and practiced in schools. Further, it is argued that in the context of movement towards more socially just local encounters, increasing equality in other dimensions of citizenship and equality can also be sought.
Urban Citizenship and Neighborhood Nationalism Urban citizenship refers to cities as political spaces, where, partly, citizenship rights are exercised, and, partly, more rights are demanded. Pluralist practices develop in city spaces. But local contexts are also places where practices of inclusion and exclusion occur. Urban citizenship is considered in relation to “neighbourhood nationalism” – a term that Les Back (1996) in UK has used in order to analyze ways in which young women and men negotiate race and ethnicity in the local area, particularly in youth clubs. Urban citizenship is potentially more inclusive and subject to negotiation as well as contestation, whereas neighborhood nationality is more exclusive and subject to contestation rather than negotiation. The discussion is based on literature review on the one hand. On the other hand it draws on an ethnographic research conducted in two schools in Helsinki, Finland. This was a collective and cross cultural project. In Finland a team of six researchers planned the study and carried it out, constantly sharing data and developing “analysis through discussion” (cf. Gordon et al. 2006). In London Janet Holland carried out a similar project with two research assistants (Gordon, Holland, & Lahelma, 2000). Therefore the discussion draws on a cross cultural analysis as well, and education is discussed as a national project. The considerations have also been influenced by visits to schools in the San Francisco Bay Area in Berkeley and in Oakland. Beyond the ethnography I have, together with Elina Lahelma, continued to trace the transitions of the young people we met in school during the ethnography. This longitudinal data is drawn on as well. A range of elements is used to develop an analytical inscription and a broad understanding of the significance of urban education is suggested. Because of increasing movement in Europe and Nordic countries it is important to analyze ways in which education prepares children and young people for increasing difference and diversity among the students in their school, as well as in the local area. As Ahmed (2000) suggests, people encounter the figure of “the stranger” who should be welcomed according to agreements on flows of people, either as visitors, workers, immigrants, or refugees. Yet this figure who should be welcomed is also considered to represent difference. The very idea of recognition of the stranger already presumes a distance and inequality in the encounters. There are, as Ahmed suggests, also problematic encounters between texts, institutions, and lived lives. The task of urban education is to deconstruct the figure of the stranger so that more inclusive practices in the context of encounters are possible. Doreen Massey (1998) has noted that when different and diverse groups use a particular space, at the same time other people or groups can be excluded from these spaces. Therefore in the use and control of space issues round difference and
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commonalities, struggles and tensions between these are mobilized. The kinds of strategies that young men have used in order to control the spatial practices of others are characterized as territoriality (Liberg, 1994; Watt & Stenson, 1998). In this context the relationship between citizenship and urban spaces has become increasingly relevant. Cities are spaces where there are opportunities for claiming local rights, whilst they are at the same time spaces where the everyday practices of people are controlled (Isin, 2000). Public space is central in these encounters. Nayak (2003) has analyzed how young men place themselves in urban space and ethnic relations in Newcastle in Britain using ethnographic methods. Nayak notes that among white working class young men there are tensions in practices of exclusion and sharing in relation to uses of space. Whilst there are exclusionary practices, at the same time there can be processes of inclusion. As one young man suggested in an interview, “some coloured are English.” Nayak describes this kind of inclusive talk by referring to the concept of “neighbourhood nationalism” (Back, 1996). Back wanted to trace the formation of new ethnicities in urban culture. His analysis was also based on ethnographic research that he conducted in two – mostly working-class – areas in South London. He explores the history of these areas, and analyses ways which different ethnicities are encountered, and how young people, particularly young men, meet each other and emphasize differences, but at the same time recognize commonalities. Local histories are, Back argues, relevant in understanding ways in which differences are understood, acted upon, or bridged. In the first, older area, “Riverview” the inhabitants were originally mostly white. The estate became increasingly run down as the local authority neglected necessary repairs. Concomitant with this process more members of minority ethnic groups began to move into the area. The white inhabitants experienced this movement as a sign of the deterioration of their environment. In Riverview differences between ethnic groups were emphasized more than commonalities. In young people’s talk ethnicity was typically a sign of difference. However, in their own practices young people engaged in practices of inclusion as well. Back notes that encounters and processes of inclusion were characterized by “neighbourhood nationalism,” whereby there were tensions in ways in which being English and white were both emphasized and deconstructed. Neighborhood nationalism produces local commonalities, but does not remove categories that differentiate between people. Nor does it transcend the kind of everyday categories that young people use, for example, in the youth club, where young people acted both together and separately. In the other, newer area, “Southgate,” that Back studied, young people were more likely to cross over differences and to construct more commonalities. This estate was from the very beginning more multicultural and multiethnic than Riverview. Young people formed inclusive practices in their encounters by differentiating themselves from Englishness and instead emphasizing being British. Among these young people there were more of those with multiethnic backgrounds. When the young people talked about being British, they referred to multicultural citizenship with syncretic features that were connected to different cultures. Young people in Southgate were also more politically orientated than those of Riverview. This could be seen in the youth clubs where participants were likely to question and challenge practices that they
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considered as exclusionary. Instead they demanded practices of inclusion and recognition of commonalities. Inclusive practices took place in Riverview as well, but in a more restrained manner, drawing on neighborhood nationalism. Comparative studies have demonstrated the significance of the area people are located in. In a large quantitative cross-national study Klasen (2001) demonstrated that the policies that endeavor to address childhood social exclusion need to address social and cultural local geographies, and tackle issues such as unemployment, access to public and social services and spatial concentrations of disadvantage. Klasen (2001) demonstrates that social exclusion has a severe impact on the well-being of children and influences their schooling. Moreover, Klasen argues that social exclusion has a negative effect on society as a whole. He suggests that many educational systems do not have adequate ways in which to counteract such exclusion. In another study of impoverished neighborhoods in several European cities Olagnero, Meo, and Corcoran (2005) argue that local areas that are characterized by economic precariousness also contain impoverished social networks. In this context it is difficult to foster access to, and achievement in, education. They suggest that urban education should be supported by welfare policies that increase parental resources so that it is easier for them to care for their children. The study demonstrated that unemployment, poverty, and general precariousness of life are associated with impoverishment of supportive networks. However, in the context of urban poverty trans-cultural fusion among young people assumes particular relevance, as Ålund (1999, p. 113) suggests. Additionally common cross-boundary symbols are created. These practices can work as a resource for young people, contributing to the possibility of exercising agency in daily life. Socially just education and schooling could build on such urban practices of school students.
Walls and Bridges In her analysis of what she calls confrontations between racist and anti-racist young people in Sweden, Abby Peterson (1995) refers to the metaphors of “walls and bridges.” In their everyday practices in city spaces young people construct connections without confrontation, but such activities are less likely to be reported in the media than the more violent struggles between the “rainbow coalition” – young people against racism and exclusion, but also against confrontation – and those groups for whom confrontation is a preferred strategy. Peterson suggests that there is “a dialectic between the explosive sociality of confrontation and the non-confrontation of rainbow coalitions – between the construction of walls and the construction of bridges” (1995, p. 68). Moreover, Peterson argues that in this process the message of inclusion disappears and new visions about a more equal society remain elusive. Citing Paul Gilroy (1987) Peterson notes the practices of the “Rock against Racism” movement in the UK, whereby encounters between differences were celebrated through music. As Sara Ahmed (2000) notes as well, encounters in one space “involve an embodied dialogue – a speaking to each other that is at once ‘face-to-face’ and embedded in institutions” (2000, p. 163).
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Paul Watt and Kevin Stenson (1998) also discuss ways in which mixed groups of young people negotiate public spaces in their everyday lives in south-east of England. They are particularly interested in processes whereby particular places and people become codified as “danger” or “trouble” (Watt & Stenson, 1998, p. 249). They discuss “white territorialism” whereby by some whites, particularly young males, may endeavor to control their local areas. Watt and Stenson also note that for young girls streets often seem difficult places because of unwanted attention and safety risks. Therefore girls, when they enter public spaces, are likely to tend to spend more time in shopping malls (Watt & Stenson, 1998, p. 21). But it is notable that schools can also be problematic places for girls, where they may be teased in ways that border on sexual harassment – and often it can be difficult for them to draw the line. Similarly, boys and young men whose masculinities are called into question may experience difficulties in urban schools and other urban spaces (Connell, 1989). Peterson’s “walls and bridges” metaphor is also appropriate when we consider young people with disabilities, and their opportunities for unrestricted movement in urban spaces. As Butler (1998) notes, those young people with disabilities who are integrated into mainstream schools, may find that their needs are overlooked. However, in our collective cross-cultural ethnographic research of two schools in Helsinki and two schools in London, it was found that the one London school where students of diverse special needs were placed, these young people were well integrated into everyday life at school. This particular school aimed at generally inclusive practices in terms of a range of social differences (Gordon et al., 2000).
Urban Education as a Metaphor Interest in urban education is particularly US phenomenon, where urban schools often invoke images of inner city areas, local patterns of deprivation and low levels of educational success. Similarly in the UK the term “inner city schools” usually refers to those local schools that are characterized by diversity of students and relatively high levels of poverty in the home, as well as poor school buildings and faster than average turn-over of teachers. However, in some European and Nordic countries the best schools are often thought to be in inner urban areas, and rural schools are considered more problematic in terms of being able to maintain sufficient resources. It may be difficult to attract teachers with appropriate qualifications, and a willingness to stay in such local areas. As the trend is towards larger and larger schools, more village schools are discontinued. Often in sparsely populated areas the disappearance of the local school may be the last straw for some parents, who thereby decide to move to more densely populated villages or cities. There have been efforts to ensure long-distance learning through the use of computers so that smaller schools can survive with fewer local resources. Problems are different in big cities such as London where it is difficult to construct a high standard committed teaching force, because of the high price of housing and cost of living. Therefore meanings of “urban education” can be markedly different in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, if compared to UK or US for example. However, the phenomenon
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of “urban schools” can also be found in Nordic countries. But the kind of schools that raise issues associated with “urban education” are located in the suburbs rather than in the “inner-city” areas. Nordic inner city centers are often spaces where arts and businesses are located. They are also areas characterized by higher income levels of inhabitants. It is the appearance of young people in the public central urban spaces that can generate unease. Cathrin Lundström (2006) found in her study on young high achieving Latina girls, that when they moved around the city centre in Stockholm, other people assumed that they are “visiting” from the suburbs, or they were seen as out of place. Nevertheless the “inner city” school phenomenon is familiar in Nordic countries, even though it is not characterized by such extreme differences that can be found in big global cities such as London, Paris, or New York. Thomas Gitz-Johansen (2003) conducted participant observation research on representations of ethnicity in two “inner city” schools in the vicinity of Copenhagen. Both areas were characterized by relatively high rates of unemployment and a relatively large proportion of immigrants, compared to the national average. In discussions with teachers Gitz-Johansen noticed that they made implicit differentiations between students on the basis of their ethnicity. They also considered the local area as characterized by a low level of parental resources, for example, due to unemployment. Problems of linguistic competence were also mentioned. For example, a teacher talked about students (2003, p. 73) in the following way: “The teacher tells me that she despairs over the parents of the bilingual students. According to her, they have no ambitions on behalf of their daughters.” Whereas in some schools competence in two or more languages is considered an asset, in other schools such competence is questioned and considered to impair fluent command of any language. Anne-Lise Arnesen (2003) was also puzzled by ways in which teachers talked about school students. She conducted ethnographic research in a school in Oslo, Norway and began to analyze how teachers discussed individual students. Arnesen focused on one particular girl student who was considered to be an “outsider” and she found that the ways teachers talked about her were contradictory and ambiguous. In particular she found tensions between the ideology of inclusion and practices of exclusion. On the basis of closer observation Arnesen was able to suggest that the difficulties that the student was experiencing were connected to bullying at school; this had remained unnoticed. Similar problems can be found in pre-schools. Sirpa Lappalainen (cf. 2003) studied constructions of nationality and ethnicity in two Finnish pre-schools. Both of these schools aimed at inclusive practices and their stated aim was to form international welcoming spaces for children. Yet, when discussing different practices the children might be used to, implicitly the teachers as well as the children reproduced popular understandings about national differences. “Internationalisation” in urban education can, therefore, be a complex aim. As Sverker Lindblad and Tom Popkewitz (2003, p. 23) suggest, “the issues that underline globalisation and restructuring require thinking about the multiple actors that are present in any speech act of schooling.” In the comparative and cross cultural ethnographic study of two schools in Helsinki and two schools in London there was a pronounced contrast between the two London
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schools, one in inner city and one in suburbia (Gordon et al., 2000). However, the inner city school had resolved to make great efforts to formulate inclusive practices, so that they catered for children who were from new immigrant families, and also children with various disabilities. This meant that the staff was able to build expertise round such diversity. The Helsinki schools also formed a contrast in that one was more middle class, and the other was more working class. The more middle class school was located in the centre of Helsinki, whilst the more working class school was located in the suburbs. The former school had a particular arts orientation, so it attracted students from a number of districts in Helsinki. The suburban school attracted mostly students from its own catchment area, so it was a more local. Of course it is the case that in London, too, there are schools located in inner cities that are nevertheless not thought of as “inner city” schools. Social class composition is crucial in considering what is characterized as “inner city.”
Urban Education and Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion “Green Park” in Helsinki was located in a working class area. The local community association gathered memories that people have of Green Park. When the area was being built, its local culture was characterized by communality and interaction. The area lacked many basic amenities, so local collaboration was crucial, because it facilitated joint efforts of the inhabitants in the process of constructing local services. People were mutually dependent on help from other inhabitants. Memories that local people recorded emphasize that children and young people moved about together, particularly boys. Whilst the boys might squabble, there were no insurmountable conflicts. Whilst boys tended to play football together and girls tended to associate among themselves, girls and boys spent time together as well. Although there were disturbances in the area, children seemed to have been protected from them. A teacher referred to classrooms that had been overflowly with students, but nevertheless suggested that the atmosphere was positive. However, few people who recorded their local memories and referred to schooling, expressed similarly positive memories. During our ethnography there had been a recent increase in ethnic diversity in Green Park. The school had begun to think about difference, but it was not easy for the teachers to decide when they should intervene in the informal talk of students. In this context ethnocentric or even racist comments were not always discussed or challenged by the staff. For example when boys called others “Pedro,” teachers did not take issue with that. Such name calling was used to marginalize its object from ordinary Finnishness and hence from the centre of the networks among the boys. Hence it contravened the idea of inclusive rights of school students. Similarly, incidents were observed where boys were teasing girls. As Elina Lahelma (2002) has suggested, teachers found it difficult to draw the line between mutual joking and behavior that bordered on harassment. Similar practices have been found in Swedish schools. Nordic girls are expected
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to stand up for themselves and through this process to become “strong Nordic women” (Lahelma & Öhrn, 2003). However, as Elisabet Öhrn (1998) has noted, girls do engage in practices of resistance. In the context of a study on transitions, school students in the ethnography were re-interviewed (Gordon & Lahelma, 2003). When young men talk about encounters in the local area in these interviews, they refer to exclusionary practices, suggesting, for example, that members of ethnic minority groups occupy public spaces in ways that exclude others. However, young men also discuss local encounters that are characterized by co-operation between people who are considered to be different. In an interview two young men they talk about their use of space. The interview was conducted in the Department of Sociology, located in an area that I call “City Park.” The young men have a following conversation: Tuula: Where do you tend to spend your free time? Ismo: In Greenland mostly. Heikki: Well if we go and spend some free time it’s mostly so that we go to either of our homes, go to cinema, but rarely really. Or we go and get – or buy a CD or something. That sort of thing. And then if I’m with Pekka we go into the city sometimes, because he’s lived here in City Park. So we always come here or something. Tuula: But quite a lot – if you go to cinema, you go in Greenland? Ismo: If we go to movies we come to the city. There’s no proper one in Greenland. Heikki: It’s really bad. Ismo: You’d need to be mad to go there. Tuula: (…) Have the areas that you move in become larger? Heikki: Yes. At least for me, because I’ve never really been to City Park. And now then, even though I’ve known Pekka (…) for six years, seven years, but I’ve not been here in City Park before. Only in the last few years, or last year Tuula: (..) do you go (..) any pubs or discos or anything like that? Ismo: Not really. Heikki: No in pubs, I once accidentally ended up in X, but it’s a useless place. And then, when you have a free evening, you need to have alcohol, so it is usually at Pekka’s friends. Young men spend time in public places both in local areas and also in the city centre, but they also spend a fair amount of time at home. Tuula: (…) what would a favourite place for you? Somewhere that you really like a lot? Heikki: My own room. Ismo: Yes, that’s really – Public places can be exciting places, but they can also be characterized by tensions, and being in them can seem unsafe at times. Therefore one’s own room can be place where one can have privacy, safety but also freedom.
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When discussing public places, it becomes evident that some white young Finnish men have negative views about immigrants. Pete: I have a fairly negative image about them. They’re criminals, or a large proportion of them are criminals. Jere: Yes. Pete: And they take jobs away from Finns, and we sort of keep them, when we pay taxes. For example when drivers get fined and so on, the money is not used to fix roads, it’s used when yet one more family comes from over there to live in Finland. Jere: Yeah, they need to fix things there in their own country and stay and live there. They come over here and complain and we pay everything for them. In the next extract it is evident that at the same time as these young men produce these negative perceptions, they also state that this picture does not necessarily match existing circumstances. Jere: Well they’re not all quite like that, I mean there’s a small proportion, who want to do something in order to be here, they study and so on. But nevertheless there’s a negative picture on the whole. It is significant that these negative pictures do not always reflect personal experiences of the young people, but they also reflect public discussions that have been conducted in the media, where representations of refugees and immigrant are often negative (Raittila, 2002). I ask further questions of Pete and Jere about their negative picture and how it has formed. They refer to their own experiences as well as to the media – particularly when the interviewer questions their views: Jere:
Usually it’s all that – when you watch the news and hear and read papers and so on. And you can see who are the ones who move about in the city. There they are, over there. Tuula: Well? Pete: I don’t like them. Tuula: They have a high percentage of unemployment, it’s difficult to get work here. Pete: Yes, and we still get more anyway. When young men talked about exclusionary views, they often mentioned particular immigrant groups, for example, that members of a particular group moved about with knives in their pockets. In this situation it is fairly clear that they are not talking about girls and women (although they may have knives as well) but rather they think about boys and men. In such situations it is particularly the relations between young men that are considered significant. Boys can also be aware of the fact their views may be based on exaggerations. Heikki and Ismo, cited above, shift their tone gradually when they talk about the generalizations that other people have about them.
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Heikki: Well it doesn’t mean that I would attack everyone I see in the streets. I don’t sort of hold – like that “get out of Finland.” But sort of – often when you see them in the streets they really don’t behave in a very flattering way, sort of. It’s easy to have this image that … Ismo: I mean generalisation is so … Heikki: Yeah, we do it ourselves, even though we just said that (unclear). Ismo: Yes, it’s a kind of, you don’t necessarily even notice it, that you’re already generalising, so if you sometimes have some experience, someone comes and mouths at you, or you hear from friends about those who’ve come with knives to rob, or who’ve been beaten up. Then it’s everybody straight away. This kind of talk demonstrates that young people do have a capacity to think about their own conceptions, particularly if they are encouraged to do so. In interactive life history interviews every participant may offer new ideas in the course of the discussion. Heikki and Ismo continue the discussion on generalizations by talking about their own experiences. In this context they are critical about generalizations: Heikki: No but, I mean I really try not to generalise, because it’s like, having been the target of generalisations, sort of. So it’s been possible to notice how, sort of, one tries. But it doesn’t always work. Tuula: What sort of generalisations have you come across? Heikki: Well wearing black clothes and that it’s straight away satan worship or something like that. Someone who practices exclusion in one context, may be the target of it himself in another context. In that sense in urban areas there are a range of overlapping exclusions and inclusions. Neighborhood nationalism is intertwined with urban citizenship, and embedded in practices whereby rights and duties are negotiated in everyday situations and spaces where young people meet. When those concerned are young men, these encounters are framed by hegemonic masculinities that refer to hierarchical relations between men (cf. Connell, 1989). Being Finnish is produced in many contexts, representations and orders that become emotionally embedded. Relations among young men are important in contestations and struggles about local spaces. Their presence in public places may scare others, but they may also fear for their own safety (cf. McDowell, 1999). As Coffey and Hall (1999) suggest, spaces are shaped to become places in a range of ways. They propose that one of the tasks of youth work is to participate in such negotiations among young people. Similarly the task of urban education is to support young people in their interaction across differences at school.
Educational Implications Education is a crucial site where agency of young people can be constructed and supported so that it is possible for them to engage critically with negative representations of others, and to critically consider society, culture differences and social justice
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(Osler & Vincent, 2002). Negative and/or stereotypical ways of representing others are problematic in a globalized and transnational world, where people cross many kinds of borders and boundaries. These border crossings cohere unevenly, so that global flaneurs are often white middle-class men who can operate as cosmopolitans. Others, however, have to cross borders even though they may not want to. For people in transnational spaces, rights and duties associated with citizenship are important. If these rights and duties and the sense of belonging that is associated with them take place in local places, through the encounters associated with them, it is possible to cultivate a sense of belonging and inclusion, so that in the context of multicultural and syncretic border crossing new cultures can emerge. These new cultures may facilitate the formation of those kinds of shared collective responsibilities that were demonstrated in the discussion about the early history of Green Park. The idea of urban citizenship introduces questions about rights, duties and responsibilities between and among people. Critical engagement with patterns of city formation is also important in promoting socially just education. Access to public services in general is also critical in order to prevent any further development of suburbs characterized by low level of resources, and inner cities where a multitude of services including arts and culture are generated and utilized by middle and upper classes. Whilst social planning and city design remain processes that are not held apart, young people have access to a diversity of cultures and they have opportunities to negotiate collaborative practices. The important task of urban education is to support these practices in a multitude of contexts where young people are located.
References Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. London & New York: Routledge. Ålund, Alexandra (1999). Ethnicity, multiculturalism and the problem of culture. European Societies, 1(1), 105–116. Arnesen, A-L. (2003). Constructions of an ‘outsider’: Contradictions and ambiguities in institutional practices. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Democratic education: Ethnographic challenges (pp. 52–65). London: Tufnell Press. Back, L. (1996). New ethnicities and urban culture: Racisms and multiculture in young lives. London: UCL Press Limited. Beauregard, R., & Bounds, A. (2000). Urban Citizenship. In F. E. Isin (Ed.) Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City (pp. 243–256). London: Routledge. Benhabib, S. (2004). The rights of others: Aliens, residents and citizens. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Butler, R. (1998). Rehabilitating the images of disabled youths. In T. Skelton, & G. Valentine (Ed.), Cool places: Geographies of youth cultures (pp. 83–100). London & New York: Routledge. Coffey, A., & Hall, T. (1999). Self, space & place: Youth identities and citizenship. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(4), 501–513. Connell, R. W. (1989). “Cool guys, swots and wimp”: The Interplay of masculinity and education. Oxford Review of Education, 15(3), 291–303. Gilroy, P. (1987). “There ain’t no black in the Union Jack”: The cultural politics of race and nation. London: Hutchinson. Gitz-Johansen, T. (2003). Representations of ethnicity: How teachers speak about ethnic minority students. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Democratic education: Ethnographic challenges (pp. 66–79). London: Tufnell Press.
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Gordon, T., Hynninen, P., Lahelma, E., Metso, T., Palmu, T., & Tolonen, T. (2006). Collective Ethnography, Joint Experiences and Individual Pathways, 26, 3–15. Gordon, T., Holland, J., & Lahelma, E. (2000). Making spaces: Citizenship and difference in schools. London: PalgraveMacmillan. Gordon, T., & Lahelma, E. (2003). From ethnography to life history: Tracing transitions of school students. International Journal of Social Research Methdology, 6(3), 245–254. Hall, S. (2000). Globalisation and Identity. Lecture presented at the University of Tampere, May 18, 2000. Heater, D. (2004). A history of education for citizenship. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Isin, E. F. (2000). Politics in the global city. London: Routledge. Klasen, S. (2001). Social exclusion, children and education. European Societies, 3(4), 413–445. Lahelma, E. (2002). Gendered conflicts in a secondary school: Fun or enactment of power? Gender and Education, 14(3), 295–306. Lahelma, E., & Öhrn, E. (2003). ‘Strong nordic women in the making? Gender policies and classroom practices’. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Democratic education: Ethnographic challenges (pp. 39–51). London: Tufnell Press. Lappalainen, S. (2003). Celebrating internationality: Constructions of nationality at preschool. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Demoractic Education, ethnographic challenges (pp. 80–91). London: Tufnell Press. Lie, S., Linnakylä, P., & Roe, A. (2003). Northern lights on PISA. Oslo: Department of teacher education and school development. University of Oslo, 123–131. Lieberg, M. (1994). Appropriating the city: Teenagers’ use of public space. In S. J. Neary, M. S. Symes, & F. E. Brown (Eds.), The urban experience: A people-environment perspective. London: E & FN Spon. Lindblad, S., & Popkewitz, T. S. (2003). Comparative ethnography: Fabricating the new millennium and its exclusions. In D. Beach, T. Gordon, & E. Lahelma (Eds.), Democratic education: Ethnographic challenges (pp. 10–23). London: Tufnell Press. Linklater, A. (2002). Cosmopolitan citizenship. In E. F. Isin (Ed.), Handbook of citizenship studies (pp. 317–332). London: SAGE. Lundström, C. (2006). ‘Okay but we are not whores you know’: Latina girls navigating the boundaries of gender and ethnicity in Sweden. YOUNG. A Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 14(3), 203–208. Marshall, T. H. (1963). Sociology at crossroads. London, Heinemann. Massey, D. (1998). The spatial construction of youth cultures. In T. Skelton, & G. Valentine (Eds.), Cool places: Geographies of youth cultures (pp. 121–129). London, USA & Canada: Routledge. Miller, T. (2002). Cultural citizenship. In E. F. Isin (Ed.), Handbook of citizenship studies (pp. 231–243). London: SAGE. McDowell, L. (1999). Gender, identity and place: Understanding feminist geographies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nayak, A. (2003). Race, place and globalization: Youth cultures in a changing world. Oxford: Berg. Öhrn, E. (1998). Gender and power in school: A gendered practice of schooling? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1(4), 341–357. Olagnero, M., Meo, A., & Corcoran, M. P. (2005). Social support networks in impoverished european neighbourhoods: Case studies from Italy and Ireland. In European Societies, 7(1), 53–79. Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality. Durham: Duke University Press. Osler, A., & Vincent, K. (2002). Citizenship and the challenge of global education. Stoke: Trentham. Peterson, A. (1995). Walls and bridges: Youth and the drama of immigration in contemporary Sweden. YOUNG – Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 3(4), 54–70. Popkewitz, T. S. (2006). Hope of progress and fears of the dangerous: Research, cultural theses and planning different human kinds. In G. Ladson-Billings, & W. F. Tate (Eds.), Education research in the public interest. Social justice, action, and policy (pp. 119–141). New York: Teachers College Press. Roche, M. (2002). Social citizenship: Grounds of social change. In E. F. Isin, & B. S. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of citizenship studies (pp. 69–86). London: SAGE. Rose, N. (2000). Governing cities, governing societies. In E. F. Isin (Ed.), Democracy, citizenship and the global city (pp. 95–109). London, USA & Canada: Routledge. Sassen, S. (2000). Cities in a world economy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Tolonen, T. (2005). Locality and gendered capitals of working-class youth. Young, 13(4), 343–361. Turner, B. S. (2002). Selected essays. Social theories of the city, v. 1. London: Roultedge/Thoemmes.
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Watt, P., & Stenson, K. (1998). The street: ‘It’s a Bit Dodgy Around There’ – safety, ethnicity and young people’s use of public space. In T. Skelton, & G. Valentine (Eds.), Cool places: Geographies of youth cultures (pp. 249–265). London & New York: Routledge. Williams, Raymond (1979). Politics and letters. London, Verso. Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yuval-Davis, N. (2000). Citizenship, territoriality and the gendered construction. In E. F. Isin (Ed.), Democracy, citizenship and the global city (pp. 171–181). London, USA & Canada: Routledge.
25 TERRITORIAL STIGMATISATION, HIP HOP AND INFORMAL SCHOOLING Ove Sernhede University of Goteborg, Sweden
You know I’m not that smart, I’m not that much into school and homework … reading and writing and all that, but it doesn’t matter anyhow. My next-door neighbour, he is an architect, he is very well educated from the finest universities in London. He has applied for more than a hundred jobs, but no work place wants to hire him because he is a “blackhead.” I’m also a “blackhead” so why should I try to be good in school? I’ll never get a job that way anyhow. The only way for us to get somewhere is to do the things we are good at here – break-dance, boxing, basketball and rap. I’m all into music, so that’s what I’ll do. To be a microphone prophet is a safer future for me than to get good grades in school. Tederico, age 20 Tederico is a rapper and a member of a Hip Hop collective in Hammarkullen, Göteborg. Hammarkullen is one of the better-known immigrant neighborhoods located in Angered, an area in the north-east part of Göteborg, a city with half a million inhabitants on the west coast of Sweden. The youngsters refer to Angered as Los Angered, and there is a strong territorial awareness that keeps the many break-dance and rap groups all around Angered together as a coherent Hip Hop culture. They do not consider Angered as a part of Göteborg. Angered is “the third world in the middle of the first world.” Even if they are Swedish citizens they say that they will “never be a part of Swedish culture” and that they never see themselves as Swedes. They belong to the Global Tribe of Hip Hop. The initial words from Tederico may sound a bit categorical, but it is no exaggeration to say that the school system has great difficulties in many immigrant-dominated areas in the metropolitan cities of Sweden. If, for example, we take a closer look at the 2,500 persons from the Göteborg region who are registered each autumn at Göteborg University, we find that only 65–70 of these are from Angered, an area with more than 40,000 inhabitants. There has been a public debate about the under-representation of immigrants in higher education. Göteborg University has launched diverse projects to attract the youth in Angered, but with little success. The problem is alarming, and to 463 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 463–480. © 2007 Springer.
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solve it we must go deeper beneath public debate. Segregation, marginalization, and the growth of new forms of poverty in many Swedish cities have created a demarcation line between Us and Them – the immigrant-dominated areas are at the heart of what we might consider as an urbanization of injustice.
Luxury Alongside Poverty Since the mid-1980s a debate has raged among sociologists and other social scientists about patterns of marginalization and poverty on the European continent, including the United Kingdom. The development towards a “post-industrial” society has implied a growing social polarization in many countries. The rise of new forms of social exclusion has pushed an increasing number of groups into marginalization and ultimately into exclusion. The forms and intensities involved in this process of mounting class differentiation vary. However, it is still possible to discern certain common tendencies in the emergent New Europe. In order to explain this development, politicians refer regularly and compulsively to economic crisis. Simultaneously, the GNP and accumulated wealth have witnessed strong growth over the entire European Union during the past two or three decades. Luxury and poverty have always existed side by side. However, the present situation offers something new in the form of growing gaps between the world of affluence and that of scarcity. Neither millionaires nor the destitute have at any time during the postwar period been so numerous as now. According to official EU statistics from 1998, before the incorporation of the former Eastern European States in 2004, there were 52 million poor people, 17 million unemployed, and 3 million homeless in the EU (Waquant, 1999). These figures do not seem to be declining, and at the same time an improved competitive position has moved the European economy into a phase of strong expansion. A background element of importance in this development is the new international division of labor. In addition, there are crucial structural changes in the economy that have created a situation where, for example, the new IT sector is putting greater demands on labor. Economies require highly qualified people with exponentially increasing competence, while many tasks in traditional industries are being eliminated. The simple truth is that there are no jobs for a growing army of redundant workers. The effect on immigrants and refugees who in recent years have moved to the suburbs of European cities is that they too are facing growing difficulties in entering the labor market. The permanency of contemporary patterns of poverty is clearly linked to processes of de-industrialization and globalization. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu characterized the new patterns of poverty that grow out of these structural changes as the “Modern Misery,” and that this new situation emerged independently of the state of the economies (Bourdieu, 1999). Those who have carried the new destitution on their shoulders have easily been disarmed by their marginal positions and their heterogeneity. The political machines of established interests find it menacing to be in any sense identified with, or much less a mouthpiece for, this modern misery.
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The Divided City The dismantling of the institutions of the welfare state is also at the root of contemporary poverty. The British sociologist Scott Lash (1994) characterized this as “institutional deficit,” which is particularly evident in urban, ghetto-like environments where modern misery is more manifest. The American scholar William Julius Wilson (1993) stressed the pattern of synchronization between developments in Europe and the United States. The French sociologist Loic Wacquant has (1993), on the other hand, found decisive differences. One important such difference is constituted by the heterogeneous ghettos in Europe. Another difference is that, in Europe, the demarcation line between the socially excluded and the rest of society is not as clearly related to the categories of race or ethnicity as it is in the US. There has been great controversy on how to characterize this new situation. Scholars on the right think that the development of the welfare state produced a social stratum which they call “the new underclass,” unwilling to work and deeply dependent on welfare subsidies. The opposite view of this new situation blames not the victims, but the structural changes of the European economy during the last two or three decades. Those marginalized groups of mobile immigrants or refugees who on the continent are labeled “the new poor” or “outcasts” have, over the past 15 years, been forming ghettos everywhere in Europe. In Sweden the best-known ghetto areas are Rinkeby (Stockholm), Angered (Göteborg) and Rosengård (Malmö). All of these neighborhoods are involved in what Wacquant defines as a territorial stigmatization process (Waquant, 1993, 1999). The societal and medial discourse demonizes the conditions of life in these areas so that, both inside and outside them, fear and insecurity are being created. A moral panic is created by stereotypes about criminality, race, culture and religious antagonisms, which additionally exacerbates conditions for people who are already sidetracked by poverty and alienation. The social tensions are growing, and Lash, instead of asking “if,” is asking “when” and where the European version of the Rodney King affair will occur: in Berlin, Marseilles or Rotterdam?1 Now we know. The European version of the Rodney King Riot started on the 27th of October 2005 in Paris. To be closer, it started in the immigrant dominated Parisian suburb Clichy-sous-Bois. The police hunted two young French citizens with parents from Mali and Tunisia. They tried to get shelter in an electric power station and there they were burnt to death. The very same evening citizens in Clichy organized a meeting to show their rage against the police. Later on that night hundreds of youth in Clichy and other suburbs attacked the police with stones and Molotov cocktails. This was the start of the most serious uprising in France since May 1968. For 2–3 weeks the whole of France went up in flames and the authorities had to put in more than 25,000 extra policemen. But the riots were not defeated until a “state of emergency” was proclaimed in 300 cities of France. And now the whole of Europe has but one question, when will these riots start again. Can these riots be exported to other countries? The Swedish media showed their anxiety and interviewed social workers, youth and social scientists during the weeks France was burning – is a French situation possible in Sweden? The situation in metropolitan areas in Sweden may not be as rough as in France. But the official reports on the living conditions in the immigrant-dense suburbs of
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Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö does not make for uplifting reading. 40% of all children and young people up to 17 years of age live in “exposed urban districts,” to cite a parliamentary committee on Big City Conditions. The majority of people in these districts have foreign backgrounds. The largest proportions of youngsters with immigrant origins are to be found in districts with extremely low incomes. The disposable income among families with children in many neighborhoods in Angered is some 14,000 British pounds lower per annum than the average income in the city of Stockholm. In Göteborg and Malmö, there are districts with extremely low incomes that coincide with a 90% immigrant population and with more than 50% of the children up to six years of age having unemployed parents. These circumstances have put Sweden into a state of shock. The so-called Swedish model, the famous welfare state, is eroding. The situation for child immigrants can in some respects be compared with conditions for blacks in the United States, where one in two children lives in poverty. In a recent investigation (Salonen, 2003) of child poverty, 73% of the children in Rosengård live in families that are below the poverty line. Sweden has for some time also been a two-thirds society, or more correctly it is a four-fifths society. In Göteborg, a classic working-class city with half a million inhabitants of whom nearly 150,000 have an immigrant background, social entitlements doubled between 1990 and 1993. Even though the situation for the Swedish economy has stabilized the processes of marginalization, poverty and discrimination are made permanent and Sweden has become a country of “Us” and “Them” like many other European countries. The unemployment figures amongst immigrants are higher than for the “ethnic Swedes,” immigrant youths do not attend higher education, and so on. Research on the new areas of poverty in the European metropolitan districts suggests that, in contrast to the traditional working-class quarters where poverty was an integral part of the working-class culture, the new areas are suffering from a lack of solidarity and community spirit (Mingione, 1996). The local, collective and territorial identity, which previously provided security and a feeling of self-assertiveness, is now replaced by instability in the very same districts. There exist, it is claimed, uncertainty and alienation in relation to the rest of society. At the same time, the internal conditions are inculcated by competition and conflict-ridden antagonisms between different groups. These patterns can, of course, also be discerned in Sweden. The new immigrantdominated suburban districts in the three Swedish metropolitan areas constitute fragile communities, the mark of which is extreme ethnic heterogeneity. For many adults who see their living in a particular district as a temporary solution, the social space provided by this district is a rather weak basis for any community spirit. Instead, it is the family and the commonality of one’s own ethnic group that are charged with a new meaning.
Reality is My Nationality Things are different for the young. During leisure time they are out on the streets and cultivating friendships that supersede the ethnic boundaries drawn by the parental culture. All adolescents are in the process of seeking their outer and inner selves – this is
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part of the identity work of modern youth. In these multiethnic areas, the constant encounters with young people from other cultures, with Swedish society and with today’s multi facetted, global and media-based youth culture, imply that new points of departure are created for identification processes, which by necessity are embedded in adolescent identity work. For two and a half years I conducted a research project in Hammarkullen, one of the immigrant suburbs of Angered in Göteborg.2 One of the salient features amongst the groups with which I had contact is their openness to absorbing and testing different expressions, articulations and outlooks on the world which are inherent in different cultures. Although most of the youngsters I met are Swedish citizens, they do not consider themselves as Swedes. On the other hand, adopting their parents’ national identity is not self-evident either. “Cassius” from Tunisia told me: I’ m not Swedish, I never could be Swedish ’cos this society don’t want me, but I’m not Tunisian either, but of course I’m more Tunisian than Swede. You see … I couldn’t go back to Tunisia ’cos I have no future there. I’ve been going to school here in Hammarkullen, I have all my friends here, I have my life here – but this is not Sweden, it’s Hammarkullen and Hammarkullen is a reservation, there are no Swedes living here so it’s not Sweden – it’s Hammarkullen. It’s like the Third World in the middle of the First World, if you see what I mean. The general election in Sweden in 2002 supported the picture of a general pattern of decreasing voter turnout. Today, in a number of different groups within Swedish society, we see an increasing tendency towards dissociation in relation to the official forms and institutions of politics. This new pattern of development has been presented as a threat to, or a crisis for, democracy. Although these developments are general in nature, it is undoubtedly the case that they are more prominent among young people and immigrants than among many other groups. Muhammad, 20 years of age, born in Somalia, a Swedish citizen for eight years: They say on TV that immigrants have to be integrated and that we should do this and that. But how the fuck can we be integrated into society when they don’t even want us there really. They shut the door, got it. That’s how I see it. They shut me out of society, then they want me to participate. You understand? How can you participate when you can’t even get in … I don’t see myself as a member of this society, ya know. That’s how I feel. I’m a Swedish citizen, I’m not going to vote. ’Cos I don’t care, got it. I don’t care. Why should I get mixed up in their business. It doesn’t feel like my business. Even though I’m a Swedish citizen and have lived here for ten years, I don’t care. Ya know, that’s how I see myself. I don’t want to integrate anything. I don’t want to be part of … I have nothing in common with Swedish society. Muhammad, quoted above, is in many respects representative of the young people with whom I have had contact during the time I did my research on segregated, suburban immigrant youth and their cultural expressions. The most striking common feature of
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the stories they have shared with me has to do with exclusion, non-participation, and a feeling that “real Swedes don’t really want to get to know us immigrants.” Their stories are about experiencing that official Swedish institutions are not intended for them. Time and time again, they return to the feeling of not being desirable, of not fitting in, of not having a place – and to the frustration of “not knowing what I should do with my life.” They are Swedish, problematically so. Moving to their parents’ homeland is not a practicable solution either. Even though they have family and friends there, enjoy visiting (if this is at all possible), and may perceive themselves as more for example, Chilean or Somali than Swedish, their parents’ homeland remains a different world than the one they grew up in and have an internalized relation to. There is no future there either. Given their feelings of non-belonging both in Sweden and their parents’ homeland, many of the youths I interviewed consider the identity offered by immigrant status as their primary identity. They are neither Swedish, nor Chilean or Somali, but immigrants or – as they often call themselves – “blackheads” or “blackies.” These young people are brought together by the alienation of being an immigrant. All of them are “blackies,” regardless of where they have their roots – in Europe, Latin America or Africa. “Alienation is our Nation” and “Reality is my Nationality,” claimed one of the youngsters – with an alien passport – in a reference to the well-known rap artist Kool G. Rap. The innovative cultural work these young people are involved in – and which I have focused on through my research – deals with, among other things, redefining this alienation and deciding for themselves what it means. The new cultural patterns being created not only highlight frustration and pain, but likewise the power and potential, the joy and community that also exist in the environments where they live their lives. Among other things, this is a matter of taking from “the Svens” their right to interpret how these environments are understood and defined. “We aren’t people you should feel sorry for. I hate it when there are discussions and Swedes say ‘poor immigrants.’ We are not poor immigrants. We have our pride, you know, we’re not wimps.” They defend themselves against being turned into victims. This is why they have, for instance, consciously taken over the epithet “blackie,” a term originally used by xenophobic Swedes. Thus, just as blacks in the US have taken up the derogatory “nigger” and given it another meaning, young people in Angered have transformed the meaning of “blackie.” Another common response to the situation of rootlessness felt by young immigrants is to focus on their own neighborhood or suburb. It is primarily boys and young men who use this strategy for creating identity and security. The place where they grew up, where they live, where they spend their everyday life and where they have their friends becomes obviously a factor of crucial importance to stabilize identity if you are considered an alien in the world outside your own area. Among the young men I met, there is a strong need to charge with meaning and elevate the local physical environment as well as the youth community. “Hammarkullen – that’s our place on earth,” but Hammarkullen is not part of Sweden, it is a “reservation.” Hammarkullen is another world, another form of community. Hammarkullen offers security and protection and is the social space for common interests.
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A Tense Relation to Swedish Authorities When, after a day’s work, the social workers, teachers, youth-club leaders, and administrative staff climb into their cars and drive ten plus kilometres home to their housing areas in Göteborg’s inner city, they are replaced by security companies and police as if “changing of the guard for the occupying power.” Many I have spoken with consider the relationship between Angered and the rest of Göteborg to be colonial. Given this understanding, the police have a clear mission, and particularly in Hammarkullen the young people’s relationship to the police has a long and inflamed history. In interviews, young immigrants tell of how they have long felt provoked and harassed by the police. “If they come here with their batons and cocky attitudes then we have a cocky attitude back. Just ‘cos we’re some sort of underclass doesn’t mean we put up with anything, ya know.” Santos, a 20-year-old Peruvian, talks at length and with intensity about his experience of their relation to the police. When I started to visit the area, one of the first things that happened was a confrontation between youth and the police. At this time there were no neighborhood police in the area. When a 19-year-old young man was about to be seized by a police patrol a large group of youths intervene in order to rescue their friend. The patrol car’s windshield is smashed and the policemen lose control, become panicky and call in reinforcements. Within a few minutes, 22 additional police cars arrive in order to head off the “riot.” The next day, big headlines were circulated in the press. Youths from Hammarkullen were depicted as an unruly mob, as hoodlums. The circumstances that, according to the young people, were the actual cause of the disturbances were not presented in the media. On television, Channel 4 was an exception. The local news desk arranged a debate between youth and the police. On this occasion it became clear that the media had not provided the whole truth. Indeed the young people were not shown as hooligans and they in no way corresponded to stereotypical portrayals in the evening papers – portrayals of immigrant youth as dangerous and brutal. Instead, these young immigrants appeared to be just the opposite – verbal, mature and sober. During the live broadcast, they even invited the police to take a “class” that they intended to give, provided the police were interested. In their opinion, the police needed to acquire more knowledge about the life conditions of immigrant youth and the big city. Many police officers come from small towns and have little idea about what it means to live in a modern, big-city suburb. Their knowledge of what it means to be an immigrant is even more limited. Adults living in the area also perceived the 22 extra patrol cars and newspaper articles to be insulting. They demanded a meeting with and explanation from the office of the chief of police. No one from the office came to the meeting that was called, but instead two former neighborhood police, both of whom have a good name in the district. Because neither of the officers was present during the event in question, they were unable to respond to the questions posed by the indignant participants at the meeting. It was poignant to see an elderly Chilean refugee stand and take the floor. He was extremely critical of the police and said, “I have been at the soccer stadium in Santiago as a political prisoner, I have seen police and the military attack people in this way, but
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I never thought this could happen in Olof Palme’s Sweden.” In order to understand how many young people view the media, we must remember that events such as this “riot” and its consequences constitute the relevant background. There is a strongly expressed aversion to all the images of misery, poverty, and trouble that the media are perceived to ration out at regular intervals. Every negative reference in the papers or on TV is considered as an insult. The media is not thought of as an independent or neutral and critical institution. On the contrary, the perception is that the function of the media is to identify the immigrants as second-class citizens.
Tha Klika Tederico, the young man we met earlier, has a close friend called Victor, a 19-year-old of Latin American origin, who comments on the media-made image of his own suburb in the following way: Hammarkullen is really a reservation. Rinkeby is too, in Stockholm. When I’m in Hammarkullen everything feels okay. Everybody badmouths Hammarkullen, but nobody’s been there. That’s why people don’t want to be anywhere else, ’cos then things aren’t okay. Now I’m in Hammarkullen, it’s another world. I know everybody and everybody’s just like me. When I leave Hammarkullen I come to Sweden, and when I’m in Sweden I feel discriminated against. It doesn’t feel like Sweden is my country and it never will. Even if … I have a theory that the world is where you want to live. If a place feels good, you should live there. But Sweden doesn’t feel like my country. When I look around I only see white, blond people. I really don’t want to be part of that society. There’s no reason to ’cos I don’t feel at home there anyway. Then maybe you wonder “why the hell are you here then.” There really are a lot of problems. I was born here, ya know, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life really. There just shouldn’t be any barriers. In Hammarkullen there is local version of Hip Hop culture. I have spent much of my time in the area with a group of 10–15 young men, aged 17–25, who make rap music. They are part of a bigger Hip Hop collective of 50 young people who make rap music, produce graffiti and break-dance. The members of this rap group have their origins in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. They regard themselves as constituting an ethnic alliance, the task of which is not only to represent the young from Hammer Hill (which they have literally re-baptized as their district), but to speak for all immigrant youth from all suburbs in Sweden. This group aptly calls itself The Hammer Hill Click or Tha Klika, and has as its main aim to create respect and goodwill for its own suburb. When Hip Hop grew out of the Bronx, New York City, in the late 1970s, it was a response to social devaluation and stigmatization. For Hammarkullen’s youth, Hip Hop is also a means of improving a city district’s sullied reputation.3 “We don’t want Hammarkullen to be known because there are a lot of problems here, we want everybody to know about Hammarkullen because the best rappers and break-dancers are here.” Demands for respect are raised only by those who have been treated disrespectfully. Hip Hop is a cultural expression of demands for respect. Hip Hop is a street culture.
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This does not mean it has no interest in reflecting upon the society it is part of. But the knowledge that is valued in the Hip Hop culture is not something one learns in school. A rapper can in one way be seen as an “organic intellectual,” who makes use of personal experience to analyze history and contemporary social reality (Holmes-Smith, 1997). In this culture’s eyes, the schools have lost their credibility since they are founded on Hisstory, that is, on descriptions of history by “the white man.” The schools rest on a Western, Eurocentric perspective where universal principles are preached at the same time as society practices segregation, discrimination, and inequality. “Democracy is Hipocracy and has to do with luring the poor.” “Democracy is Hipocracy and has to do with cheating the poor.” Click or Klika is a designation of “Clique” which refers back to the youth gangs of the so-called Chicano culture in Los Angeles. There, a “clique” means a solidly coherent group. To define themselves as a clique implies that the members have mutual bonds of trust which approximate to their relationships to their original families. However, to have borrowed a group designation from Los Angeles, and tattooed one’s body in the same way as one’s “brothers” across the Atlantic, does not entail identifying one’s living conditions with those of young Chicanos in Los Angeles. Residing in a “depressed” area of Sweden and Göteborg is quite different from inhabiting an American ghetto; the kinship is primarily on a symbolic level.
Informal Learning Processes Tha Klika started as a tight group of comrades and had many features in common with the characteristics of exclusive boys’ clubs. One of the hallmarks of the “Clique” was that the members’ mutual sense of responsibility was so strong so as to make the group’s coherence resemble, in some respects, a family. The continual talk about being brothers was more than rhetoric. It reflected true caring and consideration between the individuals. Hard words, peeves, conflicts, and rudeness naturally occurred, and there were cases of persons who left the group because they did not fit in. But the underlying loyalty, the belonging and the shared feeling for the “task” were stronger than in any other youth group I have had contact with.4 Such youth groups have often been portrayed as male-dominated collectives that build upon needs for separateness and security in an uncertain, demanding world. Through the “collective self ” that the group constitutes, a marginalized and powerless individual can gain strength. Being a member, allowed to take part in the collective warmth, is the primary motive and each can hide his uncertain self in the gang. Relations within the group have also frequently been seen as dominated by superficial contacts. The tension between a confident, tough surface and a weak self-image has endowed the collective with an inner life where, as one prerequisite, nobody exposes himself and talks about himself and his own thoughts, feelings, or needs. Togetherness does not allow the individual space to show who he or she “really” is. This type of socially and psychologically structured gang is usually also a kind of closed fortress, permeated with separation-anxiety and fear, as well as sometimes controlled by demonic-leader figures.
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This characteristic has limited relevance for the groups I got to know in Angered. On the contrary, in a group like Tha Klika, knowledge about each other, and the possibilities of showing who one is, are among the prerequisites for the collective. Most of these youths were active Hip Hoppers and this in itself may have promoted the climate between the individuals. Hip Hop is an expressive culture that bases its idioms upon each participant emphasizing his own subjectivity and creating a personal style as rapper, graffiti painter or break-dancer. One’s personality and the distinctions between individuals are of central significance in this culture. An implication is that nobody can hide himself and bask in the light of others. Every member has his own assignment and role in the group. But to maintain this function, training is needed. In regard to creating music and performing on stage, as well as to the codes in daily life, there is a mentor system which provides the new initiate with a “guide” or, perhaps more accurately, a “big brother” in the group. This older brother helps, encourages, trains and leads the new member into the secrets of Hip Hop and rap music. I met a number of rap gangs regularly for more than a year, and my field notes contain many observations about the social and musical learning processes that took place in these groups. The discipline, seriousness and intensity with which they trained were recognizable to me from other contexts (Fornäs, Lindberg, & Sernhede, 1995). What I found novel was the clear division of work and almost school-like situation. Efforts were required of all the individuals, chiefly in the form of writing texts but also of suggestions for melodies and “beats.” Sometimes the rehearsals became seminarlike events where, for example, one of the older experienced members recounted the history of Hip Hop or of blacks or native Latin Americans, or someone reviewed a book he had read. Perico from Tha Klika, when I ask him whether he enjoys school, speaks of the relationship between the learning that takes place in school and what happens in the rap group: School isn’t my bag, but I get by … you could say that the group is also a kind of school, see … like Immanuel, he’s a Muslim and he takes care of his own, Muhammed and Niladh who are Muslims too, you know, so he teaches them about their history and I teach Ronaldo and Pablo and the other little rappers who hang around us about Latin America’s history – not like “come here or there at five o’clock and I’ll test the lesson,” but more when we meet, and then we chat and I can talk a little as if lecturing when I tell it was this or that Indian tribe living at the time, and this or that year when it happened, it was then that the Spaniards came, the Indians had a certain religion and all that. It’s fun to talk, you see, and now they’re going to make a new song about Latin America’s history, see, I said one person can concentrate on the Inca kingdom, another can take up the Spaniards when they came and wiped out a whole continent, and the third can talk about the situation in Latin America today. Nobody in Latin America likes the USA – even though we rap and this comes from the USA, there’s a difference from the country and those blacks and poor people; the government is something else. Then there can be part of the text about one’s own thoughts on how that should be handled.
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Here, the group and the Hip Hop culture are an arena for seeking understanding, which schools and parents are not able to provide. But the group also has to do with each individual’s need of belonging, security, closeness, meaning, identity and respect. Thus, “rowdy youth groups” cannot be considered destructive “per se.” On the contrary, they may well comprise a form of “organisation” that the school has everything to gain by developing a comprehension of. The basis of any pedagogy must be to develop, together with the young, content and forms of instruction that are considered meaningful and, in the students” eyes, credible. This must also apply to the young in the high-rise suburbs. They are entitled to instruction which does not ignore or avoid the fact that the Swedish society they have to grow up in is stratified into A- and B-classes, that structural racism exists, and that it is not true that everyone has the same chance regardless of social, cultural, economic, religious, and ethnic background. The schools should not compete with the youth culture, but must use its resources to develop intellectual tools which, taking account of the young’s capacity for understanding, give them a possibility of investigating and understanding contemporary life. In this way the schools can become credible. Only when school is perceived as an institution that takes its task seriously can the trust be built up which is needed for the young in these areas to choose university education in the future. The emergence of the New Sweden has made it increasingly important that teachers reflect more profoundly upon the school’s function and their own role. Their loyalty toward the structures in which they participate is far from self-evident or unproblematic.
88-Soldiers Being a “clique” also implies that what the members do is more than just to express themselves through music – in a way it is possible to look upon the group as a kind of political manifestation. Tha Klika has no problem combining the cultural with the political, the aesthetic with the ethical. Being a “clique” means that, in spite of their different origins and creeds, they are an inseparable unit. Within this clique, every individual has a fundamental right to claim religious or ethnic particularity and to represent any branch of rap music, as long as he or she is loyal to the defined common task of the group. The task is to regard oneself as a soldier with music as a weapon or to be, as the Clique says, a “microphone prophet.” As has been noted, the group’s lyrics deal with police brutality, discrimination and racism in Swedish society; they embrace friendship and gang solidarity, reverence toward Allah and Islam, the history of Latin America, everyday life in the suburb and so on. The group also issued a mini-CD. One song is entitled “88-soldiers.” When I ask what they mean by that title, one of the Latin Americans in the group responds: Man, you must think, think for yourself – what do you think, man? After some intense thinking work, dismissing the explanation that they are a total of 88 persons, I realize that it has to do with the symbolism in figures that the neo-Nazis
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employ when they render cryptic greetings to Hitler. H is the eighth letter in the alphabet and 88 is consequently HH or Heil Hitler. Thus I ask if it is just something the Nazis use to praise Hitler. The whole gang bursts into laughter and one of them says: Sure – we rip those symbols off the Nazis and create total confusion for them, you dig, man. In one year’s time they can’t go around in the city any more with their 88-tattoos ‘cos we’ve snatched their symbols. For us, 88 means Hammer Hill (the literal translation of the name of the suburb Hammarkullen) and 88-soldiers represents us being soldiers, the soldiers of Hammarkullen and we are ready for war. We’ve had enough, we don’t want to take all this crap any more – do you get it, man, you get it. In this song everybody is there, all 12 have their own rhymes about their own thing. Muhammed and B-boy speak for the Blacks, for their people and their religion … you hear that they rap around Allah and “breaking the law” and … then we Latinos are coming with the message to our people about the brown ones, you understand, man … then we are creating certain rhymes together so it becomes “niggaz and latinos got to unite ‘n’ fight” and that sort of thing, you get it, man. You know, the song begins with different sounds like that, then it eases its way over to violins, beautiful and disturbing like that, then there are sounds showing that there is a war going on, you understand and then we come in and talk cool, first saying that we aren’t gonna take any more crap and then … we really get going The title of another song is El Mensaje (The Message); written by two of the Latinos in the group. The lyrics tell about the Mapotcho tribe, the only Latin American Indians that the Spanish conquistadors failed to defeat. The song is about the fate of the Indians; it tells us that their history is just about the same as that of the blacks from Africa. Their histories are parallel: the plundering and the enslavement by the white man, by Europe. This is the situation still – all exploited people must unite against “the white man’s love for money,” then the Mapotcho tribe is something strong to identify with – “no retreat, no surrender.” The song starts with an aggressive Spanish guitar, which symbolizes the scent of gold and the hubris of the conquistadors. Gradually, this chord recedes into an Indian melody-line that becomes stronger and clearer. This folklore-inspired melody is played on an old Indian string instrument and symbolizes the resistance on the part of the Indians. The song is in praise of those Indian tribes who were driven back farther and farther up in the Andes and whom the Spaniards never managed to subdue. Even if these boys do not have any Indian ancestry they strongly identify with these South American Indians. When I ask if any one of them has Indian blood, they tell me that it does not matter. It is not a question of blood in that sense; the identification is grounded at another, symbolic level. Alexander, 19 years of age, with parents from Chile says: Even though I’m not an Indian, what the Spaniards did hurts me. It’s too bad the culture will disappear, for other people too. We don’t want to lose it. Even if I don’t have Indian blood, we’re proud to come from a country where there were Indians, and in the song – The Message – we’re trying to say that all Latin Americans are the same people and that we all have the same blood. A long time
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ago we experienced the same thing and we have the same fate. We can gain power if we just unite, but it’s not that way today, we’re not united, in Sweden we’re different – Chileans, Bolivians and all. But we feel like one and the same people, like Latinos. Europe has tried to screw us. We shouldn’t be against each other – it should be us against them … and them – that you can think of however you like, ya know … On the CD, there are two more songs. “One is more commercial, you know, like more funky gangsta-shit, and it’s called West Coast Slang, whereas the name of the other one is Pig-hunting Season, which deals with police hostility towards us and how we are against the police.” Even though a territorial mythology that constitutes a kind of “nationalism of the neighbourhood” (Cohen, 1997) is created, there is at the same time a strong sense of internationalism in this milieu. The most palpable feature of my contact with this multiethnic Hip Hop collective remains their definition of themselves as representatives of and spokesmen for what they themselves define as the “new underclass,” which does not only relate to Sweden. The members of Hammer Hill Clique show a kind of “glocal” consciousness – they have a strong local identity but they relate to, and are at the same time connected with, other parts of the world – Bogotá, Cape Town, Los Angeles, and Paris. It could be said that they are a part of an underground Hip Hop network that is global. Through the World Wide Web they exchange beats and lyrics with other Hip Hop groups. They buy CDs, videos, and clothes from all over the globe, and they inform themselves about the conditions for Chicanos in Los Angeles, Aztec Indians in Latin America, Somali refugees in Italy etc.5 They consider themselves as a part of “The Global Tribe of Hip Hop,” or “The Hip Hop Nation.” Sometimes they say that they live on the “Hip Hop Planet.” Pedro, 23 years of age, who came to Sweden from Latin America when he was four, says: I am living through Hip Hop–Hip Hop is the centre of my brain. If you think like that it is easy to understand other people from other parts of the world that also are into Hip Hop. If you are Hip Hop you have a lot of things in common … Hip Hop people all over the world have the same language so it is easy to live with them. Hip Hop is a language for those that live in ghettos … in the concrete jungle And Cassius falls in: We belong to the Hip Hop Nation. That means we have more in common with Hip Hop people in Berlin, Cape Town and Mexico City than we have with someone that lives in this town that don’t think like us. We out here are all One, even though we come from everywhere – you know, we are citizens of the world – what keeps us together is that we are all on the outside, we don’t have no place inside society. In one sense the young men in The Hammer Hill Clique are unusual. There are few other politically articulate groups of young immigrants who see themselves as “soldiers” and the multiethnic cultural expression they create as armory. In another sense they are
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quite ordinary. In several comparable districts around Sweden, similar meetings and fusions between different groups of young people are taking place. Each area has its specific preconditions, such as its own specific history, its own ethnic composition etc., thus resulting in different youth cultures being created in different areas. Although local variation is great, there are still certain fundamental patterns that characterize most of the immigrant-dominated suburbs irrespective of their location – Stockholm, Göteborg, or Malmö. One is the subordinated role of girls in street cultures that outwardly give shape to the patterns of development outlined above. Another striking feature concerns the identification with, and impact of, those lifestyles and ideals formed in the frustrations and wrath of the North American ghetto culture. Identification with the Afro-American culture does, however, contain a dualism. On the one hand, it appears as if the openness of this culture, its “call-and-response” structure, leads to embryos of new communities and cultural models. Its aesthetic codes, particularly evident in the music, constitute a language that in certain respects loosens up ethnic boundaries or builds bridges across them. Such processes may create new forms of alliances and amalgamations. Herein we find a potential that may function as a basis for constructive dialogues and learning processes between those youngsters who employ these cultural patterns and Swedish society. On the other hand, we can also see today how marginalization and powerlessness contribute to creating a fascination with the criminal gang culture of the ghettos, which in real terms may reinforce alienation, exclusion, and segregation. Those tendencies of hostility towards the dominant culture – tendencies that already existed in the areas where many immigrant youngsters grow up – may be reinforced through identification with the most uncompromising and violence-centered aspects of the ghetto culture. It may thus cement and legitimate irrepressible, confrontational stances that are evident in certain areas. This is a likely growing scenario if the tendencies towards segregation and marginalization cannot be broken.
Youth Culture as a Seismograph Hip Hop emerged from the black ghettos of the US east coast during the latter half of the 1970s. Rooted in the oral and musical traditions of black culture, while also sensitive to the landscape of sounds in modern society as a whole, it gave voice to a new generation. With simple means, cultural codes developed in the streets and a new language was created, which in a new and effective way publicly expressed the brutal reality of ghetto conditions for many blacks. Hip Hop started as a way for young blacks to communicate with their “own people” – through rap, graffiti and break-dance. Today, rap has a rich content and the performers are not exclusively black. But it was in fact the hard-core Black Nationalist-inspired rap that gained the attention of non-blacks (Sernhede, 2000). This politically engaged rap began to flourish during the second half of the 1980s, mainly through “black consciousness rap” performed by Public Enemy, a group parroting the Black Panthers. This rap was inculcated with social realism and criticism. It soon had a foothold on the American west coast, with Los Angeles as the centre of its further emergence. This development needs to be seen
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against the background of the internal wars between gangs, the police brutality, and dope pushing, some of which provide the most salient themes of gangster rap. Militants such as Public Enemy were eventually surpassed by a street culture that also gave expression to criticism of injustice in a racist society, but also articulated weapon fetishism, contempt for women and romanticization of violence. In this context, so-called gangster-rap arose. This form of rap music had, during the late 1990s, a tremendous impact on certain groups of immigrant youth in Sweden, particularly in the metropolitan suburbs. The Hip Hop youngsters in Hammarkullen reflected this attraction to gangster-rap, but were also influenced by the east coast Hip Hop as well as “conscious rap.” Their expressions are closely related to what could be seen as a form of post-colonial political agenda. The currents of migration, processes of marginalization, and patterns of segregation that have profoundly transformed Sweden during the 1990s often show immigration as synonymous with social exclusion. Comparing the Swedish situation with developments in France, the French sociologist Etienne Balibar (1992) denotes these conditions as “racism without race.” As we know from youth culture research, cultures developed by the young often make visible antagonisms and conflicts that exist below the surface of society. The immigrant young men I interviewed in “Los Angered,” Göteborg, do not expect anything from Swedish society. They are forced to grow up in a society in which ethnic boundaries are inflicted and where social inequality is transformed into cultural difference. The social and cultural logic at work here leads to a sub-cultural resistance that adopts ethicized forms of appearance (Back, 1996). The ghetto culture poses, jargon and attitudes tend to offer an exclusive counter-identity – for “blackies” only. Thus young “ethnic Swedes,” who have been demoted to second-class citizens by the “two-thirds society” and who are just as excluded as immigrant youth, find their identity and forms of resistance in cultural expressions with other ethnic overtones and political preferences. In the cultures developed by youth, antagonisms and conflicts that exist under the surface are made visible. Thus, the youth culture can be likened to a seismograph. The young immigrants living in big-city suburbs are in many ways – in spite of the fact that they create expressive cultures – invisible. Segregation has deported them to demarcated reservations where contact with the surrounding society is limited. In this context, music and other cultural forms of expression are important. Culture endows an individual with the opportunity to give form to, and work through, his or her situation, not least because it creates the conditions for self-understanding and makes possible the development of collective strategies. Culture is also a channel through which a person’s situation can be communicated to others and which makes the terms of one person’s life visible to the rest of society. An important aspect of the work to break up the patterns of segregation is to offer young people in these areas – immigrants as well as Swedes, young men as well as young women – the opportunity to define themselves, thereby creating arenas where they can stand out and be seen. The growth of new forms of youth culture in multiethnic suburbs carries with it a criticism of societal development in recent decades. However, in public political discussion, there is a tendency to deny or shut one’s eyes to the development. This attitude originates in a non-articulated, but nonetheless present, hope that the last few decades
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were merely incidental. There is, without a doubt, a desire (though not always articulated) that the old order will be re-established. But history is an irreversible process – this is the New Sweden and we must do more than simply learn to treat the new reality as the differences and diversification this new society has created. We must also be open to the new opportunities entailed in the new situation. (A longer version of this article, with another title, will be published in Carlson, Marie, Annika Rabo, and Fatma Gök (eds): Education in “Multicultural” Societies. Turkish and Swedish Perspectives. Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul: Tauris, 2007.)
Notes 1.
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Rodney King is the Afro-American who was beaten up by a group of policemen from Los Angeles Police Department. A citizen with a video camera filmed the scene. In a trial 1992 the policemen were found not guilty. The same day the biggest uprising in modern American history took place in Los Angeles. The Swedish Research Council for Social Science (Socialvetenskapliga Forskningsrådet, SFR) financed the project for three years, through 1997–2000. The main purpose was to study identity work amongst young males in a segregated, immigrant-dominated suburb. The point of departure was that these young men should be active in expressing themselves through different aspects of youth culture. I carried out the research alone. It was qualitative field study that utilized ethnographic methods, primarily participatory observation and interviews. I visited the area for two or three days over a period of 18 months. Altogether I did 30 in-depth interviews with individuals as well as groups. I also did interviews with other affected parties such as parents, social workers, teachers, etc. At a general level, participatory observation is a method in which the researcher participates in relevant areas of the reality and everyday life of the “research subjects.” In this case participatory observation meant observing events, listening, asking questions, and being part of the interpersonal interaction in contexts that were important to the study. Since the project was interested in the biographies of the young men, individual in-depth interviews was conducted in two rounds, the first at an early stage of the study and the second at a stage just before the analysis and final writing began. This Hip Hop community was, as most youth subcultures are, dominated by males. Only 5–6 of the “members” in the collective of around 50 persons were young women. They were excellent rappers and definitely accepted as equals in the community. All the girls had immigrant background and all of them were engaged in doing rap music. Some of their lyrics were feminist oriented, but most songs had the same topics as the boys. Musically they were more into soul music and singing than the majority of the young men. On certain occasions they performed together with the young men as one act. But during the time I did my fieldwork there was only one constellation that on a regular basis experimented and mixed boys and girls during their rehearsals. There were of course other girls, girlfriends, and different kind of “hang arounds,” that came and went. These girls were a part of the milieu, but not really a part of the collective. The reason for this was that they were not considered as Hip Hoppers and because of that they did not belong to the nucleus group with the mission to represent the neighborhood. It was not easy to gain access to the group, they were initially suspicious and not very interested in being “research objects.” It took me more than 3 months to be accepted as the “intruder” with the tape recorder. Once “on the inside” it was no problem for me to take part in all aspects of their cultural activities. Obviously, my knowledge of and interest in “black music” helped me to get acceptance of the group. Is my presentation of the group too romanticized? One of my aims with this article is to get behind the moral panic that rules the public debate. That means that I am putting my focus on the creative aspects of the youth community in Hammarkullen. The media, on the other hand, notoriously concentrate on ethnic conflicts, criminality and the dangerous youth. In reality crime rates for this area is on the same level as for the whole of Göteborg. In the book AlieNation is My Nation (Sernhede, 2002) I give a more complex picture of this subculture.
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References Back, L. (1996). New ethnicity and urban culture. London: UCL-Press. Balibar, E. (1992). Les Frontiers de la Democratie. Paris: La Decouverte. Bourdieu, P., et al. (1999). The weight of the world. Camebridge: Polity Press. Cohen, P. (1997). “Labouring under whiteness”. In R. Frankenberg (Ed.), Displacing whiteness. New York: Duke University Press. Fornäs, J., Lindberg, U., & Sernhede, O. (1995). In garageland. Rock, youth and modernity. London: Routledge. Holmes-Smith, C. (1997). “Method in madness: Exploring the boundaries of identity in Hip Hop Performativity.” Social Identities, 3, 345–374. Lash, S. (1994). “The making of an underclass: Neoliberalism versus corporatism.” In P. Brown, & R. Crompton (Eds.), economic Restructuring and social exclusion. London: UCL-Press. Mingione, E. (Ed.). (1996). Urban poverty and the underclass. London: Blackwell. Salonen, T. (2003). Barns ekonomiska utsatthet. Årsrapport 2003. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen. Sernhede, O. (2000). “Exoticism and death as a modern taboo: Gangsta Rap and the search for intensity.” In P. Gilroy, L. Grossberg, & A. McRobbie (Eds.), Without guarantees. In honour of stuart hall (pp. 302–318). London: Vertigo. Sernhede, O. (2002). AlieNation is my nation. Stockholm: Ordfront. Wacquant, Loic J. D. (1993). “Urban outcasts: Stigma and division in the black American Ghetto and the French Urban Periphery”. In International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 17 (3), 366–383. Waquant, Loic J. D. (1999) “Urban marginality in the coming millennium.” In Urban Studies, 36(10), 1639–1647. Wilson, W. J. (1993) The Ghetto underclass. Social science perspectives. Newbury Park: Sage.
26 BETWEEN THE ROAD AND THE TOWN: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE EDUCATION OF TRAVELING ATTRACTIONISTS1 Francesca Gobbo University of Turin, Italy
Prologue One September afternoon of 2001, a woman attractionist and I were walking back toward the attraction she had put up and parked in the tree lined area between the cemetery and the hospital of Dolo,2 besides all the other attractions. Abruptly, she started to tell me that one evening she had driven through another provincial town not far from where we were. At first, she had not recognized it at all, but soon after she suddenly realized that such unfamiliar looking town was one of her circuit’s regular stops and that she had in fact brought her attraction there only two weeks earlier, as she did every year for the local fair. She felt dismayed by her misperception, but had to admit that indeed she did not know the quiet, sombre, and empty urban centre she was crossing. Whenever she stayed there, there were lights, music, noise, pleasant smells from the food stands, laughter, children’s delighted cries, and young people’s excited shouts, couples and families strolling around and chatting. “We bring life to towns, we make them change, and when we leave, everything disappears and it [the town] goes back to what it was,” she concluded still trying to make sense of her encounter with the unheimlich, as her experience can be appropriately described. Shortly before that same September afternoon, she and her fellow attractionists had complained to the Dolo town government about the location assigned to them, reminding it how attractions’ traditional place had been on the main road facing the Brenta canal. There the attractions are highly visible and all entering the town have to drive along them and are therefore enticed to stop and enjoy themselves. The reply was that the annual fair produced traffic jams and required an ad hoc traffic plan, if only for few days, that could instead be avoided if the fair was moved to the peripheral area of Dolo cemetery. In any case, the law the Italian parliament 481 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 481–504. © 2007 Springer.
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passed in 1968 gave local administrators the responsibility to confirm a fair’s traditional location or find another one so as to suit the town’s interests while still providing traveling attractionists with an opportunity for work and an income. Thus peripheral areas rather than central market squares (the place where fairs were originally held) seem to have become administrators’ preferred choice these days.
Introduction As the above story tells poignantly, at the beginning of the twenty-first century traveling attractions are not always warmly welcomed in Italian towns’ and cities’ centers, and the temporary changes they bring to the urban environments with periodical regularity tend to be now perceived as upsetting the habits of sedentary populations. Attractions and circuses are still hosted, but for shorter times and preferably away from central areas that, even when they do not have a historical or artistic value, are to be protected from the merry crowds, noisy confusion, and occasional conflicts traveling attractionists are seen to bring with them. The expectation, if not the requirement, that the daily ways of urban dwellers be respected by their non sedentary fellow citizens assigns a new meaning to the rubric “urban education,”3 where urban is reminiscent of its original meaning, namely a way of life that is imagined as distinguished by urbanity of habits and by urbane manners enacted in social interactions. Such persistence of meaning across centuries and momentous changes helps us to remember that the process of mass urbanization was more than just the migration into towns and cities of rural or mountain populations: while the latter reaped the opportunities offered by the urban work environment and became craftspeople, factory workers, or service employees, at the same time they were also expected to learn the civil manners that are desirable, if not necessary, in urban contexts where many different people have settled and live together, meet, and work side by side. As a popular Italian saying goes (no doubt grounded on a biased and ethnocentric perspective), the air of the city liberates a person (from the villagers’ close social control). In addition to this, urbanization also civilizes the person’s ways, by polishing and refining them in the way expected of a town or city dweller. Furthermore, the effects historically attributed to urban life are emphasized by the fact that Italian society and its cultures have in modern times and until recently contrasted and opposed town and countryside,4 urban centre and urban periphery, regions’ capitals and provinces’ towns. Such opposition was compounded by the fact that up to a certain time and within a type of economic development concentrated in well defined areas such as the Italian “industrial triangle” (Milan, Turin, Genova), leaving the countryside or the mountains was, and in many cases still is, the only option for a more decent life, even if it means living in the peripheries of the big industrial centers built at the expense of the surrounding rural areas. The Italian peripheries are inhabited by working class or immigrant families who moved out of the town or city centers because of their limited income and work opportunities, or who were relocated when their central and rundown neighborhoods became fashionable and underwent extensive and expensive renovation
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so as to attract affluent new dwellers. Thus it is not surprising that the problems that “urban education” focuses on in the United States or in Great Britain (high level student-teacher conflicts, poor school performance, problematic peer behavior, poor life chances for young people and adults alike, among others) are in Italy instead often found in areas distant from the urban centers.5 In each case, the central question educators address is the educational and social exclusion resulting for instance from schools’ organizational strategies and teaching practices,6 teachers’ differential expectations with regard to low status and/or minority pupils’ performance and further educational prospects, and the impact of local contexts on the everyday life of families and young people. Educators’ commitment in devising or improving the latter’s educational opportunities and life options is based on the conviction that the right to education must be actively connected to issues of social justice and equity, if it is to be realized. Yet processes of exclusion in the highly polarized “urban” and “peripheral” school contexts are not the only ones that demand our attention and the enactment of ad hoc policies. Teachers and educational researchers should not overlook or underestimate other, more subtle, ways through which the school experience can become meaningless for a number of young people, and breed their frustration, indifference for, or rejection of it by confirming their perception of being considered, and treated, apart from the rest of the school population because of families’ different lifestyle and occupation. Children of traveling attractionists are a case in point: the latter live “on the road” most of the year, stopping in winter time for just a month or two usually spent in their mobile homes (or caravans). Their way of life appears sharply different from that of their urbanized fellow citizens and questions long established assumptions about ways of, teaching and learning. However, the educational inequality their children suffer does not depend on the sociological and historical traits of a given problematic context – be it an area in the inner city or an anonymous “dormitory” neighborhood in the periphery – but on the disquieting exception that occupational nomadism is perceived to represent for the dominant sedentary lifestyle and for schools. To explore this complex relationship, I decided to carry out an ethnographic research among Italian attractionist families.7 Fieldwork was carried out between Fall of 1999 and the end of 2001 among a group of 25 families whose annual fairs’ circuits call at many towns and villages in the Veneto provinces of Padua, Venice, Treviso and Vicenza. Findings were gathered through participant observation and informal conversations during, and in between, fairs. Longer unstructured interviews with adult traveling attractionists and their children took place at the end of the ethnographic experience. All interviews, except one, were conducted in Veneto, the region’s language still widely spoken at all levels of society and my mother tongue as well. Interviews were later transcribed in Italian, and then into English, always trying to preserve the original meanings of words and maintain the textual metaphors. In this chapter, excerpts from interviews with members of four families (Casati, Bertini, Forani, and two Gioietti brothers) are used, though the overall interpretation benefits from the fieldwork experience and many more interviews. The ethnographic exploration of this occupational minority’s everyday life, the children’s family education (the enculturation process, as anthropologists call it) and schooling8 was motivated both by my concern for the principle that every child has a
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right to education,9 and the belief that the effort to understand diversity is a challenge to habitual pedagogical expectations and answers, and a resource for making improvements and/or changes not only nomadic pupils, but their sedentary classmates as well, can benefit from. Such concern and belief are also the leit motiv of many studies carried out at the European and international level on the schooling problems of nomadic children as pupils and students “at risk.” Some early European studies (European Commission, 1994; Liégeois, 1992; Schools Council Research Studies, 1975) initially looked at nomadism both as an inclusive category (Gypsy nomads and occupational Travelers, not to mention bargees) and a distinctive one (nomadic students vs. sedentary ones) that could help us understand what was often defined a case of “educational deprivation.” However the same studies also acknowledge the occupational Travelers’ different attitude toward education (as measured by their children’s relatively positive school results) and their specific social function (made visible by the entertainment they provide and the contribution they make to the various countries’ economies). Later research (Jordan, 1997, 2000, 2001a, 2001b; Kiddle, 1999, 2000) emphasizes the internal cultural complexity of the group by giving voice to the members of this minority: interviewees stress their belief in education (a point ascertained also in European Commission, 1994), but they also denounce stereotypes and prejudices that often give way to bullying of Travelers’ children and stop their school attendance. Such a strong stance is evidence of occupational Travelers’ perception of themselves as full members of society rather than as a stigmatized minority, according to researchers. The latter interpret the school problems encountered by Travelers’ children as a consequence of cultural discontinuity between the families’ style of life and work transmitted to the younger generation through the enculturation process, and the schools’ organization and different cultural ways, and teachers’ learning expectations. While it is pointed out that enculturation fosters children’s self-reliance, independence and inner strength in order to meet the demands of a nomadic life, school life and culture are instead seen as a threat to those values and even likely to make young Travelers less suited for a life and work on the move (Kiddle, 1999; Liégeois, 1992; Schools Council Research Studies, 1975). On his part, Liégeois views schools as unable to represent a relevant reference point for the nomadic school population since the former have always been oriented toward sedentary populations and promote a different way of learning and teaching from the Travelers’. Teachers do not seem capable of devising suitable educational projects for these students and, in turn, the latter’s irregular attendance is at the root of teachers’ difficulty to understand, and respond to, this kind of cultural diversity (Jordan, 2001a; Kiddle, 1999; Liégeois, 1992). Finding many similarities between the Scottish Travelers she studied and those from Britain and continental Europe, Jordan suggests that nomadic students are “interrupted learners” (idem), and furthermore she interprets their decision to stop attending school as a form of “resistance” against the educational environment and personnel. European researchers also posit that the sedentary majority considers occupational mobility neither as an acceptable way of life nor as an educational specificity to be concerned with urgently. Similar conclusions are reached by researchers exploring Australian Travelers’ educational and life problematic contexts (Danaher, 1999, 2000; Danaher, Hallinan, & Moriarty, 1999; Danaher, Moriarty, &
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Hallinan, 2000). All studies stress the need for finding new, innovative ways to teach these children, so that diversity based on nomadism will no longer be an excluding factor and effective integration in the classrooms a way to realize their right to education.10 As for the schooling experience of Italian attractionists’ children, it is also shaped by the tradition of occupational nomadism: thus, school attendance takes place in different schools, and school learning is regularly and predictably interrupted by the next family move, as also happens in other countries. Except for the months of the winter stop, these children will be in a different school almost every week (often for less than a week), meet teachers and peers with the same (ir)regularity, according to the different towns and villages their families’ fair circuit calls at. As the latter remains the same year after year (unless a local administration decides to cancel the fair), the schools children enrolment will also be the same year after year, until completion of compulsory education.11 While their school learning is a sequence of regular and predictable interruptions, such fragmented attendance is nevertheless accepted and in fact acknowledged by official educational policy (both at the national and local level) as a way for pupils to realize their right to education and for families to comply with the requirement of eight years of compulsory schooling. For that purpose, attendance, together with topics taught during the school week, are duly recorded by teachers in a notebook that is the family’s and the pupil’s responsibility to keep and hand to the teacher at the end of the stay.
Between the Road and the Town: The Presentation of Self Among Veneto Traveling Attractionists I have argued that living between the road and the town constitutes an important and multifaceted learning process (Gobbo, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007) around which a complex identity is constructed, itself characterized by a tense encounter between urban and nomadic cultures. The family education of traveling attractionists’ children takes place in the everyday experience of mobility aimed at providing entertainment to local residents. However the practical and social skills and knowledge required to be successful in this occupational sector, are accompanied by the need for urbane manners, so that common sense expectations and symbolic oppositions – nomadic groups’ marginality to urban, settled life; nomadism vs. urbanism – are questioned when considered from the perspective of traveling attractionists. It is however true that a considerable part of the “educational” experience the latter transmits and acquires comes from learning what is perceived as the sedentary society’s discourse about them. I myself learned this when, during fieldwork, I started to visit the families I had met many times at the fairs and with whom I had already had informal conversations. My belief that such conversations could continue with greater ease in their caravans had however to reckon with my hosts’ own priorities, namely the concern to discuss biased popular perception of a nomadic way of life and to present and distinguish among the different kinds of people working in this occupational sector. Sharing a lifestyle and an occupation does not mean that everyone wants to be perceived as the same – so the strategies of self and group presentation enacted need to be considered, taking into account how the latter use different “names” of members of this occupational category.
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When attractionists spoke of their problems, they defined themselves as attractionists (attrazionisti) or proprietors (esercenti), terms that include the circus people as well. However, when conversation moved from the formal to the informal everyday language level, and the social climate warmed up, the word everyone used was giostrai.12 It is commonly used in discussions with, and about, members of this occupational minority and it is currently found in newspapers’ reports of criminal acts in which some of them have been involved. It is to be noted that though giostrai is more widely and often used, and connotes this minority’s world and the values more powerfully than attrazionisti, the latter word is nevertheless present in these people’s conversations as it points to a different, more positive self image, and a more participatory relation with the rest of society. In the beginning of their narratives, the attractionists showed widespread awareness of uneasiness and mistrust that nomadic people like themselves often provoke when they arrive in a town or a village and start to interact with the local residents. To the latter they are the outsider, or the other (as we tend to say today) and are automatically labeled as “nomads,” that is, Gypsies. All interviewees reported having to confront such a situation, including the children in school, and because of this, every family showed a keenness to make itself known to the locals, that is, to be trusted, a goal which takes time, patience and good communication skills. Overcoming the symbolic boundary drawn by sedentary people meant succeeding in being respected for the entertainment and skills attractionists bring, and to be able to work in the most productive and satisfying way. In the past – as they reminisced – it was different: back then, the boundary between outsiders and local people was not so clearly drawn, even though the latter seldom left towns or villages and can thus be imagined as more firmly rooted there. The local people were instead remembered as appreciative of the surprises and the novelties brought in from outside, and such emotions seemed to have been related to the transience and cyclical returns of attractions and circuses. The genealogy of these families might include one or two ancestors with a Gypsy family name, or an ancestor of unknown origin (such as an orphaned child, or a foreigner), but they generally defined themselves as Caminanti – literally, those who walk – because their grandfathers or fathers (and sometimes also grandmothers and mothers) came from a “still” ( ferma) family, or married into a traveling attractionist’s family. Presenting oneself and the family as Caminanti or Gagé (the Gypsy name for all those who are not Gypsies) seemed to be an initial strategy chosen to distinguish oneself from the “others” in front of an outsider. They always started by acknowledging the outsider’s strong prejudice against the occupational category, and they often opened a conversation or an interaction by complaining that sedentary people do not distinguish sufficiently between the good attractionists and the criminals. Caminanti and Gagé described themselves as “law abiding” people and on the opposite side to the “criminals” who end up on the front page of newspapers. It was crucial for them to distinguish themselves from the latter, and not just to an outsider. According to Mr. Casati, one of the “law abiding” attractionists, certain sons and daughters had chosen to leave the sector and lead a sedentary life. Their successful move to uproot and replant themselves into a new environment, where attractionists would neither be acceptable nor accepted, usually led them to sever the ties with their nomadic relatives and families.
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Once my interviewees set the boundary between “themselves” (the “law abiding” attractionists) and the “others” (the “criminals” who are a disgrace to the category), and made sure that I understood the distinction, they proceeded to elaborate on their identity. Presenting themselves as Gagé (and not Gypsies), they thus disclaimed any relationship to a group that is highly negatively stereotyped (i.e., not wanting to work, living by stealing, involved in shady business, having a lot of money which nobody knows from where it came).13 Furthermore, they underlined how the origin of the individual or of the family could be traced back to a Veneto “still” family or individual who, at one point in his/her personal history, decided to become a traveling attractionist.14 Boundary drawing and identity constructed in the relationship to sedentary people and, contingently, to myself as an outsider-ethnographer, continued so that sooner or later those who had presented themselves as “law abiding” people, Caminanti and/or Gagé, would point to another crucial distinction, namely between those defined as “entrepreneurs” and the opposite – the “happy-go-lucky” attractionists. Being an “entrepreneur” not only means the ability to be economically successful in this occupational sector, but to have qualities such as vision, management and investment capacities, and openness to novelty, that can make one appreciated by the public, and respected by fellow attractionists (at least by the “law abiding” ones). These qualities are centered on the passion for “the craft” (as they call every type of attractions), because taking good professional care of the latter and making it more attractive do not go without a deep, sweeping feeling that also involves choosing the right music, anticipating the public’s taste and needs (of children’s as well), investing money in the attraction, and “humouring” the customers. In the course of many interviews a common bond uniting all subgroups emerged and was repeatedly stressed. In fact, though it was most often stated by the “law abiding” attractionists, it concerns the whole occupational category. It was insisted that first and foremost they were “victimized” by the local governments’ bureaucratic apparatus, and by the taxes levied on them by the central government. Mr. Casati vividly described attractionists as regularly being “winnowed” by local and central government. Bureaucracy was claimed to be an even worse stumbling block than taxes, and created just to make attractionists’ life miserable and cause them “great worries and suffering” – a viewpoint that all shared. The problem is considered so crucial that it surfaced at almost every turn of a conversation: even as we talked about schooling and family education, the conversation would often and almost naturally slide into complaints of how attractionists are treated by local administrators. These – as mentioned in the introduction – are responsible (according to law 337/1968) for distributing permits to participate in the fairs, and for checking that safety or construction regulations be enacted. They may also decide to shorten or to cancel a fair, as well as to reduce the number of attractions that can be put up on the fair grounds, or to move the latter to a different location usually never as good as the traditional one. Such decisions have a negative impact on the families’ economy and sense of agency: they plan their tour a year in advance and once they have decided which fairs they will participate in, they must apply to the local administrations in order to be allowed to put up the traveling attraction. When the local administrations change their minds and vote to cancel or to move the fair grounds to another location, those who applied in that particular town incur a loss of work and money. Furthermore, because they usually learn
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about the decision too late to apply elsewhere, they are left without the opportunity to find an alternative town to go to. This signals that the social function of the traveling attractions must today compete not only with discos and pubs, but also with a growing demand for parking spaces in areas previously dedicated to fairgrounds, and that it has become more difficult to find new sources of work and income. Notwithstanding the fact that some of the narratives presented this occupational minority as “quasi-victimized” by other individuals or groups, the narrators rarely acted as “victims”: that is, they were not shy or uneasy during the conversations that took place at fairs or in caravans, but rather they spoke boldly and proudly of their work and especially of their satisfaction at customers’ appreciation. They also strongly criticized the prejudices they, and especially their children, had encountered. Also whenever they did not want me to take notes or to tape a conversation (or part of it), they would say so firmly. As I understood after several of these “incidents,” they were less afraid of telling me as an outsider something in secret and rather more resolved to set their own priorities for the researcher, although they always took, and held, their stance with great politeness, in an atmosphere of warm hospitality. As I wrote down, after returning home from such an encounter: Mr. Forani declined to be interviewed even though Mr. Pulliero15 and I had made the long car trip specifically for that purpose, as it had been agreed on the phone when we had set the appointment. Instead Mr. Forani had placed the home cured salami, a bottle of good wine, home made pickles and pan biscotto [local double baked bread, the required companion to a mid-day salami or cheese treat] on the festive tablecloth. He even insisted (and succeeded) in giving me a jar of pickles to take home. While we were all [he, his wife, Mr. Pulliero and I] enjoying the food and the cordial atmosphere, he spoke at length and with great enthusiasm of his work, stressing that “learning is the most important thing in my life,”16 and explained “learning” [a concept he reiterated a year later by saying that in the attractionist’s world one “learns by living”] as the attractionist’s ability, and particularly his own, to size up a situation and to do what is necessary to improve it, for example by establishing and maintaining good relations with local people or by making the attraction more beautiful. It was important – he had later added – to leave a lasting impression on the towns and villages his attraction called at; therefore he worked on his “image as an attractionist,” for instance by keeping a vigilant eye on the attraction and giving caring attention to customers. Politeness and hospitality characterized attractionists’ interactions with me: even if I was not a customer, I was however providing them with an opportunity to give me both their own perspective on their way of life and examples of their urbanity. The interviews often became social events with neighbors and relatives passing by the caravan who were always invited to join. The transcripts of the taped conversations show how the researcher’s initial question and her later few, almost shy, interjections were immediately surrounded (if not submerged) by lively discussion, heated comments, fond memories, detailed explanations, repeated invitations to the occasional guests to speak their
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minds, and warm recommendation that the researcher interview one of their colleagues or a relative. In an important sense, the caravans became an imaginary “stage” portraying the nomadic and sedentary worlds according to scripts that maximized their complex cultural knowledge and advanced social and communication skills. Therefore it can be said that nomadism is the attractionists’ way of life but does not constitute their exclusive cultural horizon: to interact with these families and individuals solely on the basis of their mobility17 would obscure the fact that their identity as occupational nomads is constructed, and passed to the next generation, based on a tradition that entails cultural continuity but also awareness that knowledge of, and productive relations with, the sedentary population are indispensable. Almost always such relations seem to have been built and maintained through the urbane manners appropriated and brought to the rural villages and small provincial towns in Veneto during the circuits. As Mr. Forani further recalled, the waxed floor of his family’s caravan had so much impressed a local child, taken by her mother to contemplate such a rarity in Veneto countryside homes in the sixties, that when she recognized him as the son of the woman who 40 years earlier polished her floor so beautifully, she had to share her childhood’s “shiny” memories with him.
The Enculturation Process: Teaching and Learning to Become a Traveling Attractionist Fieldwork allowed me to witness how cooperation rather than division of labor between genders and generations is the predominant discourse (and practice, to a considerable extent) among attractionists: men always acknowledged women’s indispensable support and help (sometimes by stressing that they “work like men”), and adults young people’s, while all pointed out that such an arrangement was required by their occupation. Women – old and young, married and unmarried alike – narrated themselves as agents, entrepreneurs, dependable work partners, but not surprisingly they are also in charge of keeping the family’s caravan, clothes and furnishings clean as well as of looking after the well being of husbands, children, and parents in-law when they become too old to manage an attraction by themselves. Women who came from “still” families stressed how hard it had been to learn (and put into practice) the ways of an occupational nomad’s life. Since childhood, attractionists’ children learn by sharing their parents’ and relatives’ commitment to work, what makes their life livable (in terms of decent earnings) but also enjoyable and something to be proud of. Some of the young ones may sit at the cashier’s desk and learn to add, to multiply and to subtract, or to calculate the value of notes and coins by watching their mother exchange them for attraction tokens, well before they know anything of mathematics. A little girl may stand near to adults busy taking down the “craft,”18 and hold a little bucket in which adults will put nuts and bolts. Older ones, with furrowed brows and a measuring tape in their hands, will make sure that the “craft” is parked exactly in the area assigned by the local police. Parents took proper pride in their children’s accomplishments, so, for instance, the youngest Gioietti brother praised his son for his popularity: he knew how to smile to, how to
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start a conversation with the crowd of young people, and how to turn customers into friends (so that they will keep coming back). For her part, the younger sister claimed that she learned to repair roller coaster cars by watching and then asking adults about what they were doing. It is the heads of the families (be they men or women) who are responsible for transmitting these strongly and widely held beliefs in self-reliance, hard work for the sake of the family, the need to be wise and alert to the ill that other people or one’s own choices (such as gambling) can bring. All interviewees agreed on the need for multiple competences, and upon the conviction that “unless you can do things by yourself, you accomplish nothing.” A similar belief colors the words of Mr. Forani, who describes his relation to the attraction in terms of a “passion,” You grow up with. Our parents taught us that a piece of wood had to be made better, so we would paint it and draw stars on it, so that when the season began, your “craft” was full of colours. Thus a “craft” is not only a working instrument, that is there only to be used, just like any other kind of industrial machinery. In our work, a “craft” is a matter of image. It is necessary to make the giostra more and more beautiful. Being the owner of a “travelling attraction” also involves harboring a deep sense of obligation toward the family and the “craft”: parents are cared for when they get old, a married brother will return home after his father’s untimely death in order to help his mother and younger brothers to continue working, and every choice and decision concerning the “craft” is discussed by the whole family. This is understandable since working in this sector is a family enterprise and thus needs the cooperation and willing consent of all in order to be successfully managed. But this may also result in a limitation of children’s aspirations and activities in yielding to the wishes of the family to keep up the tradition, even when school performance is good, or other opportunities present themselves. Perhaps most youngsters feel like the Gioietti daughter, who said she chose not to enrol in secondary education because she firmly believed that the traveling attractionist lifestyle and work were her future. Perhaps others stay in this occupational sector because they think it will be hard to find a job as satisfying as that of the traveling attractionist. Nevertheless, it appeared that in many cases the children were badly needed if the family enterprise is to survive. According to an attractionist whose bitter and grim view of the sector’s way of life and work depended on having had to take too great a responsibility when he was only fifteen, parents succeed in “tying” a son or a daughter to the “craft” by “brainwashing” them. Yet, throughout the interviews, young people indicated that they were pleased to have finished school, to be able to test their ability to improve the “craft’s” fortunes, and to have their own family in due time. It is possible that a sense of agency is enhanced in this cultural environment, and as they learn the skills necessary to manage a giostra or a circus act, young people like the Bertini older son come to appreciate increasingly “a life that’s full of enthusiasm, especially when one is young. It’s great. I thought of
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what else I could do, but it is difficult to find alternatives, it would mean a big jump [into a very different kind of life and work].” Work in this occupational sector seems less exacting (even if it is heavy work) because there are no timetables or obligations predetermined by other people. In fact, young people and adults alike claim that, aside from the demanding task of assembling the attraction and taking it down once the fair is over, there are few other chores or obligations. Rather they enjoy much freedom compared with “still” families whose members need to get up every morning to go to the factory and clock in. In the Bertini family (owner of a very small circus), teaching and learning social skills and social competence are also directed at achieving self-reliance. The older son thus believes that in a circus one must be able to do almost everything, namely not only put up the circus top and then take it down later, but also set up the lights and hopefully succeed in repairing them if anything happens. Capability to tackle problems and solve them is not just a matter of technical know-how but also requires that appropriate and respectful relations be established with the much needed expert from whom to learn what to do. “In such situations he concluded it helps to have gone to school [because you can speak better], but it isn’t everything, I need more, I need to know what will work.” Self-reliance was also prominent in the narratives concerning the teaching and learning of acrobatics. In the Bertini family, the grandmother was once a well known acrobat who taught her older son and two granddaughters to become contortionists. Her teaching skills are highly appreciated and praised by her sons and daughters-in-law, though her older son remarked that she was too “soft” with the younger granddaughter, aged eleven, who at the time of the interviews seemed to prefer to play and to write poetry. If she would only apply herself to the task – continued her father – she could do even more complex acts than her older sister! But then he added that “you cannot make people do what you want them to do. You can tell them what to do, but it is they who decide what and how to perform.” His son backed him by recalling that his younger sister is always expected to go up on the stage smiling and looking directly at the audience. However, she seldom feels like doing it, and since it is she who decides how to behave, nobody can make her change her mind: “it’s for her to decide.” Both he and his younger brother decided that they wanted to be jugglers, even though their parents wanted them for the clown acts. The younger brother still plays the clown but he has become a great juggler as well, learning how to juggle first by watching his older brother and then by practicing the acts by himself. All that is needed is “practice, practice, practice,” according to the former, and therefore he and his younger brother learn by looking at other performers, and by imitating them through a “trial and error” approach that capitalizes on what the “student” can infer and learn from repeated and often painful mistakes.
The Schooling Experience: The Parents’ and Children’s Perspectives How does this nomadic way of life affect schooling? Parents (most of them in their 40s and 50s at the time of research) had mixed feelings about the education of their children.
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The younger Gioietti brother argued for the importance of education to their sector, even though he knew that some families and their children did not share his belief: This is the year 2000, it’s high time that the travelling attractionist be educated, so that he will know what to say to a person he must talk to, so that he will know what is the meaning of problems, so that he will know things about the past, the present, what must be done, what must not be done. If he has to fill a form, he should be able to understand at least 80% of what is printed on it, and what he’s supposed to write down. … I never completed compulsory education, and to this day I always curse the fact that I didn’t finish it. Nevertheless, I believe that I have been able to learn a few things by myself, to evaluate situations and people. Because, after all, when one goes to talk to persons who have a university degree, one doesn’t want to cut a poor figure, as if he didn’t know what he came for, and didn’t know what he wanted. (…) I succeeded in taking care of a few problems I had in the recent past, and for sure I owe this to the little education I have, that has taught me to say what I must say in a certain way. Maybe an unschooled person could have done the same as I did, but he would have had to count on his listeners to understand what he wanted. A successful self-defined entrepreneur whose family once owned a well known circus, admitted that he had very little schooling, and never completed compulsory education. This – he explained – was related to the fact that circuses stay in a town a much shorter time than any of the “crafts” that arrive for a fair. The requirements of compulsory education could be satisfied so long as children ( just like the ones of today) presented themselves to the school of the town and stayed as long as they could – usually one or two days at most. Attendance was duly recorded, as still happens now, in a notebook that the pupil always brought with him or her, to let teachers and principals know that he or she had complied with the rules. Remembered is how local residents were always prejudiced against “them nomads,” how bad feelings and mistrust would eventually disappear once teachers and classmates became acquainted with him, and ironically how they were helpful to him, “since they knew I was going to stay so short a time.” But even attractionist’s families that are less socially and economically successful welcome their children’s good school performance in the face of the difficulties that both the latter and the parents have to cope with. It is usually the mother’s task to take the children to school and this meant, in one particular case, a very long trip that had to be made four times a day. Until 20 years ago, parents could send their sons to the only boarding school in the area (not open to girls, however) in order to secure better learning conditions for them. It was a choice that some had to make, but it made parents and sons suffer greatly. The young people interviewed seemed proud of any good school performance of theirs and spoke of their school friends with affection or nostalgia. But they did not forget the prejudiced attitude of some of their peers and even of some adults. This took the form of a certain indifference to their learning needs on the part of their teachers, and the necessity to make do with whatever ability or competence these children had been
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able to acquire. Not surprisingly, young people remember some schools, teachers and classmates with greater appreciation than others. It is certainly difficult for these pupils and students to participate effectively into the classroom activities, and it becomes their responsibility, and burden, to keep up with the curriculum, because teachers seldom slow down the pace of teaching or pay attention to the knowledge gaps these students may have.19 One of the most successful attractionists claimed that “he would have done the impossible” to send his children to high school, but the latter argued that their studies would have given them not much more than a diploma. In the traveling attractions’ sector – they stated – “if one knows his or her way around, there are more opportunities” to improve one’s lot than through formal education. He was proud that his sons are esteemed by other attractionists, that they are well educated and greet everyone politely, unlike other “colleagues,” and praised them for having done a wonderful job on one of the family “crafts,” thus saving the money needed to pay a mechanic. He taught them to be well behaved in school and to respect people, and claimed that there is no need to teach them things many times: once is enough and they can take it from there. He also acknowledged that this moving between towns (and schools) may make the children shy and somewhat ashamed whenever they enter a new classroom, and added that when they worked in Bologna for a big fair, his wife would enroll the children in a school where there was no chance of meeting other attractionists’ children. This pleasure that teachers’ appreciation of their children and grandchildren gives the older attractionists is to be measured and weighed against the prejudice and the need to be considered part of the society.
The Schooling Experience: The Teachers’ Perspectives A way of life and a family education, that encourage self-reliance, ingenuity and good manners in social relations are recognized as positive assets by teachers whose classrooms are periodically attended by the attractionists’ children. Toward the very end of my research I asked these teachers to participate into focus groups I organized in different schools.20 My purpose was to understand how they perceived these children as pupils, how they interpreted their learning performance and motives, and what educational activities – if any – had been organized for those pupils. Because I was interested in understanding how teachers would narrate experiences connected to their personal and professional identity and status, the questions were as unstructured as possible. Though I had specific points to explore, I suggested that teachers would lead the conversation and highlight whatever aspects seemed particularly relevant to them. My role was that of a resonant listener and I only interjected questions aimed at clarifying or expanding what had been said, even though at the end of both focus groups I was asked many questions about the group’s lifestyle and occupation. The first question I asked was formulated in such way (can you tell me about your school experience with attractionists’ children?) so as to let teachers choose and present what they defined as aspects relevant to their role, activity and educational goals.21 Interestingly, in both schools the relevant aspects and their order of presentation were the
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same, even though the two groups knew neither each other nor my research; furthermore, those working in the Venice school had never met me before nor had heard about me or my university work. In each case the teachers’ narratives of their experience and educational activity with these children were articulated according to a hierarchy of presentation whose foundation rested on the recognition of positive social attitudes and school know-how of such pupils. The narratives then suggested regret about the latter’s unquestionable status of “interrupted learners,” and communicated teachers’ feelings of anxiety about their role and effectiveness. Narration proceeded by acknowledging a limited acquaintance with the pupils’ nomadic lifestyle that raised conjectures about the perceived low relevance to school culture of such a lifestyle. The narratives eventually concluded by highlighting and praising those pupils’ self confident and independent behavior – especially when it was compared with the more clumsy and teacher-dependent classmates. Teachers rarely talked of attractionists’ pupils in general terms; they mentioned Violet who had just left, discussed Rocky’s and Sonny’s learning blocks but also their surprising achievements, praised Dennis’ polite behavior, remembered the two cousins attending the same class, and of course the boy who had failed the examination. In contrast, the rest of the class, the classmates, the other children remained just that: “the rest of the class,” “attractionists’ children’s classmates,” “the other children” or “our children.” Perhaps because primary school teachers spend many more hours in the company of children (age 6–10) than their colleagues at junior high level (age 11–14), this may be a reason why the nomadic pupils were so vivid in their minds. A more genuine reason might be that I interviewed them shortly after the local fair had ended, and therefore soon after these pupils’ departure. In my view, however, such an attitude on the part of the teachers does not mean that they paid more attention to the nomadic children than to the “rest of the class,” but rather that on the occasion of the interview, “the rest of the class,” and “our children” functioned as representatives of a taken for granted, “normal” school situation against which these pupils’ difference stood out. In fact teachers seemed to hint at this when they portrayed themselves as professionals striving to make a child into a pupil. In order to attain this goal, two different but complementary dimensions were considered educationally crucial by them: positive interpersonal relations (as indicated by expressions such as “welcoming attitude,” “good acceptance” of the other, for instance), and a child’s involvement with learning. In the case of the latter, teachers meant the pupils’ capacity to understand concepts, procedures and tasks, rather than any mere ability to rote-memorize contents and procedures. A more formal educational perspective on learning seems to require – according to the teachers – a continuity in school attendance, which, in turn, makes it possible for each pupil to learn what is being taught at a more or less uniform pace with the others. Teachers of first and second graders (i.e., six and seven years olds) greatly emphasized the quality of interpersonal relations that make the young ones feel at home in school. Therefore, all teachers began with an appreciation of attractionists’ children’s “good pupil behaviour.” By this, they first meant that, whenever they arrive, these children are always welcomed both by the class teacher and by their peers, “unlike Sinti or Roma children.” In turn, the just-arrived pupils will do as much as they can to “integrate” into the class not only because they are such well behaved children, but also
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because “they are eager” to participate, and insist performing as pupils. If the teachers admitted that there are – and were – some “difficult” pupils among attractionist families, they also emphasized that the majority seldom oppose or refuse schooling even though it may not be a rewarding experience. They are the children who say they will continue to attend “their” school even if this becomes impossible due to the family leaving the town to go elsewhere, but two stories are particularly illustrative of the attractionist families’ positive attitude towards the educational opportunities schools offer. In one case, after a trip enormously enjoyed by the whole class to a nearby Venetian villa, one of the attractionist pupils heard that there would be another one planned for the future; immediately he asked if they could wait for his return the following year before going on the outing. In the other case, a teacher was surprised by the request to know how a certain story had ended. Because the year before the pupil had as usual stayed in that class too short a time to learn what would happen to the story’s main character, he wished to be updated. The teacher was embarrassed because she could not remember the story, but at the same time she was moved by how much in her view the boy had enjoyed being in her class and how deeply he had participated in the activities. Teachers argued that those children want to be pupils: “they wanted to engage in a school task … [yet] they could not participate into the learning group [because they did not have the needed knowledge].” Therefore, attractionist children were described by the teachers as enacting a number of strategies – such as (1) doing what teacher says rather than negotiating her requests, (2) asking teachers for things to do, (3) working hard to finish a project in time, (4) participating in the discussions that are held periodically in class, and (5) reminding teachers and classmates of their participation in class activities – that will integrate them into classroom life. As pupils they know that even at an early age they are expected to become deeply involved in the process of learning. Thus, these children’s eagerness for school tasks is not only evidence of their goodwill, but also of knowing that if they cannot do as the other pupils do, without any problem, at least they can try to show that they also share such an expectation. Yet, the children’s socio-educational knowledge is not sufficient for them to perform successfully as learners. As much as they are popular with their classmates and well integrated in the class, they are perceived as painfully isolated22 because of their learning “gaps” [buchi]23 which prevent them from working together with the rest of the class, or following what teacher or peers are doing. Furthermore such “gaps” require those pupils to wait until the teacher has some free time to devote to them. In the teachers’ narratives social integration, though a positive feature, does not provide a pupil with the status that comes from successfully participating in the learning process and from achieving some of the educational goals teachers set for each school year (for instance, seven years olds should be able to read relatively fluently, write from dictation, and write the name of an object correctly under the drawing representing it). The role of the “inadequate pupil” is familiar and “acceptable” in school culture so long as the inadequate one humbly acknowledges her/his own limitations. And in fact, both attractionists’ families and pupils are much aware that they can rarely follow the instruction for the rest of the class, because they were not present when this or that
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was taught. One teacher repeated that “they looked like they had [ just] landed in a classroom, [and while] the rest of the pupils were working, they were just [sitting] there, unable to join their classmates.” Another hypothesized that asking the teacher for work to do and completing a few easy assignments gives them a feeling of being able to demonstrate their skills, to learn successfully a few things, to benefit from the teacher’s attention for a short time, and to aspire to perform to the standards of the other pupils. Teachers expressed their professional and personal frustration at being unable to help these pupils more effectively. As one of them put it: I hope that our work will be useful for the [children’s education] next step, but I feel so useless … I can help [them] for an hour … I don’t have enough time, enough opportunity to give them a hand, and [therefore] I feel ill at ease. This way, there isn’t, and there can’t be, continuity in my work. Another was deeply aware of the school’s “hidden curriculum” and of how it constructs and affects diversity often negatively. Therefore, she argued, careful attention should be paid to “the way a teacher addresses a kid, the way she looks at him, whether or not she gives him a nickname just as she does with the other children,” because acting with sensitivity, care and equity can “make these pupils feel they are part of the [class] group,” while behaving “in a detached way” will send a message of exclusion to the rest of the class. The notebook with the official seals of the schools attended by attractionist pupils only tells teachers about the institutional “circuit” undertaken by the children, but it gives little indication of the work done nor of the methodology used.24 So, left without clues, teachers claimed to have but two alternatives: the first is to encourage the child to try overcome not only her/his learning “gaps” but also her/his insecurity (and perhaps shame at not being able to do a specific task). To this end, a teacher took care that an almost illiterate seven year old understood that the letters of a word must written in the correct order. Oblivious of the possibility of dyslexia, this particular teacher remembered that when that child understood the rules of the writing/labeling game, he was – as she described him – totally overwhelmed with joy: “he discovered he could at least write a few words correctly, just the day before he left. He looked as if he had conquered … he showed me what he had written and after I told him ‘look, you did it right’ he couldn’t believe it, he just couldn’t believe it.” The second alternative is to hope that – as one of the teachers said – “by sheer chance I [may] hit the right moment,” namely that what she is teaching fits more or less exactly with what the pupil has just learned in the previous school. If this happens, as it did recently in the Venice school, then the pupil is able to follow the class activity and the teacher can go on “without any problem.” But such a coincidence rarely happens, and therefore teachers must guess the point of the learning process reached by the pupils, then they must prepare some ad hoc assignments (drawings, exercise cards and the like) which these pupils will work on as individualized tasks. Whenever this occurs attractionists’ children are described as rewarding their teachers with a “smile from one ear to the other.”
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On another occasion, thanks to the teacher’s ability and sensitivity, a pupil became aware that he knew numbers – contrary to his own perception; overwhelmed with joy and pride, he recited numbers up to 200. Most of the time, however, teachers’ time is already so taken up by the annual educational plan that to find some free time for the pupils’ learning “gaps” becomes a kind of “mission impossible.” In one case, peers had been organized to act as tutors to the newly arrived (both immigrant and nomadic children); in another the latter were given additional instruction outside the classroom, because the school had an ad hoc project and an extra teacher assigned to it – something that is more and more difficult to do because of current cuts in funds and personnel. Yet, for all the efforts made by both parts to perform as the school expects, teachers in the end acknowledged that “good pupil behavior” stops at the school door: “home has nothing to do with school. Home is home … parents are respectful [towards us and our work], but once the kids return home, no more talking about school. Everything [educational] remains inside the school.” Teachers saw no continuity between school life and home life, between the school culture and the nomadic way of living and working of these pupils. This time however the reason given was not their “piecemeal” school attendance, but rather the meanings and the attitudes towards school that result from life-style. According to teachers, attractionist parents accompany and introduce their children on the first day, but say very little about their own life and work, and return at the end of the stay in town to get the school official seal stamped in the attendance notebook. Meetings at the fair ground are not very likely to happen; if they do – as one teacher remembered – it is because one of those pupils had seen her from the cashier’s desk and attracted her attention loudly. Teachers see these children as participating in “daring, risky” games, such as going up the merry-go-round or the roller coaster scaffolding while their mothers attend to household chores just a few steps away, seemingly not minding at all what the young ones are doing. Both the children’s and parents’ behavior is a source of surprise to the teachers, who claim not to understand the parents’ calm attitude but they also seem to look on the children with some nostalgic admiration. To them, these children appear to live and play the way “normal” children should, unlike “their own” who are likely to be locked inside home, perhaps in front of a TV set, under the vigilant eye of a parent, a relative or a baby-sitter. Teachers’ nostalgic appreciation of a different way of living the childhood years might at first be interpreted as an appreciation of diversity, and as an indication that the principles and goals of intercultural education have made their way into teachers’ minds and hearts. Yet such an attitude is also bound to be somewhat frustrated by these children’s efforts to play down, and possibly not talk about, their “difference.” From the teachers’ view, this happens because the nomadic lifestyle “is too different from what the others say about their life and they are afraid of the comparison,” or “they feel different but to say so doesn’t mean there is something to be proud of ”; or, “they [know they] are different but in a negative sense. They don’t have the courage to say they are equal to us [regardless of the difference].” The reason seemed to be that “they must confront hardships everyday, and when this happens one can’t help feeling different [in a not so positive a way].” Families living on the move were imagined to enjoy fewer comforts than sedentary families: my fieldwork experience suggests that
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this is true in terms of care for their belongings (every breakable item must be packed with great attention), but that it is not necessarily true when it comes to the homes themselves. Caravans can be as big and luxuriously furnished as any apartment, it all depends on the wealth of the owners, a point which teachers seemed to overlook. But the presumed lack of comfort allowed teachers to emphasize another positive cultural feature they appreciated and praised highly: these pupils were seen as more advanced than their peers when it came to practical matters. By this, teachers did not only mean ability to solve problems that have to do with money, but also the ability to take good care of oneself and of one’s own belongings – be they books or notebooks, sweatshirts or jackets. Furthermore these children, unlike their peers, are capable of tying shoe strings, buttoning and unbuttoning sweaters and coats, dressing and undressing in the gym – indeed, they are a great relief for teachers who battle daily with twenty or more pairs of shoes. Again, unlike their peers – noticed the now delighted teachers – they can turn the pages of their notebook without any help from the teacher. The teachers’ narratives not only tell of their experience with these pupils, but also of the categories of school culture that help shape their perception of it. Attractionists’ children are alternatively described as children, pupils, and learners.25 As learners they are perceived as bogged down by repetition (“they did addition three times, but they were never taught subtraction”), and as limited by time. According to a sympathetic teacher, they say to themselves “I’m here [for a short time], I must pay close attention [to what is being said], I must take as much as I can from this place, because I will soon move to another school, and there, it will be a different story altogether.” Furthermore, they are seen as rarely able to achieve the standards set by teachers, both in terms of knowledge transfer and of being able to work at the pace the annual school plan requires of the whole class. School performance – as evaluated on the basis of set standards and expectations – is clearly not successful, but in the eyes of teachers this is compensated by them being very good pupils, namely by showing their capability to learn and follow the social and cultural knowledge and rules obtaining in a school, notwithstanding all the obstacles they meet. As children, they are narrated by teachers by means of an emphasis on their cultural diversity, connected to a nomadic life, and a form of work that keeps them apart from sedentary people (and vice versa).
Conclusions Today, most countries are perceived and described as multicultural because of the hundreds of thousands newcomers born in places different from those they later came to live and work in. Italy is no exception to this social phenomenon and it has finally realized that diversity will characterize its future. It is a prospect Italian intercultural education started to address almost 20 years ago by promoting a theoretical and practical approach centered on knowing the different cultural, religious, linguistic traditions the new pupils had been enculturated into, and on promoting interaction between the former and the Italian ones in order to foster mutual understanding and to enrich intellectual and social life, among other goals. In turn, attention to diversity from without promoted awareness and acknowledgement of the everyday differences historically characterizing
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every complex society, independently of migration (Gobbo, 2000). However, the focus on, and reception of, immigrants’ diversity has sometimes overshadowed the issue of equality of opportunities in school and in society, as if they were two separate questions. Yet, when it comes to the everyday interaction and educational experience in our stratified societies, the risk is of not taking into full account the low social status and even stigma that might be attached both to immigrants’ cultures and to a country’s “internal minorities,” thus underestimating the persistence of prejudices and stereotypes affecting groups and individuals, regardless of their geo-political origin. Therefore, when considering diversity in terms of inequality, studies of immigrant pupils and students need be complemented by research among “internal minorities.” In the latter case, a nomadic occupational group such as the traveling attractionists provide a telling illustration of educational problems arising both from the group’s perceived cultural differences and from the treatment they receive from mainstream (sedentary) society and culture. The Veneto attractionists’ everyday activities and their narratives indicate that both the enculturation process and work constraints are seen as powerful reasons to “choose” to remain in the sector of traveling attractions. Yet the same narratives, together with those of teachers, indicate how such reasons conflate with even more powerful ones, namely practical arrangements involving school attendance at compulsory education level, lack of educational provision such as education-at-distance or e-learning aimed at promoting longer schooling that will not require leaving the family, persistence of prejudice and stereotyping, and the many changes that have taken place in Italian society since the end of the 1960s. Because those changes concern the entertainment sector generally, and that of traveling attractions in particular, the families I became acquainted with during fieldwork worried, on the one hand, that attractions, old and new ones alike, could not in the future ensure a comfortable enough life; on the other hand, longer schooling and a high school diploma that would allow different work options are not within easy reach. Furthermore, families feared that if they enrolled their children in high school the latter would be cut off from the sector’s cultural and working tradition, and thus from the necessary skills, while if they continued such tradition they would find themselves little by little at the margins of economic production, civic participation and social intercourse, and entertainment. In fact, pursuing a high school diploma requires that students reside permanently in the vicinity of the school selected, and it implies that relationship with the family be – at least temporarily – severed. As I learned during research, a few of them try, some succeed but many more leave secondary education after a year or two. So, it is not surprising that most Veneto attractionists’s children start to work in the family enterprise as soon as they complete compulsory education. They did not seem to regret their decision that gave them explicit adult responsibilities and rewarding appreciation from the family and the occupational group. Nevertheless, when continuity with, and a career in, the sector of traveling attractions appear systematically “chosen” (and often narrated as such), educational researchers need to inquire if this “choice” means loyalty to the group’s cultural tradition, recognition of good economic rewards, or, instead, limited equality of educational opportunities with its ensuing difficulty in finding alternatives to work with the family’s attraction. Thus, researchers
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need inquire whether or not attractionists’ children have real equal educational opportunities, and whether or not their cultural difference is perceived and treated in such a way by school teachers and personnel that it produces further difference and inequality, now and in the future. Yet the lives these families lead between road and towns gives way to behaviors, attitudes, values and skills that intertwine nomadic and urban cultures in an interesting way. It can be said that attractionists have developed a double cultural framework that makes them capable of accepting many cultural features of sedentary culture, while they continue practicing their own style of life. This multiple cultural competence undoubtedly represents a necessary, if not the best, way to maintain a sense of agency and identity; the manners in which they pass both of them to the younger generations – namely, an education centered on “teaching/learning/knowing how” – is certainly worthy of further reflection, as it helps teachers and educational researchers alike to question educational givens, and to look for, and valorize, the different experiences that can offer human and intellectual enrichment.26
Notes 1. I wish to thank anthropologist Michael Herzfeld who, after I had presented an earlier version of this research as a Harvard PERC Colloquium (Gobbo, 2001), drew my attention to the fact that the word “attractionist” does not exist in the English language. In fact it is the Anglicization of the Italian attrazionista (pl. attrazionisti) whose coinage I assume responsibility for. 2. Dolo is a middle sized town located between Padua and Venice, along the so called Brenta Riviera (Brenta canal) that in the past allowed boat connections between the two cities. 3. Such rubric is not found in any Italian educational or pedagogical encyclopedia or dictionary. 4. The first educational “research” to explore the opposition between rural and urban culture (defined as middle class culture) and its deeply unjust effects on countryside students’ schooling was Scuola di Barbiana, 1967. 5. As it is certainly true of other countries, in Italy it is difficult to generalize by saying that every periphery is a breeding ground of educational conflicts and failures. On the opposite, many of such areas have maintained or improved their neighbourhood life and schools; furthermore, many cities’ governments have launched programs to upgrade and multiply cultural events in peripheral areas. It must also be added that in cities such as Naples and Palermo the central neighbourhoods are still “problem areas,” since poverty and lack of opportunities make schooling hardly relevant and thus it can seldom prepare young people to find real alternatives to a future too often controlled by organized crime. 6. For Italian cases see, among others, Gobbo, 2000; Saletti Salza, 2003, 2004. An interesting interpretation of French educational problems in the peripheries is in van Zanten, 2003. 7. Mine is the first ethnography of Italian attractionist families. When fieldwork was almost finished I supervised one of my students’ shorter research on attractionist families in Emilia Romagna (Canesi, 2001). 8. In Silvestrini, a cura di, 2000, interviewees occasionally narrate educational matters but they are not the focus of this research. Based on a life story approach, primarily it explores the lives and work of men and women from Bergantino, a small town in Southern Veneto, who chose to leave a sedentary life and jobs (tenant farmers, craftsmen, mechanics) and start instead touring the countryside with the attractions they had often invented. 9. In Italy such right is a constitutional right. 10. In Veneto, when I was doing fieldwork, new, innovative ways were tried to keep track of a pupil’s school “migration.” See AA.VV., 2002; Provveditorato Studi Verona, 2002; Donzello, s.d. 11. At the time of the research compulsory education lasted eight years.
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12. The word giostrai does not include circus people (who do not usually share the fair grounds) since the root-word giostra (in Medieval times it was a mock, but often deadly, fighting encounter knights would perform in front of the local ruling aristocrat or the king himself) refers to any “craft” (as the giostrai call their attractions familiarly, literally mestiere) operated by them, such as the carousel, the roller coaster, the shooting stalls, etc. 13. At this point the speaker would tilt the head, wink his eye, give a little cough, all non verbal signals that in fact suggested it was just the opposite! 14. I must add that Gagé or Caminanti do not exclude interaction and even marriage to Sinti as long as they perceive them to support or to strengthen the family’s interests, and to avoid strife and violence. This seems to indicate that the attractionist’s nomadic life entails not only the bitter taste of prejudice in the occasional relationship with sedentary people, but also a certain fear of social isolation within the group itself, since it will expose him to attacks by other fellow colleagues. 15. Mr. Pulliero was the soon-to-be-retired secretary of the leftist SNAV (Sindacato Nazionale Attrazionisti Viaggianti, that is, National Trade Union of Travelling Attractionists) whose knowledgeable help and assistance was crucial for my research: the various people involved in this occupational sector I had contacted before him had not been helpful and for a while I had been wondering if fieldwork could even start, let alone proceed. 16. I was able to remember one or two sentences uttered during the conversation and wrote them down as soon as I was home. 17. This is a real risk, perhaps unavoidable at the beginning, since a good part of the researcher’s time will be devoted to mapping the attractionists’ circuits, the fairs’ schedules, the winter stops, so as eventually to drive to the fairs for a chat with the new acquaintances and to watch them put up the attraction. 18. In none of the fairs I visited I ever saw school age children engaged in heavy work. 19. The older daughter of Mr. Casati, a young woman is in her early thirties, recalled that “we were not paid much attention to, and yet I still long to read the Iliad, the Odyssey again, as we did in school. Any time I go into a bookstore I’m tempted to buy of copy.” 20. On this occasion, only teachers’ focus groups in two schools will be presented and discussed. 21. The teachers’ interviews were also a way to compare what I had learned from children and families about schooling, education and their relation to a nomadic style of life with the teachers’ own view and experience. 22. Some of them attributed these pupils’ vague condition of isolation not only to their learning “gaps” but also to their awareness that their stay in the class is so limited. 23. The Italian term teachers used was buchi, which means “holes,” a gap to be filled (as a venerable educational metaphor used to remind teachers). 24. This might not always be true, however, as some notebooks I had a chance to look at show. 25. In Italian there are not two commonly used words by which to define the different situations pupil and learner allude to. Discente means learner, but it is no longer used and sounds “out of time.” Therefore, I am responsible for translating according to the sense of the discourse. 26. In saying this, I hasten to add that the appreciation and respect I have for the families I met and for their life and work did not (and does not) prevent me from noting the limits both can impose on an individual’s projects and prospects. However, I still firmly believe it is the task and lifelong contribution of ethnography to understand who we and the others are, and who else we could be, by intentionally trying to learn a different point of view and different meanings.
References AA. VV. (2002). Vademecum informativo per l’accoglienza e la scolarizzazione degli alunni Rom, Sinti e Attrazionisti. Veggiano, PD: Schola. [Vade-mecum for the reception and schooling of attractionist, Roma and Sinti pupils]. Canesi, P. (2001). Condizione di minoranza e scolarizzazione. Un’indagine tra le famiglie di giostrai in un’area del nord Italia. Facolt`a di Psicologia, Universit`a di Padova, rel. F. Gobbo, a.a. 2000–2001. [Minority condition and schooling. A research among the families of giostrai in a part of Northern Italy].
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Danaher, P. A. (1999). Learning under the Ferris wheel and big tops: Comparing the education of Australian show and circus people. Journal of Nomadic Studies, 2, 24–31. Danaher, P. A. (2000). What’s in a name?: The ‘Marginalisation’ of itinerant people. Journal of Nomadic Studies, 3, 67–71. Danaher, P. A., Hallinan, P. M., & Moriarty, B. J. (1999). Educating Australian circus children: Strategies to reinvigorate rural education. Education in Rural Australia, 9, 1–8. Danaher, P. A., Moriarty, B. J., & Hallinan, P. M. (2000). Theorising youth and difference. Youth Studies Australia, 19, 17–21. Donzello, G. (s.d.). Luna Park e spettacolo viaggiante a Verona. Verona: Amministrazione Provinciale di Verona. [Amusement Parks and travelling attractions in Verona]. European Commission. (1994). Report on the education of migrants’ children in the European Union. Luxemburg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Gobbo, F. (2000). Pedagogia interculturale. Il progetto educativo nelle societ`a complesse. Roma: Carocci. [Intercultural Education. The educational project in complex societies]. Gobbo, F. (2001). Is the future a merry-go-round: Schooling and enculturation among the fairground and circus children in the Padua province (Veneto, Italy) Unpublished manuscript, PERC Colloquium, Harvard University. Gobbo, F. (2003). C’ e` una giostra nel futuro? Esperienza scolastica e processo di inculturazione in una minoranza occupazionale nomade. In F. Gobbo (a cura di), Etnografia dell’educazione in Europa. Soggetti, contesti, questioni metodologiche (pp. 209–245). Milano: Edizioni Unicopli [Is there a merrygo-round in the future? A nomadic occupational minority’s schooling experience and enculturation process, in Ethnography of education in Europe: Subjects, contexts, methodological issues]. Gobbo, F. (2006). Along the margins, across the borders: Teaching and learning among Veneto attrazionisti viaggianti. In E. Antelitz, P. Coombes, & P. Danaher (Eds.), Marginalised pedagogues? International studies of the work and identities of contempoary educators teaching ‘Minority’ learners. TATE (special issue on “Marginalized Pedagogues”), 22(7), 788–803. Gobbo, F. (2007). Alunni “di passo”? Le narrazioni degli insegnanti sulla scolarizzazione dei figli degli attrazionisti viaggianti. In F. Gobbo (a cura di), Processi educativi nelle società multiculturali: percorsi di ricerca etnografica. Roma: CISU. [Pupils “of passage”? Teachers’ narratives on traveling attractionists’ children’s schooling, in Educational processes in multicultural societies: paths of ethnographic research]. Jordan, B. (1997). The inclusive school: Effective education for secondary age travellers. In E. Hornberg (Ed.), Die Schulsituation von Sinti und Roma in Europa (pp. 299–308). Frankfurt am Main: IKO Verlag. Jordan, B. (2000). The excluding comprehensive school system: The experience of showground families in Scotland. In P. A. Danaher (Ed.), Mapping international diversity in researching traveller and nomadic education. International Journal of Educational Research, 33, 253–263 (special issue). Jordan, B. (2001a). Exclusion of travellers in state schools. Educational Research, 43, 117–132. Jordan, B. (2001b). From interdependence, to dependence and independence: Home and school learning for traveller children. Childhood, 8, 57–74. Kiddle, C. (1999). Travelling children. A voice for themselves. London: Kinsgley Publ. Kiddle, C. (2000). Partnerships depend on power-sharing: An exploration of the relationships between Fairground and Gypsy Traveller parents and their children’s teachers in England. International Journal of Educational Research, 33, 265–274. Liégeois, J.-P. (1992). Schooling for gypsies and travellers’ children – Evaluating innovation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press. Provveditorato agli Studi di Verona. (2002). Progetto Luna Park per l’integrazione scolastica e la continuit`a educativa degli alunni itineranti e zingari e per la tutela del loro diritto allo studio. s.l. ed. (a cura di G. Donzello). [Amusement Park project for the school integration and educational continuity of peripatetic and Gypsy pupils and for the defence of their right to education]. Saletti Salza, C. (2003). Bambini del “campo nomadi”. Romá Bosniaci a Torino. Roma: CISU. [Children of the “nomads’ campsite”. Bosnian Romá in Turin]. Saletti Salza, C. (2004). La gestione del quotidiano scolastico di alunni rom. Quaderni di sociologia, XLVIII, 7–29. [The management of Roma pupils’ everyday schooling experience].
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Schools Council Research Studies (under the direction of C. Reiss). (1975). Education of travelling children. London: MacMillan. Scuola di Barbiana. (1967). Lettera a una professoressa. Firenze: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina [Letter to a teacher]. Silvestrini, E., a cura di. (2000). Gente del viaggio. Storie di vita, immagini, e macchine degli spettacoli viaggianti di Bergantino. Bologna: Patron. [Travelling people. Life stories, images and mechanical attractions of travelling shows]. Van Zanten, A. (2003). “Studenti seri” e “studenti turbolenti”: ordine e disordine nelle scuole medie della periferia francese. In F. Gobbo, a cura di, Etnografia dell’educazione in Europa. Soggetti, contesti, questioni metodologiche (pp. 51–77). Milano: Edizioni Unicopli. [“Serious students” and “unruly students”: order and disorder in middle schools of the French periphery, in Ethnography of education in Europe: Subjects, contexts, methodological issues].
27 THE LIMITS OF COMPENSATORY EDUCATION IN SPAIN: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOME AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENTS1 Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonal Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
It would be very confusing to speak literally of “urban education” to a Spanish audience. Certainly, part of the problem would simply be the meaning of the adjective, since its geographical sense is so self-evident in our languages that it is difficult to figure out what it has been for Deweyan educators in Anglo-Saxon countries. However, the concept would also be difficult to translate because the intellectual and political tradition that identifies educational reform with the foundations of democracy and progressive change has been quite different and dramatically weaker during the twentieth century in Spain. So, an account of the related issues in the country instead focuses on the institutionalization of “compensatory education” after the dictatorship plus mention of the few and new proposals that aim to work beyond the scope of this strategy. More than 20 years ago the Compensation Royal Decree (1174/1983, April 27) used the term “compensatory education” in order to define the function of specialized teachers and schools who had to “aid the zones or demographic groups that need preferential educational attention due to their particular characteristics.” Then a small scholarship scheme for low-income students was also implemented. Later on, academic disadvantage due to cultural or social reasons became another kind of special education need when the Organic Act on the General Framework of the Educational System (1/1990, October 3) defined special pedagogic strategies as “treatment of diversity.” The Conservative governments that were in office between 1996 and 2004 reacted against the child-centered philosophy that had inspired the1990 Education Reform Act, and finally in 2002 passed the Organic Act on Educational Quality (10/2002, December 23), which aimed to instill the “culture of endeavour” into students. However, the Socialist party won the 2004 election and is at the moment of writing preparing a new reform that will modify these tenets. Since the early 1980s seven autonomous governments or “autonomies” (Comunitats Autònomes) have been in charge of their regional education systems, while the other ten received this responsibility in the late 1990s. So far, some of them have complemented the initial and general scheme for “compensation” with other strategies. Immigrant 505 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 505–522. © 2007 Springer.
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reception programs, learning communities, priority schools and areas, e-learning initiatives and local educational participatory plans all provide examples of “urban education.” For instance, the Basque country, Aragon and Catalonia have deployed immigrant reception programs and have implemented the first experiments of learning communities. These latter educational strategies aim to trigger participatory planning and assessment of academic and social objectives in disadvantaged schools (Comunidades de Aprendizaje, 2005; DE/DGA, 2000, 2004; DE/ GC, 2004; DP/GC, 2001). Aragon has also carried out an ambitious e-learning program in order to promote distance education among its large rural areas (DE/DGA, 2005). Some public schools are the object of priority attention in Catalonia (DE/GC, 1996), where many municipalities have also implemented participatory planning of after-school activities (Jaumandreu & Badosa, 2002). On its own, the Solidarity Plan has enlarged reception programs in Andalusia, which foresee the explicit participation of immigrants, and has created priority areas in some localities (CE/JA, 1998, 1999, 2001a, 2001b). In this article we aim to explore if these interventions are powerful enough to meet their official objective, that is, to overcome educational problems and disadvantages. Our argument relies on two previous generalizations that have established the framework for wider discussion. On the one hand, some recent contributions continue the long intellectual tradition that looks for actual opportunities whereby schools can tackle inequalities and their correlative educational disadvantages. Thus, several authors highlight the importance of explicit objectives (Derouet, 1992), minority-friendly curricula (Connell, 1997), democratic participation (Apple & Beane, 1995), flat and polyvalent organization (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996), supplementary education (Bridglall & Gordon, 2002), public-political spaces (Griffiths, 2003), and school-community collaboration (Warren, 2005) for educational justice or social inclusion. Certainly, in Spain autonomous governments and other social agents have drawn on these ideas for the design of the initiatives we have just mentioned. On the other hand, other reports and authors recently highlight that societal features influence educational disadvantage more than the concrete programs and strategies deployed by schools (UNESCO-OECD/UIS, 2003). An exhaustive recent international comparison identifies two axes of these societal effects, namely enrolment rates and performance scores (Duru-Bellat, Mons, & Suchaut, 2004). Everywhere, working-class and minority students are more likely to achieve a low score in standardized exams and drop out early, though early leaving rates and average scores vary among countries. Thus, programs explore the opportunities to foster social inclusion through school policies, but societal features can limit such opportunities and therefore become bigger challenges to social inclusion. Our argument follows four steps. First, we present an overview of the inclusive educational strategies that autonomous governments have deployed so far in Spain. Second, we ask if these strategies influence non-graduation rates in the 17 autonomous communities. Although an initial expectation was that they made a difference, the available evidence casts doubt on the effect of innovative programs. The main factors are broader societal phenomena such as average education level, educational expenditure, or unemployment rate. Third, we also ask whether this influence of societal factors is an immediate effect of recent educational expansion. Thus, we compare regional educational disparity and gaps between economic and educational development in
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Spain and other European countries where expansion took place some decades earlier. Finally, we use the “capabilities approach” in order to interpret these findings. Such an approach draws on normative principles of social justice (that we will only sketch here) and focuses on “positive” empirical connections as judged by these principles. In Spanish education from the 1950s until the 1970s the main positive connection was family aspirations triggering enrolment despite many shortcomings. Later on, education reforms and increased expenditure contributed to raising graduation levels significantly in the 1980s. However, current trends do not show either persistent old connections or new influential ones that raise graduation and curb drop-out rates in upper secondary education in all the “autonomies.”
Autonomous Educational Policies for Social Inclusion Autonomous governments have implemented several kinds of educational strategy for social inclusion since they have received the political responsibility to do so. Some have significantly enlarged the set of instruments that central government institutionalized in the 1980s, whilst others have simply continued to use the same set. “Compensation” strategies consist only of distributing specialized teachers according to observed “social” needs in schools. “Autonomies” use “co-ordinated compensation” if their policy has established new frameworks for action at the infant, primary, or secondary educational levels or even the whole region. The strategy is “intensive compensation” if the policy includes the aforementioned new experiments (e.g., learning communities, priority areas, participatory intercultural education, and so on). Finally, one single case combines educational and economic intervention on a more “universal” basis (Figure 1). “Compensation” and “co-ordinated compensation” may sometimes include free textbooks schemes. Normally, all students have to buy their textbooks, and changes to the list of these textbooks increase family expenditure. Following family associations’ campaigns for free textbooks in public schools, some autonomous governments have agreed to provide students with free books either in some or in all courses. “Intensive co-ordination” is associated with the pedagogic organisation of rural, small, incomplete schools (whereas all schools are complete or “graduate” in urban areas). In the early 1970s the dictatorship suppressed many rural schools on the grounds of economic efficiency, but popular action prevented the process in some areas. Thus rural schools have become a democratic symbolic vindication, and some governments are aware of their importance for territorial cohesion. Participatory experiments are the most visible markers of this broader view. From the mid-1980s to 2002, each school had an elected council that included teachers, parents, students, and support staff, which appointed the principal and established the main guidelines. Municipal, autonomous and state-wide councils were also established. Additionally, teacher unions, parent associations (in public and private state-funded schools), student unions, and private schools participated at the different levels. Although the 2002 Quality Education Act promoted professional instead of elected direction, some autonomous governments have tried to open other participatory channels. A new reform was passed in 2006, reinforcing the role of school councils.
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Educational inclusion strategy (Autonomous Community)
Characteristics
The most universal strategy (Basque Country)
●
Intensive compensation (Andalusia, Aragon, Catalonia)
●
●
●
Coordinated compensation (Canarias, Castilla La Mancha, Galicia, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre)
●
●
Compensation (Asturias, Balearic Islands, Castilla Leon, Cantabria, Valencian Country, Extremadura, Rioja)
●
●
●
Figure 1.
Immigrant reception and learning communities programs. Scholarships for fees, transport, books, stationery and lunch expenses (CEUI/GV, 2004). In the school year 2004–2005 a family receives a 1.118–2.348 € benefit provided its per capita yearly income is below 2.573 € and its offspring is enrolled in post-compulsory academic or vocational programs. The average expenditure per person in the Basque Country was 2.237.52 € in 2004 (INE, 2006). Immigrant reception and learning communities programs (Aragon, Catalonia), participatory intercultural education and priority areas (Andalusia). Governments propose educational pacts to civil society. Several participatory Local Educational Plans (Catalonia). Special emphasis on innovative rural education (Aragon). These governments aim to foster cohesion or equity with new plans. Some of them focus on a school level, such as the Equity Plan in Compulsory Secondary Education (Castilla- La Mancha) or Infant School at Home (Galicia). Others try to improve co-ordination (Madrid, Navarre). Free textbooks schemes are being extended. Basic compensatory program basically including specialized teachers for students who need “attention to diversity.” Extremadura and Rioja are also extending free textbooks schemes. Voucher system for infant schools in Balearic Islands (and some Valencian municipalities).
Different educational inclusion strategies deployed by Autonomous Communities in Spain
The Basque country is a specific case due to its scholarship scheme, but a general, though minimal, scholarship scheme was implemented throughout Spain in the 1980s. The Basque government added complementary economic benefits so that lower class students were more able to finish their secondary post-compulsory courses. For this reason, this case is labeled as the “most universal strategy.” Finally, although globalization is visible in education policy through international policy-borrowing (e.g., the comprehensive reform in the 1990s, the comparison of OECD student assessment after 2000), some “autonomies” have also borrowed education policies from other ones in Spain. Thus, some regional governments which draw on either “co-ordinated compensation” or simply “compensation” are currently discussing “equity” or “cohesion” plans that look at learning communities, priority areas and even reception programs as sources of inspiration. At first sight, a plausible but cautious guess might state that policy- borrowing is pushing towards more intensive compensatory education.
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Regional Educational Inequality Autonomous governments have implemented increasingly broad educational inclusion strategies, but have they made a difference? Tables 1 and 2 explore the impact of societal and institutional factors on non-graduation rates in order to estimate the influence of these strategies. The percentages of the graduate labor force (in upper secondary education) and the youth unemployment rates account for societal factors, whereas expenditure measures institutional margins. Graph 1 plots all the communities according to the percentages of the graduate labor force (in upper secondary education), which turns out to be the most powerful determinant of non-graduation rates. Table 1 shows that secondary compulsory education students (Educació Secundària Obligatòria, ESO) experience a significantly higher probability of failing their exams in a Spanish region if the educational level of the region is low and public resources devoted to the regional educational system are scarce. The gross non-graduation rate indicates the number of 16 year-olds who have not attained their ESO degree. In a sense, they are the target of interventions aiming to counter educational disadvantage and inequality. The percentage of the labor force with at least upper secondary education is the indicator of average educational levels commonly used in Ministry reports. Similarly, public educational expenditure per student measures the public resources devoted to education by both the central and the regional or autonomous government. In 2001 these two factors (namely, average levels and public expenditure) explained a substantial part of non-graduation in the 17 regions inasmuch as they accounted for 49% of its variance. Therefore, data concerning school failure show a robust regional Table 1. Influence of average educational levels and public expenditure on the gross non- graduation rate in compulsory secondary education (Spain, 2001) Independent Variables
Estimated coefficient
Standard error
T statistic
Active population with at least upper secondary education (%)*
–0.6066462
0.2230803
–2.72
Public educational expenditure per student*
–0.0778893
0.067069
–1.16
Constant*
58.74696
9.201697
6.38
Dependent Variable: Gross non-graduation rate in compulsory secondary education
Prob > F 0.00840
The relationship between independent variables and the dependent variable is not spurious (F 0.05). Therefore, the model can explain the relationships between them.
R-squared = 0.4945
The independent variables explain 49% of the dependent variable variation.
Adjusted R-squared If the number of independent variables is 0.4223 taken into account, the model explains 42% of the dependent variable variation. Note: * The influence of these variables is significant if T 2. Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
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Table 2. Influence of average educational levels, youth unemployment and public expenditure on the gross non- graduation rate in academic upper secondary education (Spain, 2001) Independent Variables
Estimated coefficient
Standard error
T statistic
Active population with at least upper secondary education (%)*
–1.029678
0.1978508
–5.20
Unemployment rate of the 20–24 years-old population*
–0.487231
0.141609
–3.44
Public educational expenditure per student*
–0.1186511
0.0576154
–2.06
119.4323
9.333185
12.80
Prob F 0.0001
The relationship between independent variables and the dependent variable is not spurious (F 0.05). Therefore, the model can explain the relationships between them.
R-squared 0.8003
The independent variables explain 80% of the dependent variable variation.
Constant
*
Dependent Variable: Gross non-graduation rate in academic upper secondary education
Adjusted R-squared If the number of independent variables is 0.7542 taken into account, the model explains 75% of the dependent variable variation.
Gross non- graduation rate in academic upper sec. ed.
Note: * The influence of these variables is significant if T 2. Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
70
Extremadura 60
Castilla Mancha
Balearic Islands Canary Islands Valencia Murcia Catalonia Andalusia Galicia La Rioja Castilla Cantabria León Aragon
50
Navarre
Madrid
40
Asturias
Basque Country
30 30
35
40
45
50
55
% Labour force with at least uppersecondary education
Graph 1. Gross non- graduation rate in academic upper secondary education and active population with at least upper secondary education (%) (Spain, 2001) Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
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511
effect between generations, since the labor force includes everybody from 16 until 65 years-olds. In other words, more teenagers fail their exams in compulsory secondary education in the regions where the labor force has not received much education and the school system is not underpinned by many resources. Generally speaking, this finding reflects the influence of class origin on academic performance, which is well known to sociologists of education. But the replication of this effect at the regional level is not an automatic consequence of the general pattern (as Table 3 will show). Table 2 reports that academic secondary post-compulsory education students (Batxillerat or baccalaureate) experience a significantly higher probability of failing their exams in a Spanish “autonomy” if the general educational level of the region is low, the labor market is open to youth and scarce public resources are devoted to the regional educational system. The gross non-graduation rate records the number of 18 year-olds who have not attained their baccalaureate degree. As in table 1, the percentage of the labor force with at least upper secondary education indicates the educational level, and public educational expenditure per student measures educational resources. But here the unemployment rate of the 20–24 years-old population impinges on nongraduation (i.e., the dependent variable) even more than resources. In 2001 these three factors (respectively, educational level, youth unemployment and public expenditure) explained the bulk of non- graduation in the 17 regions, because they accounted for 80% of its variance. Thus, once again Spanish data concerning school failure show a robust regional effect between generations. In other words, where the labor force has not received much instruction, the youth have some labor opportunities and schools lack financial support, students are more likely to downplay the importance of their examinations, or at least are more prone to fail their baccalaureate. A cumulative effect can be observed between the situation of the middle-aged generations (as indicated by the labor force average) and the situation of the younger generations (as indicated by unemployment and educational expenditure). Graph 1 shows a relatively small influence of educational inclusion strategies in terms of regional differences. In the graph the main line represents the proportion between the two main factors, namely the percentage of the labor force with at least upper secondary and the gross non-graduation rate in academic upper secondary education (or baccalaureate). That is, Extremadura, Castilla-Mancha, Andalusia, Valencia, Murcia, Galicia, Rioja, Castilla- Leon, Cantabria, Aragon, Navarre, and Madrid roughly keep this proportion at different scores, whereas Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Asturias, and the Basque Country are significantly deviant cases. The Basque Country not only shows a high average educational level but also achieves a non-graduation rate even lower than the proportional line. Such a proeducation position is even more salient when this region is compared with Madrid or Navarre, where average education levels are similar but non-graduation rates are slightly above the proportion. Thus, the most universalistic and inclusive strategy seems to yield the most satisfactory outcome. Let us notice that this policy combines pedagogic instruments with economic support of teenager students coming from a lower class position. Asturias offers another success story, though this cannot be attributed to its inclusion strategy, because the Asturian government has not so far significantly enlarged the basic
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Table 3. Rate of enrolment in upper secondary education and rate of population below that level in Austria, the Czech Rep., France, Italy and Spain (average figures compared to Germany, Malta and Portugal), 2003 Country
Interregional average
Interregional standard deviation
Interregional (coeff.of) variation
Regression coefficient (R 2) between “Pop. below u. sec. ed.”(2) and “Up. secondary students” (1)
Austria
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
76.42 29.18
76.03 29.75
5.32 3.20
7.00 10.74
0.33
Czech Republic
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
70.95 20.90
71.14 20.97
9.09 3.44
12.77 16.42
0.64
France(3)
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
65.91 –
65.99 47.29
1.70 6.93
2.58 14.66
0.02
Italy
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
87.65 59.12
90.59 5.08
59.47 3.97
5.60 6.67
0.22
Nether lands
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
67.23 36.70
65.55 37.45
16.88 3.07
25.75 8.19
0.06
Spain(4)
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
42.24 60.66
43.54 61.21
3.76 5.28
8.63 8.62
0.24
Germany
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
60 25
– –
– –
– –
_
Malta
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
30 76
– –
– –
– –
_
Portugal(5)
Up. Secondary students Pop. below u. Sec. ed.
53 77
– –
– –
– –
_
Notes: (1) “Up. secondary students” states for the gross ratio between the number of upper secondary students (ISCED3) and 15 to 19 years-old population. (2) “Pop. below u. sec. ed.” stands for the proportion of population (aged 15 and over) that has not attained upper secondary education (ISCED1 and ISCED2). (3) Overseas French territories are excluded. (4) Ceuta and Melilla autonomous cities are excluded. (5) Açores and Madeira are excluded Source: EUROSTAT (2005).
compensatory scheme. Rather, a relatively high educational expenditure and youth unemployment explain this second positive position of an extremely de-industrialized region. A small effect of inclusion strategies can be observed by comparing Andalusia (intensive compensation), Galicia (coordinated compensation) and the Valencian Country (compensation). Once again average education levels are similar but the former two cases score much better than the latter; furthermore, expenditure contributes to a relative success of the inclusion strategy in Galicia. Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Catalonia offer the most negative cases. Actually, the schooling system is relatively worse in Balearic Islands and Catalonia, which are both thriving regions, but suffer dramatically high non-graduation rates (see Table 4). Youth unemployment is the main factor that accounts for their position below
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Table 4. Labor force educational level, enrolment at 17 and gross domestic product per capita (Spanish autonomies and some European countries, 2001–2002)
Spain (total) ● Andalusia ● Aragon ● Asturias ● Balearic Islands ● Basque Country ● Canary Islands ● Cantabria ● Castilla –Leon ● Castilla -La Mancha ● Catalonia ● Extremadura ● Galicia ● Madrid ● Murcia ● Navarre ● Rioja ● Valencian Country France United Kingdom Sweden Portugal Italy
Labor Force with at least upper secondary education (LFUSE)
Spain (LFUSE) 100
Enrolment at 17 (E17)
Spain (E17) 100
Gross domestic product per capita (GDPpc)
Spain (GDPpc) 100
41.6 34.6 43.2 43.4 40.5 52.2 38.9 42.9 42.6 33 43.2 32.1 37.3 54.3 39.1 48.3 41.5 36.4 65 84 82 20 46
100 83.17 103.85 104.33 97.36 125.48 93.51 103.13 102.40 79.33 103.85 77.16 89.66 130.53 93.99 116.11 99.76 87.50 156.25 201.92 197.12 48.08 110.58
77.8 73.8 85.6 90.2 69.5 91.4 76.3 83.8 89.7 73.2 70.7 71.6 80.3 87.5 74.6 87.5 80.4 70.9 91.2 73.6 91.1 72.6 75.3
100 94.86 110.03 115.94 89.33 117.48 98.07 107.71 115.30 94.09 90.87 92.03 103.21 112.47 95.89 112.47 103.34 91.13 117.22 94.60 117.10 93.32 96.79
18893.5 14050.3 20059 16173.7 23546 23443 17853 18340.4 17449.2 15239.3 22562.2 12024.9 14904 25479 16143.4 23814.2 21578.4 18123.1 23480 23543.7 23818.4 15782.4 22420
100 74.37 106.17 85.6 124.62 124.08 94.49 97.07 92.36 80.66 119.42 63.65 78.88 134.86 85.44 126.04 114.21 95.92 124.28 124.61 126.07 83.53 118.66
Source: MEC (2001) and OECD (2004).
the proportional line, as Table 2 estimates and a simple comparison with Asturias illustrates. Tourism is the main resource in the islands and provides very important inputs to the Catalan economy, where industrial areas and a big city also create many jobs for young people. However, a second but significant factor is the small expenditure that the two relatively rich, Mediterranean governments devote to their schools. In short, not only regional educational levels rather than educational inclusion strategies explain non-graduation rates in most “autonomies,” but also the main exceptions to this rule can be attributed to other factors. Pedagogic interventions have impinged on the outcome in the Basque Country, although economic parallel support has reinforced them there. When intensive compensation has been implemented without a similar support in Andalusia, Aragon, and Catalonia, the final outcome has been either proportional to the educational level (Andalusia and Aragon) or has scored well below this (Catalonia).
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Regional Disparity and Economic-Educational Development in a Comparative Perspective Average educational levels of the labor force are the main predictor of non-graduation rates at the end of both compulsory and post-compulsory academic secondary education in the 17 autonomous communities. One question is whether this effect is a consequence of sharp regional disparity due to the recent expansion of schooling in Spain. Table 3 shows that middle-term trends have drawn a relatively heterogeneous regional educational map in Spain. The table reports the enrolment of the younger generations (i.e., a gross rate of upper secondary students compared to the 15–19 years-old population) and the educational level of the whole population (i.e., the proportion of population aged 15 and over who lack this degree) in a small sample of European countries with available data on regional educational disparities. Notably, the gross enrolment rate of teenagers holds a robust (R2 0.55) and negative correlation with the gross non-graduation rate used in Table 2. Besides, these figures explore middle-term change by comparing younger and older generations. This information is relevant to questions about whether educational regions are heterogeneous in countries where compulsory schooling is universal, whether regional patterns can be attributed to earlier or later expansion, or whether we should look for correlates somewhere else. It also provides important evidence in estimating the geography of educational disadvantage. According to these data, in Spain the gross rate of upper secondary students is low (42%), with Malta alone having a lower score (30%). A simple comparison shows that regional disparity is moderate, and discredits any view attributing its importance directly to the recent expansion of schooling. First, in Spain inter-regional variation (8.63%) is high compared with France (2.58%), where schooling expansion started earlier, but such an expansion also started earlier in Austria and inter-regional variation of teenagers’ enrolment in this country (7%) is similar to Spain. However, the Netherlands was also an early developer of schooling and shows a higher inter-regional variation (25.75%) than Spain. Second, the population’s educational levels show a higher interregional variation in France (14.66%) compared with Spain (8.62%), although French regions are more homogeneous with regard to secondary students. Further, this variation is similar in the Netherlands (8.19%) despite the sharp disparity concerning students’ completion rates. And third, a simple correlation analysis between these two variables reveals similar R 2 coefficients in Austria (0.33), Spain (0.24) and Italy (0.22), zero values in France and the Netherlands, and a robust level in the Czech Republic (0.64), this showing no general pattern of regional variation concerning students’ completion and population’s average education. If recent expansion cannot account for the weak influence of inclusive strategies, economic development might explain it. In fact, there is a general correlation between economic and educational development if the latter is measured by literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels (UNDP, 2005). Since Spain enjoys a high human development index (HDI), here the significant focus is on enrolment at 17. Students who are at school at this age are likely to finish their upper secondary education, whereas those who are not will fail to complete. Although secondary graduation does not indicate such a basic capability as HDI components (e.g., literacy or primary
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enrolment), it is important for future work careers (OECD, 2003) and the academic performance of future generations (OECD & UNESCO/UIS, 2003). On the other hand, two other indicators estimate the match in economic and educational development in Spanish “autonomies,” namely the proportion of the labor force with at least upper secondary education and the regional Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc). Table 4 compares educational and economic development Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Recent expansion can be observed in as much as the labor force shows higher levels of education in France, the UK, and Sweden than in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the Spanish “autonomies.” However, more students leave school at a lower age in the “autonomies” compared to the other European countries included in the sample. For instance, Balearic Islands, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Navarre record a per capita gross domestic product (GDPpc) close to France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy. However, economic development (GDPpc) and post-compulsory enrolment indicators are only similar in the Basque Country, France, and Italy. Catalonia and Italy share similar economic (GDPpc) scores, but the enrolment indicator is much lower in Catalonia; similarly, Balearic Islands have the same economic level (GDPpc) as France and the UK, but its enrolment rate is the lowest in the sample. Besides, Madrid has the best per capita gross domestic product in this sample, but other cases like Asturias and Castilla-Leon and European countries like France and Sweden achieve a better enrolment rate.
Reflections from the Capabilities Approach To what extent do these structural limitations of urban education eliminate the margin for school-based action for justice? In our view, Nussbaum’s (2000) and Sen’s (1999) “capabilities approach” suggests a relevant and useful answer to this question. Here, our reasoning starts with a brief summary of the normative framework concerning capabilities and points out the empirically observed potential. A further discussion of this potential leads us to review the negative effects of unintended targeted action and to introduce alternative ideas. Capabilities constitute the human possibility to leading one’s life according to one’s view of the good, within the frame of universal morality. Nussbaum (2000) has advanced a list arguing that everybody should be endowed with enough resources to realize such possibilities; additionally, no capability should be denied to anybody on behalf on any other one. Such list includes references to education at several points: for example, senses, imagination, thought, emotions, practical reasoning, affiliation (caring, selfrespect), play, and political participation. The set of actual capabilities constitutes a person’s freedom, which is the crucial leverage of development too. That is, development consists of meeting people’s needs so that everybody is able to deploy his or her capabilities. Freedom plays a constitutive role in development inasmuch as it establishes the ultimate criteria for its evaluation, but it also plays an instrumental role such that some freedoms can effectively contribute to the achievement of other freedoms. Sen (1999) provides several examples from his own research. For instance, women’s autonomy is crucial for family planning and children’s health, democracy is the best
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guarantee against famines, and universal services are able to enhance human development despite low economic growth. The points raised in previous sections highlight instrumental connections between institutional and societal factors of educational development. Two institutional factors offer potential positive outcomes that unfortunately have not been met in recent decades. On the one hand, autonomous governments have started to experiment with inclusive strategies that broaden former compensatory education programs. However, co-ordination and intensification initiatives have not yielded a clear impact up to now, probably because they have only been pilot innovations. On the other hand, upper secondary education outcomes partially depend on educational expenditure, and public educational expenditure in Spain has stagnated at the 4.9% GDP level, that is, one point below the EU average (OECD, 2004). Thus, although better articulation of new experiences and more resources could eventually produce positive change, this has not so far been achieved. The most decisive societal factor, it seems, is family educational level and educational aspirations, with economic development and policy as second factors. Family aspirations already contributed to educational expansion starting some 50 years ago. Despite a lack of school places, after the hard times of the 1940s, initial and tentative indications of economic improvement, as well as increasing marriage and birth rates, occurred simultaneously to growing enrolment in the post-compulsory “basic baccalaureate” (Pérez, 2001). Paradoxically, this connection loosened when compulsory education was extended until fourteen in the 1970s, as the trend of graduation rates stagnated (probably due to the chronic lack of resources and a strict reaction of untrained teachers against massive schooling). However, in the 1980s new possibilities emerged when democratic governments devoted more resources to schools, a reform standardized across public and private state-funded schools. Both primary graduation and secondary enrolment and graduation also rose (Carabaña, 1999). Interestingly, family projects have been the main societal trigger for educational development, since economic development only played a certain role in the 1960s and universal compulsory enrolment was not attained until the 1980s. The influence of a crucial institutional factor such as expenditure has only been decisive for a short term between the democratic transition (1977–1978) and the early 1990s. Therefore, educational action for justice eventually became an unintended form of targeted action. Targeted action consists of anti-poverty initiatives that aim to profile the poor in a precise way so as to concentrate resources on this population. Similarly, educational targeting consists of defining what educational disadvantage means so as to concentrate educational resources on this group. Thus, if educational expenditure devoted to the whole system and to compensatory programs is severely constrained, these very programs become partial and uncoordinated, with the logical consequence that, at best, only some disadvantaged groups receive attention in Spanish schools. According to this interpretation, in Spain inclusive strategies are likely to suffer the main perverse effects of targeted action, namely information and incentive distortion, stigma, high administrative costs and weak political sustainability (Sen, 1999). Certainly, while the example given is not a pure case, since targeting is not an explicit political aim, this particularity is relevant for this evaluation. The eventual incoherence of these
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measures is crucial in order to understand why international comparative studies show mediocre performance scores, moderate performance gaps and significantly low postcompulsory enrolment in Spain (Duru-Bellat et al., 2005). To start with, although informal and residual action is not likely to produce high administrative costs, it is nonetheless likely to distort information dramatically and threatens to stigmatize beneficiaries. The information problem is due to the general difficulty of combining urban and educational criteria as a means of selecting schools for targeted intervention (EURYDICE, 2004). However, the problem is also enhanced due to the blurred definition of catchment areas. Formally, all students attend public and private state-funded schools located close to their home, but there are no general or explicit criteria to decide the limits, extension and social composition of the areas of these schools. Thus, the occasional concentration of immigrants or students with special education needs can be compensated for, either with area-based (in Andalusia) or school-based (in Catalonia) action or with participatory programs (Comunidades de Aprendizaje, 2005). However, the deep processes that produced that situation remain unaffected. Even worse, in Catalonia the specialists’ discussion summarized in Carbonell’s (2000) report has already warned that the label “intercultural education” has become a real stigma for many schools. In sum, many current practices of targeting eventually replicate or enhance these negative effects. Second, incentive distortion is secondary but salient in some “autonomies.” Doubtless, incentives are quite different if we make reference to anti-poverty income schemes or to educational intervention. However, incentives are relevant in some programs as far as post-compulsory enrolment is concerned. In fact, the model summarized in Table 2 points out a trade-off between (un)employment and (non)graduation for young people between 20 and 24 years. Although non-graduation rates are not so determined by youth unemployment as they depend on average levels of education, the former plays a significant role. García Espejo and Gutiérrez (2000) have convincingly illustrated this by comparing Asturias and Valencia. The former has a successful academic story together with massive unemployment due to de-industrialization, whilst the latter has roughly the average education/non-graduation proportion for the whole country. These researchers have found out that tertiary education yields a positive rate of return in Asturias but a neutral one in Valencia. In order to explain this finding they have signaled that light industries and tourism provide precarious but abundant labor opportunities to early school leavers in the latter region which take students away from school. Therefore, incentive distortion also constrains the effectiveness of compensatory intervention in some “autonomies.” Third, a rapid overview of the changes between the 1990 and the 2002 Education Acts reveals the weakness of the political support for compensatory strategies and educational inclusion. The first reform aiming to tackle educational disadvantage drew on curriculum adaptation and child-centered pedagogy. Before the Conservative government drafted and passed the second reform, it had deeply damaged the popular image of the former strategy by exploiting opinion surveys. The general conclusion was that teachers and parents do not perceive pro-school attitudes in low performing students (INCE, 1998), and the inferred recommendation is that a new culture of endeavor must be instilled into these as well as other students.
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All these unintended effects notwithstanding, targeted educational intervention seems not to be completely without use. On the contrary, concern with educational inequalities has doubtless stimulated pedagogic imagination and opened new channels of participation. For instance, learning communities and a few immigrant reception programs aim to stimulate working-class and minority parents to engage with school activities. As we have argued, the main obstacle for educational intervention in Spain lies in its improvisation and lack of co-ordination. The experimental “intensive” initiatives are patchy, but they might also be a first step to designing and implementing new strategies for educational inclusion that aim at universality. From this stance, any attempt at change should take account of the following three questions. First, universalistic strategies are impossible unless educational expenditure is sufficient; second, catchment areas should be defined in a transparent way so that monitoring the equity and effectiveness of both public and private state-funded schools is possible; and third, regulation and provision are viewed as important as pedagogy for tackling educational diversity.
Conclusion Urban education is undergoing important transformations in Spain. Educational de-centralization has coincided with a new interest in widening the scope of the compensatory education programs implemented in the 1980s and a rich array of experiments that have not yet been articulated as a comprehensive strategy. Current initiatives broaden the scope of compensation rather than implement alternative strategies. Only the Basque Country has moved beyond this framework, for example, by delivering generous scholarships to low income youth who decide to stay after their completion of compulsory education. Other strategies include immigrant reception programs, affirmative action in favor of certain schools or areas, learning communities, distance education for rural areas, and participatory local planning of after-school activities. As far as achieving almost universal completion of upper secondary education, only the Basque Country tells a success story, since at least most youth graduate at this level there. On the contrary, none of the latter strategies has impacted on non-graduation rates at the end of either compulsory or post-compulsory academic secondary education. Our empirical conclusion is that average educational levels, public educational expenditure, and youth unemployment are much more influential than any type of compensatory educational inclusion. Notably, neither the recent date of educational expansion nor economic development can convincingly explain this mid-term educational geography. The most significant pattern reveals inter-generational reproduction with regards to autonomous regions in Spain. Where the population’s educational levels are high, more students from recent generations leave school with their baccalaureate. As a consequence, the education systems of some “autonomies” are not sustainable, either because they have low average educational levels and low graduation rates at secondary education (mostly, Southern “autonomies”) or because they are extremely deviating negative cases with regards to the general proportion (mostly, Balearic Islands and Catalonia).
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Thus, positive and negative instrumental connections between educational factors can be identified. In the end, inclusive strategies appear to be so partial that they only target the worst off often in an unintended way that cannot be easily monitored. However, this balance of pros and cons it is hoped provides a list of open challenges towards a new universalistic strategy. Besides the very articulation of the initial new experiences that draw on “intensive” compensation, a higher expenditure and a clearly defined and equity-driven system of catchment areas might be the first steps in that direction.
Note 1. The paper is an outcome of the Regional Schooling Regimes Project, funded by Fundació Carles Pi Sunyer between 2002 and 2004. It was developed by SAPS and the Institute for Government and Public Policy (IGOP-UAB). We want to acknowledge de contribution of Eduardo Calderón and Núria Pros.
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28 DUTCH URBAN SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONALISM Yvonne Leeman Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Urban life is a bundle of contradictions. The urban city offers opportunities to meet people from all over the world. It offers all kinds of cultural stimuli through art exhibitions, theatre and music. Opportunities to participate in sport are legion in the city: you are not confined to just the one local handball club. There is a lot to choose from but does everyone have such a wide range of choice? Poverty and cultural distinctions prevent equal access. The big city, part of the global economy, with its constant activity, gives access, at least for the well-educated, to the international job market. Those with lower qualifications have less interesting opportunities or simply no work. Urban culture is highly individualistic: “I have the right to choose what I want and to express what I think.” At the same time, however, there are neighborhoods with immigrants from the rural areas of Turkey and Morocco, who keep their rural traditions alive, exercise social control on each other and are not in the habit of crossing the borders of their neighborhoods. Saucer antennas on balconies mark the streets where they live. Dutch cities are relatively small. There are no huge, virtually isolated, suburbs like the banlieus in Paris (van Zanten, 2001). The public transport system connects different parts of the city. Some people who live in Amsterdam cycle from one side of the city to the other every day to go to work. However there is a high degree of diversity among the inhabitants, growing inequality of wealth, marketization of the public sector, and a tendency toward segregation in housing patterns operating alongside a social housing policy that aims to keep communities socially and economically mixed. Teaching in Dutch urban schools is complex and challenging. Over the course of time, the concept of promoting equal educational opportunities has taken on a new meaning. At its outset in the 1970s, equal opportunities policy was about making the most of hidden talent and improving the educational careers of working class children. Now there is a diversity of target groups and of factors explaining the poor performance of these groups at school. No single educational approach has proved to be simply the best to meet the challenges presented by the social and cultural diversity of the pupil population and to improve academic achievement for all. The need for 523 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 523–538. © 2007 Springer.
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tailor-made approaches has made the professionalism of school heads and teachers a key issue in urban schooling. Urban schools could be places that develop the multiple talents of young people: young people who have a great deal of experience with the pluriformity of the urban living environment and who have developed the social capital to live together in diverse communities. This demands school success for all and trust, empathy, social responsibility and democratic attitudes. Obviously, these are best developed in interaction with others and, for those who live in a diverse neighborhood, some of these will develop as a matter of course. They can also be taught deliberately in schools though (Parker, 2003; Slavin, 1995), only if a communicative context for cooperation, reflection, and identity development is created. It is above all the teachers and head teachers who are able to give substance to good education in urban schools, within broad national frameworks and with varying degree of cooperation with local politicians and local communities. Since the 1990s, national education policy in the Netherlands has, in line with a general trend in Western Europe, moved in the direction of management based on lumpsum financing and increased local autonomy. This movement towards decentralization was soon accompanied by a trend towards stronger central programming of educational objectives. Nevertheless, in practice Dutch national policy has an instrumental character, with a focus on management of output and a professional, efficient and effective approach. Development of educational content and the pedagogic development of schools has been left untouched as far as possible, partly because of the Dutch system of pillarization along religious and philosophical lines (Vermeulen, 2004). This pillarization is a result of the “freedom of education” in the Dutch school system. Parents are free to choose a school for their children and groups of individuals are, within certain legal limits, free to establish and operate state-independent schools according to their own religious, philosophical, or pedagogical principles. These schools, when they fulfill the criteria set by law, are fully funded by state. This pillarization gives teachers and school heads considerable freedom to design the curriculum of their schools. Currently they are having to do this in a hardened political and social climate, in which the emphasis on the citizen’s personal responsibility and on integration of immigrants has weakened the earlier solidarity with “the disadvantaged” which used to be taken for granted. This has not made their job any easier. In the first part of this article, I sketch urban schooling in the Netherlands, paying attention to diversity and segregation, school success, and the political context. This is followed by a presentation of a selection of the results of two research projects on key contemporary issues of urban schooling: trying to achieve ethnically mixed schools and trying to improve learning through developing a relationship of respect and trust with all pupils. In these projects, primary school heads (Leeman, 2007) and secondary school teachers (Leeman, 2003) were interviewed about their work in urban settings and their professional identities. In the third and concluding part I highlight an approach to urban schooling in which reflective teachers who are able to learn on-the-job and combine teaching and care for pupils with appropriate professional detachment are of crucial importance.
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Dutch Urban Schools Diversity and Segregation The immigration of migrant workers and people from the former colonies changed the populations of Western European societies in the second half of the last century. At the start of the twenty-first century, 17.5% of the inhabitants of the Netherlands were born abroad or had at least one parent who was born abroad. Of these, half originate from European and other Western countries and the other half is predominantly made up of immigrants from Turkey, Morocco, and Surinam, plus refugees from all over the world. The larger cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, have become most multi-ethnic. Due to trends in the birth-rate of groups and in the settlement patterns of immigrants and the Dutch majority population, approximately half of the school-age children in these cities are now from a non-Western background. Immigrants prefer to live in the multi-ethnic atmosphere of the cities nearby people of the same background. In Amsterdam, for example, the city centre is the place for the cosmopolitan elite to live while poor people, and especially those of non-Dutch descent, live on the outskirts of the city. At the same time, the middle classes (Dutch and those of immigrant descent) tend to move out to nearby towns. A concentration of people from Surinam and the Dutch Antilles and refugees from Africa live in middle-class neighborhoods and in the poorer parts of the south-east of Amsterdam (the Bijlmer). The Netherlands is familiar with segregation along socio-economic and denominational lines. In the major cities, segregation along ethnic lines is now developing too. There is a tendency towards pupils of Dutch and of non-Dutch descent to attend different schools. The majority of so-called “black schools” house a whole range of pupils with different ethnic backgrounds. It is difficult to find an all-Surinamese or an all-Turkish school. In all schools the teaching staff is still predominantly white and of Dutch descent. The issue of diversity belongs to the day-to-day practice of most urban teachers. Teachers report friction with parents and friction between pupils associated with conflicting identities. Religion appears to be a marker of identity for some groups in Dutch society. Christian evangelical parents ban their children from reading Harry Potter and demand that the school respect this. Feelings can run high between young Muslims and Jews, related to the political situation in the Middle East. In most mixed schools teachers have to communicate with different communities; for example, to groups of parents who were raised in the rural regions of Morocco and Turkey with a strong in-group culture and a system of cultural control, and parents with an urban life-style. Teachers have to establish a safe atmosphere for girls from Surinam who follow the latest fashion by wearing low bottom trousers and short shirts, and also Muslim girls who prefer to veil their body from the eyes of others.
School Success Segregation along ethnic lines parallels socio-economic segregation. Educational inequality has a stubborn fixed hierarchy: Dutch pupils of well-educated parents score highest in examinations, followed by Dutch pupils of poorly educated parents and
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pupils from mixed families with one parent of Dutch descent. These are followed by the immigrants, who have their own hierarchy: pupils of Surinamese descent are on the highest rung of the performance ladder while further down we find the pupils of Turkish and Moroccan descent (Ledoux, 2005; Tesser, 2003). Poor performance in the Dutch language is cited as the most intractable problem. Individual and group characteristics play a role in school success but the school environment also contributes. Major differences in quality of education between schools probably do not exist in the Netherlands, yet each town has schools where some would prefer not to send their child. Research has been conducted into whether the composition of the primary school contributes to this but we still do not know what the long-term effects will be. Schools where more than half of the pupils are from an ethnic minority background and have poorly educated parents have been found to score significantly lower in the subjects Dutch and mathematics than schools with predominantly well-educated Dutch parents, after controlling for the background characteristics of individual pupils (though the effect is small). School composition is not found to affect pupils’wellbeing, operationalized in “enjoying school” and “feeling accepted in the class.” We do not know whether segregation has an effect on self-image, identity, self-awareness, social skills, or the competencies required for democratic citizenship (Ledoux, 2005). The picture in secondary education may well be different (there are no general research findings available). The Dutch education system is highly differentiated after primary school, with early selection based on ability at the age of 12 for academic or vocational track in secondary education.1 Differences in quality of education are found between the different types of school and based on the composition of the pupils. Vmbo schools which have a majority of students in the two lowest, most practical, trajectories do not offer young people good qualifications for jobs or further schooling. Teachers in these schools report that they have to focus on self-confidence, reducing the fear of failure and addressing bad behavior. Because they have few opportunities to offer the young people, drop-out rates are high (Leeman, 2003). For example, the majority of the immigrant youth in Amsterdam attends the lowest trajectories of the vmbo, with 20% of young people aged 17–22 in Amsterdam leaving school without basic qualifications. They are the children of parents isolated from the mainstream in society, who are not able to fight for educational opportunities (Aboutaleb, 2005). Paulle (2005) describes the everyday state of affairs in a vmbo school in Amsterdam South East as follows. A proportion of the pupils who attend this school are disruptive and restless and they are the ones who dominate the school culture. According to Paulle, coping practices form the backbone of the hidden curriculum: shaped “from below” by the power of the dominant behavior of the disruptive youth. “The behavioural patterns depended on the social composition of the class and the ability of the teacher to manage the emotional dynamics (in which they were themselves, also wrapped up) rather than on the official curricula.” (Paulle, 2005, p. 259)
Political Context In striving for distributive justice and social cohesion, combating educational disadvantage was and is one of the most important stated objectives of Dutch education policy.
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In former years proportionally more facilities were given to schools with a certain proportion of immigrant pupils because of their greater disadvantages in terms of poor mastery of the Dutch language and lack of socialization in line with the demands of the school. Preschool and early school policy was developed to include family intervention and parent counseling. These policies focused on the resources allocated to pupils, leaving mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion largely untouched. Reform in urban schooling has taken a rather narrow path recently. Funding targeted especially at immigrant pupils has been cut back. Recently money has been withdrawn from urban priority areas in favor of backward rural areas, and a coordinated approach to dealing with “problematic youth” has been introduced. The scope of the school’s responsibilities has been broadened, with social work responsibilities added to the task of teaching. It has become the responsibility of the teacher to deal with violence in schools, and problems arising from changing family structures and growing poverty. Schools are currently seen as the pivot of youth policy and a network of social services. Black community schools, in the official discourse, are seen as places for an interdisciplinary but strict approach to youth, combined with education in citizenship and assimilation. During the extended school day of these schools there is a focus on sport and assistance with home-work. White community schools have moved to extended school days too, offering all kind of activities as a form of child care for working parents (Emmelot & Veen, 2004). The socio-cultural dimension of education for diversity has been given less attention as the years have gone by. The promotion, since the 1980s, of intercultural education, a form of teaching that promotes the concept of a multicultural society and the bilateral or multilateral process of learning from and accepting and appreciating each other, has recently been replaced by a focus on assimilation (Leeman & Pels, 2006). Since the mid-1990s, a new wind of realism has been blowing in the Netherlands, a realism that depicts the ideal of the multi-cultural society as “soft” and politically correct. Holding on to one’s mother tongue and identity is now mainly viewed as an obstacle to successful assimilation. The focus is on the core values of Dutch society and on “service learning,” that is, learning civic virtues through serving the community for a certain period. In reaction to the assassination of Theo van Gogh, the 7/7 bombings in London, and the rioting in the banlieus in France, politicians are afraid that large numbers of immigrant youth, in particular Muslim youths, will rebel violently against their marginal status and reject the values of liberal democracy. The current idea is that the school is the only institution left that can socialize these youths to become good citizens and to develop a sense of belonging to the Netherlands, thereby ensuring social cohesion.
Key Issues The recent focus on assimilation and the personal responsibility of the citizen is a tendency that can be observed in most West European countries. In the Netherlands this focus is rather strong, and it is experienced as a radical break from the former liberal and social politics. The murder of the politician Pim Fortuin in 2002 is often mentioned as a reference point for this shift. Being interested in what this shift means for day-to-day practice in schools, I conducted two interview studies to chart the spectrum
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of dilemmas experienced by school heads and teachers in urban settings. In 2004, I interviewed the primary school principals of three academically successful schools in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.2 In the 2002/2003 school year, I interviewed 11 teachers in different types of secondary schools in the Randstad (the area of the Netherlands consisting of the large cities of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and the Hague). Both projects were about charting the spectrum of dilemmas regarding equality and socialcultural diversity that school heads and teachers experience in their current professional practice. I selected principals and teachers from different schools (in terms of pupil composition, neighborhood) who had been teaching for at least 5 years in urban settings, and who were interested in education, equality, and the multicultural society. Experts in the field recommended the primary heads and the secondary school teachers to me. The interviews were exploratory, with an open structure in which the researcher and the respondent reflected on the dilemmas mentioned. The respondents were all asked to illustrate their dilemmas with an example. In the primary school study, the interviews with the heads were supplemented with observations in the school, document analyses and interviews with parents. All interviews were audio-taped and the written versions were sent to the respondents for their comments. The school heads focused on segregation and the teachers on balancing communality and diversity and the relationship with their pupils.
School Heads Trying to Achieve Mixed Schools As already mentioned, there is a tendency toward ethnic segregation in housing patterns and school attendance in Dutch cities. Parental choice also contributes to segregation in schools. In the Netherlands, parents have a genuine choice between public schools and private schools with a distinctive religious or philosophical character (Dijkstra, Dronkers, & Karsten, 2004; Vermeulen, 2004). Public-authority schools are freely accessible to all students. The government guarantees that there is a public school within a short distance from home, providing a “neutral” curriculum, which is open to all students who want to attend. In addition, groups of individuals are free to establish and run private schools according to their own religious, philosophical, or pedagogical principles. This does not confer absolute educational autonomy. The private schools operate within the national education system and are fully funded. They have to meet educational standards, such as the minimum number of students required, national standards on the curriculum, national examinations, and conditions of employment. The existence of private Islamic and Hindu schools influence ethnic segregation too. There are currently 42 Islamic schools, all but two of them primary schools. The first Islamic schools were established in the 1990s. With little political will to abandon the system of “freedom of education,” the political parties are seeking other measures to reduce ethnic segregation. One policy approved in 2004, is for no more funding for new private schools with over 80% students from a low socio-economic background, which will make it difficult to establish new Islamic schools, which tend to be attended by students from immigrant groups with a predominantly low socio-economic status. According to Dijkstra et al. (2004), a relatively large number of immigrant students living outside the large cities currently attend public-authority schools but this pattern
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is not evident in the cities themselves. As they have no statutory authority to influence the composition of schools, the large cities use the strategy of encouraging school integration by persuasion, a policy that is considered to be ineffective. The Ministry of Education has forbidden the use of quotas per school for students from the Dutch majority population and immigrant students. This is based on the argument that there should be no selection based on ethnic discrimination. It is said to be extremely difficult (no research data available) for school heads in the urban environment to achieve a mixed population of pupils: that is pupils of Dutch and immigrant descent with diversity in socio-economic status. For the three school heads interviewed, the composition of their student populations is an important aspect of their active school policies and strategies, both official and unofficial. The three schools are situated in areas of Amsterdam and Rotterdam where the population is mixed, providing plenty of scope for policy on the composition of the student population. This is not the normal situation of primary schools in the Netherlands; generally the population is much more homogenous in smaller towns and villages and on the outskirts of the big cities. The school principals interviewed, represented two types of reasoning about the desired mixed composition of the student population. Two of the principals were actively striving for a good balance in ethnic-cultural and socio-economic background. The other emphasized community relations and therefore opted for a student population that mirrors the mixed area in which his school is located. The three principals had a lot of experience with ethnic-cultural diversity in their schools. It was not the children that caused the principals most concern but differences between parents and between the school and parents. They were all proud of their schools and reported both positive and negative experiences related to ethnic diversity. The school principals reported using external and internal strategies to realize what they perceived of as the ideal composition. Policies targeting the outside community like marketing profile and gate-keeping methods were rather important, and given the population density in the cities, good transport facilities; also minimal differences between schools in terms of government funding and the existence of genuine parental choice. Internal measures to bond groups of parents and children to the school complemented these strategies. These measures focused on pedagogical approach, the curriculum, social safety and the composition of the teaching team. The accounts of the three principals suggest that a school with a well-balanced ethnic and socio-economic composition is exceedingly difficult to maintain. It is much simpler to become and remain a black or white concentration school. With their direct policy of maintaining a balance, the three principals were pioneers. It was clear that balancing diversity and communality is an art about which there is still very little shared knowledge. One of the principals, who has worked at his school for 15 years has a mixed school and puts all his effort into keeping it like this, values cultural diversity but struggles with the boundaries and possibilities: After all these years it’s still difficult to give shape to diversity. I don’t do very much, for example, about teaching philosophy. Precisely because all too often you approach things from a Christian or secular background without realizing it. As a public-authority school, at the moment we don’t go further than associating
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with each other, playing with each other, working together and telling each other about what certain religions mean and trying to get respect for this. The school heads interviewed put their faith in groups meeting each other and, up to now, had had little affinity for or experience with well-thought-out forms of citizenship education, which focus on how students can learn from each other, appreciate their different experiences, develop skills and attitudes to work with and across differences, and develop democratic attitudes. The issue of identity-development of their students, the possibilities for rethinking cultural heritages and dreamed futures were issues the head teachers did not have access too. In this sense their policies are rather superficial and uncritical. Another example of balancing diversity and commonality concerned cultural differences in the reaction to problem behavior by children: We recently had a problem with a group of children. It was about extorting money and threatening each other. We invited the parents in question to the school. The parents reacted very differently. Children from a Pakistani family started to greet me every day. Apparently at home they’d been told: “now you’ll behave yourself, you’ll follow the rules and that includes saying hello to the principal.” Another immigrant parent said: “I want to send my child back to my own country, it’s going to go wrong here.” One of the Moroccan parents denied that his son had been involved, while we knew (from what other children said) that he was up to his neck in it. These different reactions from parents make it difficult to tackle the problem with the co-operation of all parents. One of the principals, in his attempt to achieve a more mixed student population, had focused on the relationship of the school with the different groups of parents. He had studied the differences between them. This is his description: Dutch and immigrant parents with a low level of education are more interested in their children growing up in the neighbourhood and the social and family ties of children and adults. Well-educated Dutch parents take their children from club to club and find it useful to co-operate with other parents and share these tasks. These parents have to see other advantages in placing their child at a school with a one-sided poorly-educated student composition. A social network for themselves and for their children is naturally less likely to develop at such a school. They have to “take and fetch” their children outside the circle of school contacts to be able to organize the contacts and activities that they want for their children. He pointed out that the cultural differences between parents at his school are the most noticeable differences: I want a mixed school where parents with either a high or a low level of education and different cultures can feel at home. Immigrant parents come to this school
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because they feel safe, because for example there are other mothers wearing a headscarf waiting outside the school. Dutch parents ought to be able to feel just as much at ease here. Dutch women, who create time to bring up their children by reducing the hours they work in paid employment, don’t meet enough people to talk to at our school. When accepting children for the school, I was unaware of this for a long time. I was always defending the school. The educational achievements are good. It’s well organized. I always said, “We are a good school.” I notice that I have to say that I understand the parents’ situation and that I basically have the same problem and that I can only solve that problem with their help. We all have to believe in something if we want to make sure that the population groups mix and that their child will be better prepared later to work in a society with huge cultural diversity (…) People think that mixed schools automatically promote mutual integration. That’s definitely not the case. How on earth can I serve six to eight different groups in my school? If you want to give information to immigrant mothers, you have to start with tea, coffee and homemade biscuits. An interpreter has to be present and a topic like “Who’s the boss at home, you or your child?” has to be presented with the help of role-playing. If I organise such a session, the well-educated Dutch parents will arrive at 9.30 and five minutes later say, “Aren’t we going to start, I’ve got to leave at 10.30, as I’ve taken time off work.” Those parents do like role-playing but say, “I don’t want to see that every year.” It’s nice to see once. The school heads were pioneering in balancing communality and diversity. They strove for social justice, as well as distributive and cultural justice. They were searching for the limits of the possible. They had limited autonomy in the field of admissions to school but some autonomy in the field of the curriculum and use of facilities. One of the factors influencing the limited ability of principals to respond to diversity is the scarcity of teachers from minority cultures in the Dutch school system (Leeman & Ledoux, 2003). Schools have virtually no class teachers from ethnic-minority backgrounds, although immigrants do fulfill more marginal positions like cultural intermediary, assistant and subject specialist. Owing to financial cuts at a national level, those marginal positions are now hanging in the balance. It is interesting to see how the head teachers interpreted their professional role. They had the necessary detachment to examine their scope for action in the context their school found itself in. They had a body of concepts they used to evaluate critically current education policy and the impact of this policy on their work, and ideals and opportunities to achieve and maintain a mixed school. They were able to place their school in its social environment and appeared to have a good understanding of their communities, mainly acquired through observation. They appeared to have practical hands-on knowledge that cannot be obtained from a book. As good managers, they kept an eye on the market position of their schools and the composition of their pupil populations, as these are factors essential to the continued existence of the school, but they also allowed themselves to be guided by their ideals in the area of social justice. They were living examples of how difficult it is to achieve and run mixed school.
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Teachers Trying to Develop a Relationship of Respect and Trust with all Pupils The eleven teachers working at nine different urban secondary schools were asked what intercultural dilemmas they had experienced in their work and how they judged their professional skills in dealing with these dilemmas. The teachers mentioned a diverse range of dilemmas and elaborated on their impressions about the similarities and differences between pupils of different backgrounds. While cultural-ethnic differences between students were emphasized in the dominant public debate, and immigrant youth was portrayed as “problematic youth,” the teachers, generally speaking, did see cultural-ethnic differences but emphasized similarities. They clearly distanced themselves from negative image-forming in society about immigrants. They mentioned characteristics such as the materialism and rude behavior of youth today, which troubled them as the older generation. Some teachers emphasized that the second generation of pupils from ethic-minority groups at their school, like the Dutch pupils from the majority population, embraced broadly liberal values. One teacher said: “The second generation has become much more Dutch than many people think.” She added that a typical comment of pupils is: “We live in a democratic country. Everybody can make their own choices.” It is striking that the teachers in the interview study were very careful about labeling a particular group of pupils as a problem group. They did not want to follow the current trend of stricter rules and transfer of desired norms and values, but focused rather on understanding, dialogue and the development of a pedagogical and personal relationship with pupils. This emphasis on similarities does not change the fact that all the teachers gave examples of ethnic differences that they had experienced in teaching their classes. They were concerned about some differences more then others. They mentioned, for example, differences in, the thinking about and emotional involvement in subjects like the position of men and women, homosexuality, and certain political issues and religion. An example offered from a teacher at a vwo, havo, vmbo combined school with 40% immigrant children is as follows: It is the task of the school to educate children for Dutch society. Co-operative learning serves that purpose. This method of working sometimes causes problems if you allocate different roles to pupils. Moroccan boys in particular can display gendered behaviour. They want the girls to do clerical tasks and take on the leadership task themselves. The girls don’t comply just like that. The boys try to continue their manipulation until they get their way. Their comments to the teacher about this include: “Yeah, but, I did that task last year.” “That’s what I’m really good at.” “She’s not very good at that.” “If she does that, we’ll get a low mark.” The teachers mentioned the different behavior of Moroccan pupils: “They communicate differently”; “They’re not co-operative and shut themselves off ”; “It’s a group of pupils who do not accept the authority of women teachers” and “A group who openly display distrust of the Dutch (as part of their identity).” Alongside mentioning characteristics of Moroccan pupils, the teachers offered interactive explanations. A history teacher put forward the following viewpoint:
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Their behaviour is a reaction to the negative image of them in society, a reaction to poverty and the lack of prospects for their group. They don’t feel understood at home or at school and have experienced that an aggressive, challenging approach has success. Passers-by are scared. After such behaviour at school, just another test, you’re not sent out, the mark doesn’t count anymore, etc. A teacher of Moroccan origin expressed a somewhat different perspective as follows: There are no fundamental differences in norms and values. There are feelings of insecurity in combination with teachers’ prejudices. Most Moroccan children lack communication skills and have little trust in Dutch teachers. The children don’t want to see the good intentions of the teachers and, as part of their identity, have developed the feeling, “We are not accepted in the Netherlands.” My colleagues do want to educate them but at the same time are cautious, as they want to accept Moroccans as they are. Their behaviour is based on ignorance and insecurity. In the interviews most teachers did not talk in general terms about ethnic-cultural characteristics of immigrant pupils. Rather, they emphasized the problematic situation in which inter-ethnic contact took shape. They made a critical analysis of the social environment, education and the attitude of colleagues to show that the behavior of immigrant pupils is closely linked to their interaction with their environment. In the teachers’ opinion, immigrant pupils are no longer newcomers but part of society and interact with that society. Moroccan pupils were seen as difficult. While the trend is to keep a tight rein on Moroccan boys and quickly reprimand them, teachers do not favor a harder approach as a matter of course. They also see the responsibility of the school and ask for attention to be paid to solutions in the field of relationships. Generally speaking, the teachers I have spoken to demonstrated intercultural sensitivity. They were critical of colleagues in this respect. The two main problems they mentioned were the one-sided emphasis on personal autonomy and the lack of sensitivity to diversity. A teacher of Moroccan descent said the following on this issue: A large number of teachers accept immigrant pupils but they are too passive. They don’t actively, as a kind of diplomats, look for solutions to problems they encounter. My colleagues sometimes react too emotionally, for example to the reluctance of Moroccan boys to accept the authority of women teachers. They only interpret their behaviour in a culturalist way and don’t see the adolescent side of it. A Moroccan teacher working at a combined school with almost exclusively immigrant pupils likewise said: Many of my colleagues generalise and have difficulty seeing the pupil as an individual. They don’t make enough effort to create a relationship of trust with pupils. They feel a distance between them and their Moroccan pupils and make a fool of them. Those teachers experience such things as being spat at in the face,
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pupils not accepting the authority of women teachers, and pupils putting themselves at a distance. They exaggerate incidents out of all proportion. He found this difficult and it bothered him that the school did not take responsibility for the pupils’ upbringing: The children don’t know where they belong. The children need coaching. When Dutch teachers see that Moroccan and Turkish pupils opt for their “own autonomy,” that is often sufficient reason for them not to bother about the relationship with parents. But the joint responsibility of the school and the parents is important. The school must take the relationship with the parents seriously. When parents do not give a child enough freedom to go on school trips or travel back independently, a teacher should contact the parents. If there is already a relationship with the parents, this is then easier. You cannot leave pupils out in the cold at such times and leave them to sort out the problem alone. Like the head teachers interviewed, the teachers had developed good understanding of their students and hands-on knowledge about good teaching in mixed classes. The teachers described how over the years they had developed ways of tackling critical situations, such as deadlocked discussions in which ethnic-cultural diversity was a significant factor. They tried to make the pupils aware of multiple perspectives and succeeded in defusing the emotional nature of discussions, making them more rational. Teachers have not only developed individually; at some schools this has been done collectively and in a formalized way. An example is given by a teacher working at a school with many immigrants: During out-of-school activities, we regularly had troublesome incidents that are offensive to pupils. A new element in the preparations for out-of-school activities is the bus driver. Give him coffee, tell him something about the pupils and address the busload of children yourself at the beginning to prevent the wrong tone being set (too hard and intolerant in the sense of “this isn’t allowed, that’s not allowed”). In short, it was the norm for all teachers interviewed, to try to develop a relationship of respect and trust with all pupils by balancing diversity and communality. Some of them noticed that other teachers and schools with less experience of ethnic diversity found this peculiar. The teachers developed their views and refined their professional skills on the job. They did not adhere to the hard line of assimilation emphasized in the prevailing debate in politics and the media. Some of them were rather critical of this saying that this climate influenced their students and made it more difficult for them to encourage their immigrant pupils to stay committed to school and to Dutch society.
Professionalism The experienced teachers and school leaders whom I interviewed, were aware that schools are increasingly arenas for the multi-cultural society. They talked about their
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successes and concerns. Their accounts show that distributive justice alone is insufficient to engage with the cultural complexity of today. Concepts of cultural exclusion need to be part of social justice and hence of the cultural and relational dimensions of social justice. The teachers and school heads interviewed, were confronted with largely undefined new practices. They felt themselves to be pioneers in a process of socialcognitive construction and emotional sense-making of their new experiences. The city, as far as they were concerned, has much to offer. Giving pupils access to these opportunities provided them with a challenge. The city also presents young people with many opportunities to go off the rails. With few tried and tested routines, teachers do not have knowledge at their disposal that is tailor-made for the complexities of the situation and all pupils. It is interesting that the primary school leaders and secondary school teachers interviewed, were inspired by care for and the personal development of their pupils, and were trying to distance themselves from the issue of the day, which was the emphasis on discipline in current national education policy. They revealed in their interviews, evidence of an ability to analyze the social environment in which they were working and to call into question the official task imposed on schools. At the same time most of the teachers were working in relative isolation from their colleagues. In their schools, dominant interactions tended to be about discipline and individual pupil problems rather than curriculum goals like democracy and social justice. As in other parts of the Western world, the professionalization of teachers is a hot issue in the Netherlands. A policy document on competencies of teachers was published recently (SBL, 2004), in which competencies are broken down into interpersonal, pedagogic, didactic, subject-based and organizational actions of teachers with pupils, colleagues and other people from the surrounding neighborhood such as social workers and parents. This competency-based approach can be interpreted as rather reductionist, due to its emphasis on accountability and not on reflection and supporting the holistic professional development of the teacher (Korthagen, 2004). Schools have been rationalized and set in competition against one another for “clients” and the work of teachers is mainly judged in terms of measurable academic success of their pupils and the school’s position in the educational market (Hargreaves, 2000; Moore, 2004). This trend could be judged as contradictory to the professionalism displayed by the teachers and school heads interviewed. They emphasized the cultural, emotional and societal dimensions of teaching. As experienced teachers, they considered it to be part of their responsibility to question how the social environment affects learning in school (Moore, 2004). They were able to notice and take responsibility for their own role in education (Mason, 2002; Moore, 2004) and combined detachment with commitment and concern. They were able to formulate realistic goals and to interpret educational problems in a social context (Windschitl, 2002). Are they then the prototype of the good urban teacher? A crucial element in their professional approach is their care for all pupils, which cannot be welded seamlessly with thinking in terms of production and discipline. They combine this with appropriate professional detachment and a critical reflective stance. In the urban mixed schools they work in they have been confronted with the contradictions of schooling and have developed their professional identities onthe-job. One possible way for reform is to confront the dominant concept of professional
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identity, with its emphasis on technical standards in teaching and its reductionist competency-based approach, with a type of professional identity which is more holistic and oriented at the quality of teaching in a special social context; indeed, the kind of professional identity the teachers and school heads interviewed are developing. Another possible way is teachers and school heads cooperating with critical forces from outside the school. A good example of this is the recent initiative of school heads, parents, civil agents and local politicians in Amsterdam, to work from the bottom up to achieve more mixed schools. Observing that an accumulation of individual choices has led to an outcome that nobody wanted, they developed a plan for city-wide agreements on school admissions and enrolment and on initiatives of the parents themselves. The essence of the plan is a fixed enrolment date for all children, an agreed school size and the idea that mixed group applications are given priority over individual applications. The idea is that parents who want to get their child into the school of their choice can do something to achieve this by convincing an immigrant couple (or vice versa) of the quality of the school and applying for places at the school for their children together, making use of the priority rule (Grotenhuis, 2006).
Notes 1. In the Netherlands children go from primary school (years 1–8) at the age of twelve to one of three forms of secondary education: vmbo is pre-vocational education consisting of four trajectories on a range from theoretical to practical (four years); havo is general secondary education (five years); and vwo is pre-university education (six years). 2. The interviews were part of an international research project on equity and school leadership led by Goddard, University of Calgary. See Leeman (2007).
References Aboutaleb, A. (2005). Een pleidooi voor lokaal onderwijsbeleid. [A plea for local education policy] In S. Karsten, & P. Sleegers (Eds.), Onderwijs en ongelijkheid: grenzen aan de maakbaarheid? (pp. 125–136) [Education and inequality: Limits to what government can do?] Antwerp/Apeldoorn: Garant. Dijkstra, A., Dronkers, J., & Karsten, S. (2004). Private schools as public provision for education; school choice and market forces in the Netherlands. In P. J. Wolf, & S. Macedo (Eds.), Educating citizens: International perspectives on civic values and school choice (pp. 67–90). Washington: The Brooking Institution. Emmelot, Y., & Veen, I. van der (2004). Brede scholen uitgelicht. [Community schools in the picture] Amsterdam: SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut. Grotenhuis, S. (2006). Over keuzevrijheid en burgerschap. [On freedom of choice and citizenship] Vernieuwing, 65(2), 24–26. Hargreaves, A. (2000). Four ages of professionalism and professional learning. Teachers and Teaching: History and Practice, 6(2), 151–182. Korthagen, F. (2004). Zin en onzin van competentiegericht opleiden. [Competence-based training: What is useful and what is pointless?] Velon Tijdschrift voor lerarenopleiders, 25(1), 13–23. Leeman, Y. (2003). De pedagogische opdracht in een multi-etnische context: Docentendilemma’s. [The pedagogical task in a multi-ethnic context: Teachers’ dilemmas] Pedagogische Studien, 80(6), 468–484. Leeman, Y. (2007). School leadership and equity: The case of the Netherlands. School Leadership and Management, 27(1), 51–63.
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Leeman, Y., & Ledoux, G. (2003). Intercultural education in Dutch schools. Curriculum Inquiry, 33(4), 385–400. Leeman, Y., & Pels, T. (2006). Citizenship education in the Dutch multi-ethnic context. European Education, 38(2), 64–75. Ledoux, G.(2005). Zes keer Prima. [Six times excellent] In S. Karsten, & P. Sleegers (Eds.), Onderwijs en ongelijkheid: grenzen aan de maakbaarheid? (pp. 151–165) [Education and inequality: Limits to what government can do?] Antwerp/Apeldoorn: Garant. Mason, J. (2002). Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing. London/New York: Routledge. Moore, A.(2004). The good teacher: Dominant discourses in teaching and teacher education. London/ New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Parker, W. C. (2003). Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life. New York/London: Teachers College Press. Paulle, B. (2005). Anxiety and intimidation in the Bronx and the Bijlmer: An ethnographic comparison of two schools. Amsterdam: Dutch University Press. SBL. (2004). Bekwaamheidseisen leraren. Den Haag: Stichting Beroepskwaliteit Leraren. Slavin, R. E. (1995). Cooperative learning and intergroup relations. In J.A. Banks, & C. A. McGee Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 628–634). New York: Macmillan. Tesser, P. (2003). Ontwikkelingen in de schoolloopbanen van leerlingen uit achterstandsgroepen. [Trends in the school careers of pupils from disadvantaged groups]. In W. Meijnen (Ed.), Onderwijsachterstanden in basisscholen (pp. 53–78). [Educational disadvantage in primary schools] Antwerp/Apeldoorn: OOMO/Garant. Van Zanten, A. (2001). L’ecole de la Peripherie. Scolarite et Segregation en Banlieue. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Vermeulen, B. P., (2004). Regulating school choice to promote civic values: Constitutional and political issues in the Netherlands. In P. J. Wolf, & S. Macedo (Eds.), Educating citizens: International perspectives on civic values and school choice. Washington: The Brookings Institution. Windschitl, M. (2002). Framing constructivism in practice as the negotiation of dilemmas: An analysis of the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political challenges facing teachers. Review of Educational Research, 72(2), 131–175.
29 URBAN REGIONS AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR TEACHER EDUCATION: THE HAMBURG EXAMPLE Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen University of Hamburg, Germany
Introduction There is an ongoing debate on teacher education in many European countries. The experts agree widely in their criticism, surprisingly even across borders. While reform in teacher education was at a low speed for many years, since the Bologna process was started in the late nineties it has sped up considerably. In many countries the Bologna agreement was taken as an opportunity for further changes. In those countries that did poorly in international comparative studies like PISA and TIMMS, the efforts for reform were more intensified. In the first part of our chapter we describe the shortcomings of current teacher education, as well as the ongoing changes in the countries that participate in the Bologna process. In the second and third parts of the chapter the characteristics of teacher education in large cities will play a central role. Based on extended experience with reform projects and current research in urban areas, we argue that while teacher education in these areas has unique resources it also faces specific challenges. The resources we see lie in the opportunities for cooperation. We find these opportunities in all phases of teacher education: these include pre-service teacher training and continuous in-service training. In large cities the institutions responsible for teacher education are closer together than in rural districts. While this may seem to be a trivial and negligible fact, experience shows that proximity can be a “sine qua non” for demanding projects that depend on intense cooperation. An extended example will be given in a later section for where we examine the reform of teacher education in Hamburg. Hamburg is one of sixteen Laender, the federal states. These entities are in charge of education. The reform project we detail spanned a period of five years and was brought to an end in 2005. Several institutions took part in this reform: the State Office in charge of education, the universities of Hamburg, the State Institutes that are responsible for different phases of teacher education, and representatives of 539 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 539–558. © 2007 Springer.
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the schools. We show how a network was established during the reform in Hamburg that made good use of their proximity to each other. The above mentioned challenges for teacher education in large cities arise from the special needs of students there. As international student assessment study indicates that about a quarter of German pupils can be described as “students-at-risk” (PISAKonsortium, 2005). These students do not achieve a level of competence in school subjects that is sufficient for modern vocational training. This risk factor is interdependent on the students’ migration background, the socioeconomic status of the family, and parents’ educational attainment. The heterogeneity of the population in big cities often is above the national average, and in many cities segregation by class and ethnicity can be found. Subsequently, the proportion of students-at-risk is especially high in some urban school districts: 13% of Hamburg’s 15 year olds, who participated in PISA in spring 2003, possessed only rudimental skills in math (below competency level I), while another 16% did not get beyond the basic requirements in this subject (competency level I). As a consequence, 29% of the PISA age group were classified as “students-at-risk.” In the field of reading competences the rate of “students-at-risk” was up to 28% and in science 29%. Only Bremen denoted an even higher rate of 15 year olds with a disadvantageous prognosis for successful transition to vocational training (see Vieluf, 2005). The German school system unintentionally intensifies the effects of segregation. It separates or “tracks” students according to their school performance. The aim is to achieve homogenous learning groups, according to talent and previous knowledge. This measure is supposed to allow learning environments that fit the pupil abilities and needs best, but this objective is not met. Studies show that a concentration of students with low abilities, low school performance and problematic family backgrounds in a learning group weakens the student’s learning progress notably. A concentration of students with these characteristics at a school is more likely to occur in a more subdivided school system. The linkage of school career in different branches of the school system to social and ethnic background is quite direct: in the Gymnasium, which prepares students for an academic career, 82% of the students come from upper and middle class families; at the Hauptschule, the lowest branch, by contrast, only 24% come from these classes (see PISA-Konsortium, 2005 p. 244). Only ten years ago, however, in the midst of the nineties 48% of the students with a background of migration were attending the Hauptschule and only 18% the Gymnasium (Gogolin, 2002). Since social stratification is more polarized and the rate of migrants is higher, the consequences for schools are more extreme in urban areas than in rural areas. The population of large cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg, for example, consist of 20% to more than 30% of people with a migration background, while the rate is less than 10% in most rural areas (Gogolin, 2002). This situation poses specific challenges for education in large cities. These challenges suggest an urgent need for school development programs. In a later section of this chapter we present models of such a development based on specific types of cooperation between schools and universities. Developmental processes gained from this cooperation can be further refined as a result of repeated evaluation. The researcher’s
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feedback can be used to foster enhancements of the projects. At the same time, of course, university students involved in the project profit from this hands-on research activity. The power of these cooperative arrangements is that students experience the challenges that teachers face in their profession, without having to bear the responsibility for the situation. They also learn how to take part in developmental projects and to reflect on teaching practice.
Teacher Education in Europe In many European countries there are ongoing reforms in teacher education. These reforms start from very different points due to the great diversity of educational systems in Europe. The discovered shortcomings of national teacher education models, however, illustrate many similarities. Before we portray the reforms and its aims we will describe some key findings of research on teacher education.
Findings on Teacher Education There is broad empirical evidence for the influence of teachers on the learning of their students. As some studies show, the performance of students in tests was much better if they were instructed by highly effective teachers, than if they were instructed by ineffective teachers (AERA, 2004, p. 2). Student’s learning gains can be several times higher if they are assigned to particularly effective teachers (OECD, 2005, p. 26). It has been claimed that, “differences among teachers explain up to 23% in student test score performance” (OECD, 2005, p. 26). The impact of teacher education on student performance is still disputed. Some studies show a strong linkage. They give evidence that, “fully prepared and certified teachers are generally better rated and more successful with students than teachers without this preparation” (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 167). Others make the contrary statement that is the kind and extent of teacher education does not affect teachers’ effectiveness (Ballou & Podgursky, 1999). Promoting students’ learning is a crucial task for teachers. But the rated effectiveness does not tell us much about what makes a good teacher. The OECD states: “Teaching is a complex task that involves interaction with a great variety of learners in a wide range of different circumstances. It is clear that there is not a single set of teacher attributes and behaviour patterns that are universally effective for all types of students and learning environments …” (OECD, 2005, p. 101). Teachers, of course, are faced with diverse types of students, teach diverse topics and aim at diverse outcomes of instruction (e.g., factual knowledge, competencies, and skills). Therefore, they need a broad range of instructional strategies. They must be able to adapt their practice to the current circumstances and reflect and evaluate their practice. A joint statement of the ministers for education and the teacher unions in Germany itemizes behavior and skills that make up a good teacher as follows: (1) good teachers’ plan, organize and reflect on processes of instruction using their knowledge on the subject and educational science, (2) they systematically evaluate these processes of
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instruction, (3) they assess students’ performance in a just, responsible and competent way, (4) they keep developing their competencies and make use of the in-service training, and (5) good teachers also contribute to an atmosphere that supports learning and is motivating for the students. To fulfill these requirements it is argued, teachers must acquire both sound subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. They must also be able to adapt their instructional strategies to the student’s age, knowledge, and abilities. This perspective notes that since processes of instruction and learning are quite different due to the subject, teachers also need subject specific pedagogical knowledge. Moreover, teachers must develop skills to reflect on their practice (c.p. OECD, 2005, p. 95).
Shortcomings in Current Teacher Education Oser and Oelkers (2001) conducted an extensive survey of 1286 future teachers who had just finished their final examination at 42 different institutions of teacher education. Students were asked to assess teacher education in Germany. The respondents praised the social atmosphere and the varied education, while they criticized teacher education as not being sufficiently demanding. They also noted that there were no quality standards to guide their studies. When questioned about their studies, future teachers in Germany tend to rate their school placements very highly. In particular, they validate them as useful, demanding, and productive (Fried, 2003, p. 12). These findings, however, only partly match external evaluations. Some indicate that practicals (teaching practice in schools) may have some unwanted side effects. Fried notes that students may adapt to inadequate strategies of instruction, while their self-efficacy might also weaken (Fried, 2003, p. 13). These problems seem to be the result of two problems most inexperienced teachers have. On the one hand there is an inability to relate pedagogical theory to educational practice; on the other hand there is an insufficient reflection on their practice. It can be argued, then, that school placements are most useful when they are thoroughly prepared (e.g., when students are matched with good teachers) and when students are encouraged to reflect about their experiences from the basis of current theoretical knowledge. Newcomers in the teaching profession meet similar problems. They can not interlink their pedagogical education with the demands of their practice. As a result, they feel ill-prepared for the job of teacher. Studies show that teachers’ perceived selfefficacy is higher the more they are able to ground their practice in subject matter and educational knowledge (Fried, 2003, p. 15). This missing connection between the theory and practice of education is a recurrent problem in teacher education in Germany (Lange, 2005, p. 106). The insufficient connection of theoretical background and educational practice, or more generally of educational content, is linked to a lack of cooperation among institutions affiliated to teacher education. In the German system of teacher education, for example, to change from theory to practice means to change from one organizational framework to another. As mentioned before, teacher education is arranged in different
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phases: academic study including some school placements, the pre-service teacher training, and the in-service training. Educational scientists in Germany came to the conclusion that the phases of teacher education are poorly connected (Böttcher & Kalb, 2002; Hericks, 2004; Keuffer, 2002; Tenorth, 2001; Terhart, 2000). Each phase is carried out in different institutions and is supervised differently. Historically, these organizations have worked independently from each other. Their contact remains loose and cooperation is rare (Lange, 2005, p. 106). This disconnect and isolation of content makes it difficult for students, and later on for teachers, to further elaborate formerly acquired knowledge. Similar problems of disconnection can also be found within one institution. At the university, for example, in order for students to gain knowledge in the diverse subject sub-areas, they have to attend different faculties. The faculties that take part in teacher education only cooperate at a low level. Simply stated, the responsibility for teacher education at universities is scattered and cloudy (Lemmermöhle & Jahreis, 2003, p. 229). As a consequence, knowledge is frequently unrelated and incoherent (Fried, 2003, p. 14; Lange, 2005, p. 106). A somewhat similar problem occurs at a smaller scale at the organizational level. Until recently most faculties of education at German universities did not have a binding curriculum. The lecturers provided students with seminars and readings that often were more related to their own research than to the needs of the teaching profession. At the same time the students were quite free to choose courses they were interested in without any guidelines about which might be useful for their future job. As a consequence of these varied faculty and student self-interests, the content of teacher education tended to be arbitrary (Lange, 2005, p. 106). Some of these noted shortcomings of teacher education in Germany can be found in other countries as well. It is a broadly shared opinion that teacher education does not end when entering the workplace. Many countries expand the “opportunities and incentives for ongoing professional development throughout the career.” (OECD, 2005, p. 96). To foster teachers’ lifelong learning it is necessary that adequate tuition accompanies their career. This suggests developing a coherence regarding the content of teacher education. This can be provided by curricula that reflect the knowledge and skills needed as a teacher: for example it has been suggested that, “Such profiles are necessary to provide the framework to guide initial teacher education, teacher certification, teacher’s ongoing development and career advancement, and to assess the extent to which these different elements are being effective” (OECD, 2005, p. 95). Such a framework must be grounded in an organizational basis. Clearly, cooperation among the institutions in charge of the different phases of teacher education is needed: thus it has been stated that, “The stages of initial teacher education, induction and professional development need to be much better interconnected to create a lifelong learning framework for teachers” (OECD, 2005, p. 95). The inability to connect educational knowledge with educational practice continues to be a common problem in teacher education. Consequently, many countries are recognizing the need to offer better support for teachers at the start of their career (OECD, 2005, p. 96). Until recently, however, many countries lacked the kind of
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backing required to support the ongoing professional development of teachers (OECD, 2005, p. 8).
Reform of Teacher Education In sum, the main deficiencies of teacher education in Germany and in other European countries are (1) the lack of connection among phases with regard to organization and content, (2) arbitrary contents within a phase, (3) inadequate backing for future teachers, and (4) fragmentary supply of in-service training. Clearly, a variety of measures could be taken to remedy these shortcomings. We will outline some actions that were taken according to the suggestions of the Commission for Teacher Education that were implemented by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (Kultusministerkonferenz – KMK) (Terhart, 2000, p. 20 et seq.).They noted that the content of instruction must be connected within the phases of teacher education, and that the three phases need to be interconnected. Curricula, they underlined, must be created that emphasize the knowledge and skills that are essential for professional educators. Historically, the sectored responsibility has hindered the development of a common curriculum for teacher studies at German universities. Up until now the faculties taking part in teacher education set priorities on their own and followed their own agenda, instead of collaborating. Many universities faced this dilemma by installing Centers for Teacher Education (Fried, 2003, p. 14). These centers work trans-sectorally and represent the interests of teacher education in the faculties. To develop and implement curricula as a framework for all phases, collaboration of the involved institutions is necessary. Moreover, they must ensure that teachers can enhance their professional skills based on previously acquired knowledge. In Germany these institutions normally work independently. Their organizational cultures are quite different, which makes cooperation difficult. Our description of the reform of teacher education in Hamburg in a later section illustrates the problems that may surface as a result of such collaborative activities. As stated above, the disconnection of theory to professional practice is endemic to the education of teachers in many countries in Europe. Because of this, we argue, it has to become a focal point for program reform. Students must learn that good practice needs reflection, evaluation and subsequent adjustment from a theoretical basis. This interdependency can be learned best from one’s own experience. During the students’ studies in Germany, for example, practicals in schools take place: these provide the students with first-hand teaching experience in schools. It is evident that sound preparation for and reflection about these experiences are important factors that shape the usefulness of these practicals for the student. Later, we will show what this could look like in a reformulated program. We will also describe projects of school development completed by university students where the power of such real world experiences by university students is great. By doing practical research in the classroom the students come face to face with some of the challenges of teaching practice. Here, they can reflect on instruction from both a theory and research perspective, while developing possible solutions in cooperation with the teacher.
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Diversity in European Teacher Education and the Bologna Process The Bologna process is a reaction to the wide range of studies and university degrees that exist in Europe. In the case of teacher education there are differences not only among, but also within some European countries. As mentioned before, the federal states of Germany are responsible for teacher education, not the federal government. The federal states are supposed to cooperate but still some differences remain (see Buchberger, Campos, Kallos, & Stephenson, 2000, p. 12; Hilligius, 2003, p. 170). In many countries we also find differences in teacher education that correlate with the type of school students prepare for. Buchberger et al. (2000, p. 93 et seq.) give a systematic description of the variety in teacher education within European countries. Differences may occur in diverse aspects. Teacher education can be located at different institutions. The duration of teacher education varies in many countries according to the school level in which the teachers will later be employed (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 96). In some cases, the subjects, educational methods, and teaching practice can be studied in parallel, independently yet at the same time. In other cases the contents may be studied in an integrated fashion or consecutively (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 96; OECD, 2005, p. 103). There is also a wide variety in the number of subject areas, their proportion as well as the ratio of theoretical and practical elements of teacher education (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 97). The Bologna process is confronted by the diversity of studies and degrees in Europe. It aims at creating a “European higher education area” by 2010. While the Bologna declaration of 1999 was signed by the ministers for higher education of 29 European countries, 45 countries were involved in this process by 2005. Its stated objective is a harmonization of studies and the implementation of standards for academic degrees. The ministers have agreed on a set of actions to achieve this objective. Under this plan the existing courses of study are to be transformed into a two-staged structure. In most cases this finds its shape in the structure of Bachelor and Master (BAMA) degrees. The bachelor degree is intended to qualify one for the occupation, while the master degree is thought to deepen this qualification. In the winter semester of 2004/2005 about 23% of studies at German universities were transformed into the BAMA structure (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz [HRK], 2004, p. 205). The bachelor degree normally can be achieved within 3 to 4 years, and the master degree within 1 to 2 years. The course of studies is composed of a series of modules. These modules consist of one or several lectures, seminars, and practicals. They provide a specified qualification according to the general aims of the studies (HRK, 2004, p. 95). It is compulsory for students to take modules assigned to defined content and qualification areas. There is the possibility of choice among the range of modules assigned to the same area. Progress within studies is measured by a system of credits. According to the workload each module is rated with credits. One credit is equivalent to 25–30 hours of attendance and private study (HRK, 2004, p. 129). The credits are rated according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This system was already implemented in 1989 in the ERASMUS program. It was subsequently used to facilitate the assessment of achievements from studies taken abroad (HRK, 2004, p. 128).
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A so-called, “Diploma Supplement” is appended to the university degree. It describes the degree’s character, context, content, and status (HRK, 2004, p. 154). To control standards of academic education in accordance with the Bologna process, each course of study must undergo an accreditation process and frequent evaluation (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 35; HRK, 2004, p. 174). At present most courses of study in teacher education in Germany are being restructured according to the outlined measures. This undertaking was in the planning stages for some time. A controversial discussion focused on whether the deficits of teacher education in Germany could be solved within the existing system, or whether the system itself should be reformed (Oser & Oelkers, 2001). In the end the matter was determined politically. The governments of the German federal states decided to restructure all teacher studies according to the Bologna declaration of 1999 (Lange, 2005). This restructuring has proved to be a difficult task. It is required that a bachelor degree qualifies the student for an occupation. In practice, however, a bachelor degree received in teacher education will most certainly not qualify students for an occupation as a teacher. The current task is to assign the content of teacher education to the bachelor and the master stages of teacher studies. In the existing models the content is arranged in very different ways (Thierack, 2003). These models seem to be less compatible than in the former structure. Changing the university during the study period proves additionally problematic, even within the same federal state. Thus, the framework provided by the Bologna agreement does not necessarily lead to a harmonization of studies. Even when the starting point is very similar the guidelines can be fulfilled using dissimilar models. Hence, the reform runs the risk of particularizing instead of harmonizing teacher studies.
Proximity of Institutions as a Resource for Teacher Education in Urban Regions: The Example of the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” Necessity for Cooperation in Teacher Training Our first thesis states that in urban regions where the various institutions that have responsibility in teacher education are in close proximity to each other, such proximity can be a resource for innovations in teacher education. In this section, we want to clarify this thesis. In Germany teacher training is shaped by governmental laws for each Land. What it takes to become a teacher may therefore vary somewhat in different parts of the country. Nevertheless, teacher training has one thing in common all over Germany. Specifically, it is divided into three phases, and different institutions take over responsibility for each phase. In the first phase future teachers have to complete four years of university studies, which include two subjects and educational science. In this phase they also have to pass a state examination (the first Staatsexamen). Having finished the first phase, students have to enroll for pre-service teacher training at a State Institute (staatliches Studienseminar). This second phase (called Referendariat) involves an internship at a school, and it also ends with a state examination (the second Staatsexamen). The third and final phase will
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be lifelong in-service-training. Most of this continuing education is provided by state run institutions or by the State Institutes themselves. Up until now there were few nongovernmental providers of such training. Traditionally, the institutions of teacher training in Germany have not been on good terms with one another. Although they share a common task, most universities and State Institutes do not work together on a regular basis. University lecturers and teacher trainers seldom come together. When they do, discussions on the goals and means of teacher training often spark controversy. University lecturers argue that the second phase does not make use of the knowledge imparted in the first phase. In turn, teacher trainers criticize students not bringing enough previous knowledge from the university into the second phase of the study. This discrepancy is partly due to the different ways these institutions perceive their role in the process of teacher education. On the one hand universities convey scientific, researched-based concepts and methods. On the other hand, pre-service teacher training aims at building up knowledge and skills which are useful for school practice. Yet another difference can be found in the different principles of knowledge transfer at school and at the university. As for school teaching, teachers need a broad perspective on their subject. This enables them, it is argued, to more easily deal with all topics they come across in their classes. At the university teaching and learning by example is a common principle; a small range of topics are studied in depth, while many others are not even mentioned. Because of these differences, many trainees feel ill-prepared and suggest that they must work through the material of the subject first before they can teach it to their pupils. As mentioned before, the problems of teacher training in Germany are not restricted to urban regions. Evidence suggests, however, that some solutions might be. That is especially true for a project that tries to solve the problems by strengthening contacts between the institutions of teacher training. Spatial distance is one of the obstacles that prevent closer contacts in most parts of the country. We would like to illustrate how the proximity of institutions in urban regions can be helpful for the development of innovative educational concepts. The key, we argue, is that such close proximity creates the opportunity for, and therefore encourages, a range of contacts between institutions and persons involved. Short distances foster selected as well as long-term cooperation. Extended networks of people interested or involved in teacher education can grow in urban regions: this can invlove lecturers, teacher trainers, students, teacher trainees, and also politicians and officials. Continuous and long-term exchange, we suggest, can generate common traditions of thinking and acting. These might be used to develop and implement new ways of teacher education. In the following section we report a project which used cooperation among the institutions to interlock the phases of teacher education. This project is named “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” and was in effect from 2001 to 2005.
Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg: A Cooperative Project in an Urban Region For this reform cooperative partnerships were established amongst the four universities in Hamburg, the State Institute for Teacher Education and School Development, the State Offices for Education and Sports (BBS) and the State Office for Science and
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Health (BWG). The major aim of this government sponsored project was to strengthen the cooperation between the universities and the State Institute. This project was a direct attempt to bridge the gap between the first, second, and third phases of teacher training (Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001). As a first step, a Commission for Teacher Education in Hamburg (HKL) came to the conclusion that the connection between the phases and the cooperation of the institutions working on teacher education in Hamburg needed to be improved. While the commission recommended keeping the phases of teacher education apart, it urged installing obligatory structures of cooperation between the institutions involved (Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001). Working groups should be established across the institutions assigned with the development of core curricula spanning the phases. Additionally, three priority issues were agreed upon that should be considered during all phases of teacher education: “New Media,” “Cultural and Social Heterogeneity,” and “School Development” (see also Daschner, 2005; Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001). In spring 2001, a complex project structure was created to realize the intended steps. The Hamburg government managed it through a Controlling Committee (Lenkungsgruppe), and a Project Team (Projektgruppe Lehrerbildung) provided the organizational framework. The development of the core curricula lay in the hands of 28 Executing Teams (called Sozietäten). In these groups persons from all institutions involved in teacher training came together: university lecturers of school related subjects, didactics and educational science, members of the State Institute and State Office, as well as students and trainees. Most of the Executing Teams were organized around school subjects. The Executing Teams’ main task was to work on the required core curricula in the field of their subject. According to guidelines that were set out by the Project Team, core curricula should not only describe contents of study but define standards of knowledge and competence that participants should meet at the end of the first and second phase as well. The matching of the curricula of the two phases was kept in mind during this work. In 2003, university faculties agreed upon the curriculum of the first phase, and the State Institute decided on the content and standards of the second. After a scientific review of the core curricula was finished in 2004 the Executing Teams were charged with revising the curricula considering its annotations and suggestions (Terhart, 2004). It is too early to determine if the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has improved the competencies of teachers to deal with everyday tasks in urban schools. The implementation of the core curricula started in 2003, therefore the State Institute will not be able to measure their effect any earlier than 2008. Only in 2010 will the first students who have been educated according to the new structure take up their service as teachers in the Hamburg school system. It is a long way from teacher education to teacher behavior and an even longer way from teacher education to pupils’ learning and achievement (Blömeke, 2004). This will not make it easy to assess the effects of the reform on both teachers and students. Yet, it can be argued that the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has already been fruitful in that it stimulated more than 300 persons to think about and discuss the future of teacher education in Hamburg. It brought this issue back on the agenda of those responsible for educating teachers. As these collaborative teams spend
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much time and effort on the development of the core curricula that apply to their own fields of work, they have created a good basis for the realization and for further steps of reform that will be taken in future years. Another positive outcome of the reform is the foundation of a Center for Teacher Education (Zentrum für Lehrerbildung) as a formal framework for future cooperation between institutions and across phases. Whilst existing centers for teacher education in other federal states only connect the faculties of a university, the center in Hamburg will coordinate all the phases of teacher education as well. Therefore, both the university and the State Institute will delegate personnel to the center. Last but not least, the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has created an excellent basis for the transformation of teacher education into the BAMA system which was described earlier. This will be accomplished in 2007. In order to develop a bachelor degree that includes two subjects and educational science, the faculties involved have had to collaborate and confront the very unfamiliar idea of modules being run by more than one faculty. The core curricula can be used as a basis for the construction of these modules. Practical training during university studies needs to be based on cooperation between universities and State Institutes. This cooperation can be based on the networks established in the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg.”
Long Term Cooperation between University and Schools: Integrated School Placements In the last few years, debates about educational politics have often demanded that teacher studies should be more orientated towards vocational needs. Although some authors do not agree (see Keuffer, 2005), the reinforcement of practical training is one of the most often heard recommendations in the debate on German teacher training. Future teachers it is argued shall learn to connect theoretical studies in the field of education to practical experience from the first phase of teacher education. Practical training via school placements is an organizational solution. In 1995, so-called “integrated school placements” (Integrierte Schulpraktika) were implemented into the first phase of teacher education in Hamburg (Bastian, 1997). Cooperation of university and schools is essential to achieve both scientific and occupational teacher education. Lecturers and teachers jointly prepare, guide and evaluate the school placements. The placements are embedded into a sequence of two seminars to prepare the placement first and analyze the student’s experiences afterwards. They last four weeks and take place in the semester break between the seminars. Many teachers have taken part in school placements for several years in a row. Teachers may take over two different functions regarding these school placements. As contributing teachers they design the preparation and also the evaluating seminar, together with a lecturer. As supervising teachers they work together with three students during the school placements at their school. Each semester nearly 300 students experience a placement; 12 lecturers and about 100 teachers take part in this massive task. The practice of integrated school placements was recently evaluated (Arnold & Scherler, 2005). This evaluation illustrated that students consider the experience to be
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a central element of their studies. They appreciate the coaching by the lecturers and the teachers at school. Many students not only expand their knowledge about school and instruction, but also check their abilities and their disposition for their occupational roles as a teacher. The evaluation also notes that the contributing and supervising teachers appreciate the task they take on and like to take part in the training of future colleagues. However, it also surfaced that the cooperation among teachers and lecturers is sometimes less intense than envisioned. Only a few teachers, for example, join the preparing and evaluating seminars on a regular basis. Again, the integrated school placement scheme depends on the proximity of university and school, which facilitates cooperation among lecturers and teachers. Few lecturers could possibly visit 24 students at their schools during their three weeks practical training if these were as widespread as they are in rural areas. Few teachers who supervise students during their practical training would voluntarily travel to a remote university in addition to their tasks at school. As experience shows, then, even in a city like Hamburg, where all preconditions are met, the cooperation among the institutions is not guaranteed. The readiness and skill of lecturers and teachers to collaborate must be continually encouraged. In the future, cooperation among the institutions will be increased because the political guidelines for the bachelor and master degrees demand intensified practical training integrated into university studies. Students will be required to take a four week school placement to reach the bachelor degree and a six month school placement to reach the master of education. The six month placement will be jointly prepared and guided by the university and the State Institute.
Environments in the City as a Challenge for Teacher Education in Urban Regions: Patterns of Cooperation Considering the Example of the Priority Issue “School Development” Schools in Cities Need Special Pedagogical Concepts – Special Pedagogical Concepts Need Teacher Education as a Resource The second thesis of this chapter states that social environments in the city challenge education in particular ways. In addressing these challenges the involvement of teacher education offers the potential for significant school development. The problematic social changes in parts of large cities require adapted pedagogical concepts. Urban areas that are threatened by unemployment, impoverishment and social exclusion, may become social hotspots. Not surprisingly, these areas are often problematic for education. As stated in the first section pupils with a low socioeconomic background or a background of migration, are more likely to become students-at-risk. Children from underprivileged families often lack sufficient support for their learning from their parents: in this situation the demands and culture in school are unfamiliar and schooling becomes problematic for them (Warlies & Wiest, 2002, p. 25). Moreover, children with a background of migration often are handicapped by an insufficient knowledge of language and by cultural strangeness. The two described fields
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are connected since the average socioeconomic status of immigrant families is significant lower. Failing in school may lead to the feeling that attending is futile. This can result in absenteeism (von der Groeben, 2002, p. 8). One of us (J. B.) worked as a special needs teacher in the late 1970s. He notes how pupils “forced him” to implement forms of individualization and action based methods. Only by doing so were the pupils willing and capable of following the classes. The clientele of this special school were so called problem students, namely, truants and pregnant teenagers. This example shows how the ineffectiveness of a common pedagogy, which becomes especially apparent in classrooms where pupils do not conform to the norm (e.g., come from marginalized groups), can be an incentive for school development. Since several social problems are tightly woven in urban regions, this amplifies the social pressure on schools there. As a result, schools in urban areas are often pioneers of educational development. Experience with development projects in urban areas can under certain circumstances be applied to less burdened urban regions and to rural areas. This transferability is higher if the teachers face or anticipate similar pedagogical challenges. A key indicator for a possible transfer of development models is the experience of teachers who are no longer able to teach their students effectively. Some teach classes for yesterday’s students, in which they presume abilities and attitudes that no longer can be taken for granted for the urban youth of today. Clearly, such student abilities and attitudes need to be built up: these can be divided into (1) the will and the motivation to learn, (2) the ability to self-regulate the learning process, and (3) the negotiation of meaning and sense-making in which learning processes are embedded. The models of collaboration of university and school we describe in this section proved of value in schools located in social hotspots in Hamburg. The projects of school development performed according to these models often are related to the problems described above. They aim on individualizing forms of teaching, on connecting extracurricular experience with curricular contents, on project work with out-of-school relevance and on feedback methods that increase pupils’ participation in school. The goals of school development and teacher education may complement each other in different ways. We present two patterns of cooperation here that are based on this mutuality. They can be described as alliance of research on practice and school development and as alliance of hands-on learning and school development respectively.
Alliances of School Development and Teacher Education We want to link the results of professional educational research, with a discussion about the goals and demands for teacher education. Many have argued that there is an intertwined double habitus in play here. The idea is that there are key teacher competences that put each other in perspective namely, a research skill and a skill of routinized, practical mastery in the classroom. For the most effective training and development of these competences we and other educationalists suggest an intermittent partition in the testing of both sides: we suggest, for example, giving students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the role of a researcher, together with the role of assistant during both the teaching and testing of differentiating forms of learning.
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The “school development research project” can be seen as a temporary alliance of research on practice and school development: Teacher education seeks sites at which university students can develop an inquiring attitude about teaching and learning as a qualification profile. Schools, on the other hand, seek competent support for both the conceptualization and evaluation of development projects. Schools, typically, lack the time and the methodical competences to do all this themselves. This pattern of complementary interests is an important base for the development of a mutually beneficial alliance. During the second half of the 1990s in Germany, slightly differing forms of organization under the name of “research projects” were developed (Altrichter & Fichten, 2005; see Obolenski & Meyer, 2003). Practically these alliances were realized within the settings of a research model. This model is specified in the research literature as “action research” (see Altrichter & Fichten, 2005, p. 96), or as “student accompanying school research” (Bastian, Combe, Hellmer, Hellrung, & Merziger, 2003). This means that research work is executed by teams of university students. They independently investigate aspects of their future profession under the guidance of a lecturer and in agreement with school teachers. One important outcome of this activity is that the results of the research are given to the schools along with options for reflection and if necessary, development work. Later, the students base their final examination on the research they have done at the schools. Our experience suggests that students are motivated for two reasons to work on such challenging and time consuming papers: on the one hand they are interested in establishing a relationship with their future profession while on the other hand they are looking for a context in which they can influence something where their actions are meaningful and appreciated (Feindt, 2005). School development research projects in Hamburg last for two semesters and can be divided into four phases. The documentation of the exam papers and the feedback discussion with the teachers take place after the second semester. (1) In the first phase, the students prepare the fields of contents and research methods. This means that besides studying literature concerning the particular field, skills in research methods are acquired and practically tested (see especially Altrichter & Posch, 1998). (2) In the second phase, research teams of two students are formed. These students collaborate with each other and conduct the research process at one school. (3) Contacting the selected schools and developing site-sensitive research questions with the teachers take place in the third phase. (4) During the second semester data are collected. The interpretation is completed in the fourth phase. The methodology used in these research studies is qualitative research (see Bastian, Combe, & Hellmer, 2002 on details about the research methods used in the school development research project). There is a variety of fields in which schools collaborate with researchers: the testing of systematic feedback, the impact of rituals in class, and the impact of self-directed learning processes on rubrics or portfolios are good examples. We suggest that it is best when a school development research project only investigates one area at a time. This primary investigation could, of course, be partitioned into several interconnecting sub-investigations.
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Such well-planned and coordinated research projects offer learning opportunities for the integration of theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. Again, these two complementary dimensions can be understood as learning from research and learning by doing research.
Learning from research The independent realization of a project forces students to deal with several aspects of educational science: the development of a relevant research question, the interpretation of the data, and the writing up of the results. All force the student to have intensive discussions on pedagogical theories, on methods of social research as well as on questions and forms of action in the profession. In such a research process students are guided and advised by lecturers in order to ensure that students meet the required research standards. In this process there is a conjunction of questions about the profession and about the research process. In short, the students are confronted with key questions at both learning sites: they have to take a stand concerning the current theories about pedagogy and research. They also have to take responsibility for the results they present to the teachers in the feedback discussions. This can be highly educative because the results are supposed to have an impact on the work in school. Learning by doing research Students are required to arrange the seminars and the feedback discussions. In these activities they create their research designs and advise each other in their learning and research process in a guided, but independent way. Opportunities for reflective learning arise throughout the project which lead to the development of didactical and methodical competence, as well as competences in counseling, communicating, and working in a team. In addition to such metacognitive processes, development processes related to content are also a focus of the project. Key here is the ability of the students to assess the impact of the teacher’s action, without being under the pressure of that action. This systematic scientific reflection on their future practice forms a preparation for later competence of action and for a practical professional convention (see Helsper, 2000, p. 160). Teacher education seeks sites in which university students have the opportunity to experience personal contact with pupils. The goal of this is to enable the students to assess their motivation and aptitude for the profession and to experiment with their own ideas in practice. There are schools that seek competent support in the process of testing pedagogical concepts. Typically, these concepts are focused on individualization and differentiation by using individual and team work, as well as on the development of competences of self-direction. Such forms of education need an immense amount of support from teams or groups, especially in the beginning. One single teacher often cannot manage such a project. Here as well, the complementary interests are the basis for a temporary alliance where both sides can profit.
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We illustrate this kind of alliance with the example of a seminar on project learning in higher secondary. As stated above, teachers can take a collaborative role at the university or a supervising role at school. The teachers collaborating in the preparing seminars ensure that the students are well-prepared theoretically. They also encourage contacts of students with teachers and pupils at an early stage. The students’ preparation can thus be connected to the topics relevant for the learning group. Research project teams of three students are built at this stage. Together with the teacher they are responsible for the planning, undertaking and presenting of project learning. The contributing teachers make sure that the students gain key competences, which they need during the project phase and from which the supervising teacher can be relieved. During this preparation the students experience how theoretical ideas about project work are linked with the possibility of testing and developing learning concepts. These concepts differ in many aspects from those the students experienced in their own school life. They experience new perspectives on classrooms and professional action that are grounded in a new teaching role. Visions and perspectives become tangible. For the practical phase, students typically work as project assistants, while the teacher takes full responsibility for the classroom. This role as a “development worker” enables the student to experience a broad range of activities including exploring the content, creating an outline for the project, giving support during the cooperative planning phase and supervising the group work during the project. In addition, the project assistant is expected to give regular feedback regarding the quality of the work, give advice for the presentation, and make suggestions concerning the evaluation of the process and the product. All of these important activities take place within a context that encourages a link between action and reflection. This keeps low the pressure to act for the students, and therefore prevents the danger of simply reproducing of reproducing common patterns of teacher actions. Students, then, can create new patterns of action from their own experiences with teachers and classrooms.
Alliances of School Development and In-Service Teacher-Training: Professionalizing of Teachers and Students, of the Controlling Committee and Head of School of the Cooperation in the Region As a result of 15 years of experience of school development three central ideas are broadly accepted (see Altrichter, 2006; Bastian, 2004): these reflect projects in urban areas and alliances of school development and in-service training for teachers.
The development of instruction is the core of all systematic efforts for developing single schools This has proved to be especially important in the urban context. The invention of a New Pedagogy is necessary because of the failure of traditional education. Developing new pedagogical strategies to meet the needs of the diverse learners in urban schools is essential for the improvement of instruction in the context of school development. Such pedagogy must provide opportunities for pupils to take more responsibility for their own learning. Teachers should focus both on enhancing pupils’ learning and on the development of social skills.
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The development of instruction is possible only if embedded in the professionalizing of students, teachers and persons in charge of this process Development of instruction in the ways mentioned above depends on several preconditions: the students must build up methodological and social skills, as well as subject related competencies; the teachers must learn to support the students in fostering these competencies; and the school must be organized to enable the supervision of this developmental task. It is clear that this process of development requires systematic planning, together with intense and close cooperation with individuals experienced in the field of in-service training. School development which is centered on instructional improvement has the best chance for success if integrated into the development of regional educational networks Numerous projects have shown that the development of “new” instruction in urban areas is most successful if it makes use of the region’s potentials. To facilitate this the development of school and instruction must become a common goal in the region: this means that the school, pre-school institutions, institutions of youth work and regional companies should take part in a network. This network needs to be supervised by a regional office for education. Most importantly, it must discover local potentials, initiate collaborations and support a range of opportunities for joint learning processes (see Bastian, 2000; Bastian & Rolff, 2002; Herrmann & Tschekan, 2004). We argue that urban regions offer the best opportunity to test these concepts for school development in which initiatives are maintained by regional networks, centered on instruction, and supported by a systematic and school related in-service training for teachers. Three insights from such work have emerged concerning the possibilities, requirements and opportunities of reliable and effective networks of cooperation. First, complex projects for school development, together with various kinds of inservice training, require a high level of buy-in from the schools. It is necessary that at least 70% of a school’s teachers must agree to collaborate in order for a project to be successful. As described before, this willingness grows most strongly where the challenges of the environment make changes necessary. Experience shows that educational institutions, schools and the regional agencies are more likely to cooperate if problems in the region are perceived as increasing. Second, it is important that experts in urban in-service training for teachers view the developmental project as a test of their institutions. A key factor for the project’s success is that the institutions for teacher education can quickly provide the involved teachers with both innovative and flexible training focused on the “new” pedagogy. It would seem that varied and short-course experiences in well established communication structures foster the required institutional flexibility. Finally, it is clear that the concept of school development described above allows for various forms of collaboration for students who are in their first phase of teacher education. They may act as assistants or as researchers, for example, on school practice: experience shows that both roles are useful for realizing the schools goals and are much appreciated by teachers. Experts on school development from the university and experts for in-service training can complement one another in productive ways in such
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coordinated projects. This is best done by conducting seminars, providing scientific guidance and evaluating the developmental work as it unfolds over time. In this way, critical synergy effects occur at all levels of school, teacher education and in-service training.
Conclusion In this chapter we have tried to demonstrate that urban regions provide fruitful opportunities for modern and innovative teacher education programs. In the section on “Teacher Education in Europe” we described the current German and international discussion on teacher education, and we outlined the hitherto existing deficiencies of teacher education. Evaluations show that problems seem to be very similar in several European countries. We described the reforms which were started to remedy these shortcomings while noting that a crucial point in these reforms is to better connect the phases of teacher education both regarding content and teacher education. Large-scale reforms, we note, must use the knowledge and resources of all the key institutions. We used the five year reform teacher education program in Hamburg as a case, arguing how the close proximity of institutions helps to facilitate cooperation between institutions in teacher education. We presented two examples of this activity: the integrated school placements scheme and the practical research on school development. Both activities function to foster the connection of students’ educational knowledge with the development of their practical skills. In this way, a basic problem with the current preparation of teachers is addressed. We discussed how this reconceptualized combination of practice, study and school development meets several needs both of teacher education and of schools: students learn to observe practice and reflect on it, while they also learn to analyze problems and to find ways to solve them. Moreover, students have the chance to do all this without bearing the total responsibility for their own classroom. We noted how the teachers who engage in the developmental processes also profit from this activity. Teachers learn from the students’ observations and analysis, while they also have the opportunity to collaborate with a range of experts who are concerned with the success of their developmental projects. School development, we argue, can also be a centerpiece for changes in the urban community. It is in large cities, where because of their close proximity the cooperation between the university and schools is most likely to take place, where social changes take place earlier and are more intense than in rural districts or smaller towns. School reform in the future needs to maximize the power of collaboration that is possible in the large urban centers.
References AERA. (2004). Teachers matter: Evidence from value-added assessments. Research Points, 2(2), 1–4. Altrichter, H. (2006). Schulentwicklung: Widersprüche unter neuen Bedingungen. Bilanz und Perspektive nach 15 Jahren Entwicklung von Einzelschulen. Pädagogik, 58(3), 6–11. Altrichter, H., & Fichten, W. (2005). Lehrerbildung und praxisnahe Forschung. Konzepte – Erfahrungen – Effekte. In J. Bastian, J. Keuffer, & R. Lehberger (Eds.), Lehrerbildung in der Entwicklung. Das BachelorMaster-System: Modelle – Kritische Hinweise – Erfahrungen (pp. 94 – 105). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz.
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Altrichter, H., & Posch, P. (1998). Lehrer erforschen ihrem Unterricht. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Arnold, E., & Scherler, K. (2005). Das Integrierte Schulpraktikum im Lehramtsstudium – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit. Hamburg macht Schule, 17(2), 28–29. Ballou, D., & Podgursky, M. (1999). Teacher Training and licensure: A layman¥s guide. In M. Kanstoroom, & C. Finn (Eds.), Better teachers, better schools (pp. 31–82). Washington, DC: The Thomas Fordham Foundation. Bastian, J. (1997). Miteinander Lehren – voneinander Lernen. Ein phasenübergreifender Versuch zur Intensivierung des Theorie-Praxis-Bezuges in der Lehrerbildung. In P. Daschner, & U. Drews (Eds.), Kursbuch Referendariat (pp. 175–193). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Bastian, J. (Ed.). (2000). Schulentwicklung in der Region. Pädagogik, 52(7–8), 6–9. Bastian, J. (Ed.). (2004). Unterricht gemeinsam entwickeln. Hamburg macht Schule, 16(2), 10–13. Hamburg: Pädagogische Beiträge. Bastian, J., Combe, A., & Hellmer, J. (2002). Forschungswerkstatt Schulentwicklung – Schulbegleitforschung in der Hamburger Lehrerbildung. In U. Dirks, & W. Hansmann (Eds.), Forschendes Lernen in der Lehrerbildung. Auf dem Weg zu einer professionellen Unterrichts-und Schulentwicklung (pp. 129–141). Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Bastian, J., Combe, A., Hellmer, J., Hellrung, M., & Merziger, P. (2003). Forschungswerkstatt Schulentwicklung. Das Hamburger Modell. In A. Obolenski, & H. Meyer (Eds.), Forschendes Lernen. Theorie und Praxis einer professionellen LehrerInnenausbildung (pp. 151–164). Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Bastian, J., & Rolff, H. G. (2002). Abschlussevaluation des Projektes Schule&Co. Bertelsmann. Stiftung. Gütersloh. Blömeke, S. (2004). Empirische Befunde zur Wirksamkeit der Lehrerbildung. In S. Blömeke, P. Reinhold, G. Tulodziecki, & J. Wildt (Eds.), Handbuch Lehrerbildung (pp. 59–91). Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Böttcher, W., & Kalb, P. E. (Eds.). (2002). Kerncurriculum. Was Kinder in der Grundschule lernen sollen. Eine Streitschrift. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Buchberger, F., Campos, B. P., Kallos, D., & Stephenson, J. (Eds.). (2000). Green paper on teacher education in Europe. Umea: Thematic Network on Teacher Education in Europe (TNTEE), University of Umea. Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). How teacher education matters. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 166–173. Daschner, P. (2005). Entwicklung der Lehrerbildung in Hamburg. Teil I: Etappen auf dem Weg nach Bologna – Verzahnung der Phasen und Erarbeitung von Kerncurricula. In J. Bastian, J. Keuffer, & R. Lehberger (Eds.), Lehrerbildung in der Entwicklung. Das Bachelor-Master-System: Modelle – Kritische Hinweise – Erfahrungen (pp. 35–41). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Feindt, A. (2005). Forschen für die Schulentwicklung. Eine sinnvolle Aufgabe für Lehramtsstudierende? Pädagogik, 57(7–8), pp. 10–13. Fried, L. (2003). Dimensionen pädagogischer Professionalität. Lehrerausbildungsforschung in internationaler Sicht. In D. Lemmermöhle, & D. Jahreis (Eds.), Professionalisierung der Lehrerbildung. Die Deutsche Schule, 95(Suppl. 7), 7–31. Gogolin, I. (2002). Sprachlich-kulturelle Differenz und Chancengleichheit – (un)versöhnlich in staatlichen Bildungssystemen? In I. Lohmann, & R. Rilling (Eds.), Die verkaufte Bildung. Kritik und Kontroversen zur Kommerzialisierung von Schule, Weiterbildung, Erziehung und Wissenschaft (pp. 153–168). Berlin: Dietz-Verlag. von der Groeben, A. (2002). Armut schändet (nicht?). Pädagogik, 54(6), 6–9. Helsper, W. (2000). Zum systematischen Stellenwert der Fallrekonstruktion in der universitären Lehrerbildung. In C. Beck, W. Helsper, B. Heuer, B. Stelmaszyk, & H. Ullrich (Eds.), Fallarbeit in der universitären Lehrerbildung (pp. 29–50). Opladen Leske Budrich. Hericks, U. (2004). Verzahnung der Phasen der Lehrerbildung. In S. Blömeke, P. Reinhold, G. Tulodziecki, & J. Wildt (Eds.), Handbuch Lehrerbildung (pp. 301–311). Kempton: Westermann & Klinkhard. Herrmann, J., & Tschekan, K. (2004). Das Regionalprojekt des Landesinstituts. Schulentwicklung im System. Hamburg macht Schule, 16(2), 26–29. Hilligius, A. H. (2003). Strukturdebatte in der Lehrerbildung. Konzepte und Erfahrungen in europäischer Perspektive. D. Lemmermöhle, & D. Jahreis, (Eds.), Professionalisierung der Lehrerbildung. In Die Deutsche Schule, 95(Suppl. 7), 157–179.
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Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK). (2004). Bologna-Reader. Texte und Hilfestellungen zur Umsetzung der Ziele des Bologna-Prozesses an deutschen Hochschulen. Beiträge zur Hochschulpolitik, Issue 8. Bonn: HRK. Keuffer, J. (2002). Reform der Lehrerbildung durch Professionalisierung, Standards und Kerncurricula. In Zentrum für Schulforschung und Fragen der Lehrerbildung Halle (Ed.), Die Lehrerbildung der Zukunft. Eine Streitschrift (pp. 97–110). Opladen: Leske & Budrich. Keuffer, J. (2005). Erziehungswissenschaft und Berufsbezug in der Lehrerausbildung. Notwendige Übergänge differenter Wissensformen. In J. Bastian, J. Keuffer, & R. Lehberger (Eds.), Lehrerbildung in der Entwicklung. Das Bachelor-Master-System: Modelle – Kritische Hinweise – Erfahrungen (pp. 83–93). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Keuffer, J., & Oelkers, J. (Eds.). (2001). Reform der Lehrerbildung in Hamburg. Abschlussbericht der von der Senatorin für Schule, Jugend und Berufsbildung und der Senatorin für Wissenschaft und Forschung eingesetzten Hamburger Kommission Lehrerbildung. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Lange, H. (2005). Defizite und neue Konzeptionen in der Lehrerbildung. Qualitätssicherung über PeerReview-Verfahren. In J. Bastian, J. Keuffer, & R. Lehberger, (Eds.), Lehrerbildung in der Entwicklung. Das Bachelor-Master-System: Modelle – Kritische Hinweise – Erfahrungen (pp. 106–116). Weinheim/ Basel: Beltz. Lemmermöhle, D., & Jahreis, D. (2003). Reformen in der universitären Lehrerbildung. Ausbildung für Lernen und Forschen oder Qualifizierung von Quereinsteigern und wissenschaftlichem Nachwuchs. In D. Lemmermöhle, & D. Jahreis (Eds.), Professionalisierung der Lehrerbildung. Die Deutsche Schule, 95(Suppl. 7), 227–243. Obolenski, A., & Meyer, H. (Eds.). (2003). Forschendes Lernen. Theorie und Praxis einer professionellen LehrerInnenausbildung. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. OECD (2005). Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers. OECD publishing. Oser, F., & Oelkers, J. (Eds.). (2001). Die Wirksamkeit der Lehrerbildungssysteme. Von der Allrounderbildung zur Ausbildung professioneller Standards. Chur, Zürich: Rüegger. PISA-Konsortium Deutschland (Eds.). (2005). PISA 2003. Der zweite Vergleich der Laender in Deutschland – Was wissen und können Jugendliche? Münster: Waxmann. Tenorth, H.-E. (Ed.). (2001). Kerncurriculum Oberstufe. Mathematik – Deutsch – Englisch. Expertisen. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Terhart, E. (Ed.). (2000). Perspektiven der Lehrerbildung in Deutschland. Abschlussbericht der von der Kultusministerkonferenz eingesetzten Kommission. Weinheim, Basel. Terhart, E. (2004). Stellungnahme zu den Entwürfen für Kerncurricula für die Lehrerausbildung an der Universität Hamburg. Münster: Manuskript. Thierack, A. (2003). Neue Ausbildungskonzepte für das Lehramtsstudium in Deutschland. Ausgewählte Beispiele. In D. Lemmermöhle, & D. Jahreis, (Eds.), Professionalisierung der Lehrerbildung. Die Deutsche Schule, 95(Suppl. 7) 180–195. Vieluf, U. (2005). PISA 2003. Hamburg – Stadt der Gegensätze. Hamburg macht Schule, 17(4), 30. Warlies, J., & Wiest, A. (2002). Aufwachsen in Armut. Erfahrungen aus einer Schule in Hamburg-St.Pauli. Pädagogik, 54(6), 24–28.
30 URBAN EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA: SECTION EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION Belmira Oliveira Bueno University of São Paulo, Brazil
Latin America is usually thought of as a homogeneous block. Despite many things that the countries from this region share and which provide them with a somewhat shared identity, we must remember that Latin America is also characterized by a great deal of diversity – in geography, language, ethnicity, culture, economy – and this is true even within each country. British historian Peter Burke (2006) observes that the term “Latin America” is full of ambiguities and “is not so neutral as it may seem, but it conveys political associations and implications.” He remembers that when he first came to Brazil, in the 1980s, he was amazed when people talked about “Latin America” as if it were “somewhere else”; in a very similar way, he says, Britons talk about “Europe” and Sicilians talk about “Italy,” as not being a part of it. By drawing attention to the need of being careful when utilizing such term, he reinforces Mignolo’s idea that “Latin America was not and is not a place, a pre-existing entity, but a political project” (p. 7).1 This is my starting point to think about the issue of urban education in this Handbook and the role of the school in Latin America. I want to think of it as a political project, which due to the requirements and urgencies of the present, will be able to make promises for the future without disregarding the past, including the historical roots of each country and the values of each group of people from this region. For sure, the intersection between past, present and future is included in the very idea of school. However, faced with the threat of the disintegration of the school in Latin American contexts, it is essential to reaffirm these ties, not as nostalgia, but as a way of reviewing its meaning. By reviewing the itinerary through which school was made by modernity in the service of progress, Tiramonti (2005), a collaborator in this section, notes that school has always been an institution based on this time sequence: the past should be “configured, invented, transmitted by the institution” so that an intelligibility of the present could be reached and the claim of the future justified. About that, she says: The school present is valued for its capacity to transmit a socially accepted version of the past and for selecting the traditions that endorse such past and, on the 561 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 561–580. © 2007 Springer.
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other hand, the present is justified because it contains an assumption of the future, a promise to be reached. (pp. 902–903) To what extent can the school today manage to hold this perspective in Latin America? The profound changes that took place in the last decades, mainly the installation of a new economic and social order, brought changes of all kinds, including changes in the perception of space and time. The political and cultural practices underway tend to erase identities and senses of belonging, overvaluing the present and the immediate, and this compromises the vision of future. A review of the school’s role in Latin America thus leads to a concern about the present and, in addition, to an appraisal of the past, since this notion given by the memory and by history, which guides our references so that we can act in the present and we can think of the future. However, although the countries and people from this region are similar in many ways, it is essential to adopt a view that includes, at the same time, what unites them and what separates them, to avoid the risk of accepting abstract proposals, rigid and one-size-fits-all models, or panaceas. Unfortunately, one of the strongest features uniting the Latin American countries is their social inequality. Nowadays, there is consensus that Latin America is one of the regions in the world with highest levels of inequality. The 2003 World Bank report – Inequality in Latin America & the Caribbean: Breaking with History? says that: Inequality in Latin America is extensive: the country in the region with the least income inequality is still more unequal than any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) or Eastern European country. Latin American inequality is also pervasive, characterizing every aspect of life, including access to education, health and public services; access to land and other assets; the functioning of credit and formal labor markets; and attainment of political voice and influence. Inequality is also resilient; in its modern form, high inequality is rooted in exclusionary institutions that have been perpetuated ever since colonial times and that have survived different political and economic regimes, from interventionist and import substitution strategies to more marketoriented policies. Significant racial and ethnic differences also continue to persist even today. (Ferranti & Perry, 2003, p. 1) Data from this report is shocking and gives us an idea about the great social disparities that characterize the region, in which the richest one-tenth of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean earn 47% of total income, while the poorest 20% receive only 2–4%. Moreover, it is frightening to know that “only some countries in Africa and the successor states of the former Soviet Union have comparable inequalities” (p. 3). Even Costa Rica and Uruguay, “the most equal countries in Latin America,” have “significantly higher levels of income inequality” (p. 3). Such income inequalities affect all sectors of society. Concerning education, health, water, sanitation, electricity, and communication inequalities “are also typically large and correlated with differences in income. For example, differences in average years of education between the top and bottom income quintiles ranged between 5 and 9 years for 31–40 and 51–60 year-olds across the region” (p. 3).
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Focusing on seven countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Guiana, México, and Peru – the report shows, among other aspects of inequality, that male Indians receive between 35 and 65% less than white men, and that the salary disadvantages also adversely affect the African-descent populations, as well as non-white women when compared to white women. Of greater concern is also the finding that inequality in Latin America is increasing, “with more countries experiencing a worsening than an improving trend. On balance, relatively equal countries experienced some worsening, with a dramatic deterioration for Argentina both before and during its economic crisis” (p. 4). Only in a few countries have such trends shown some reversal. Brazil, “historically the most unequal country in the region, experienced a modest but significant decline in income inequality” (p. 4). Such inequalities are extensive and pervasive but it is certainly in the large cities and urban conglomerates that they are more acute and dramatic. For this reason, when dealing with the theme of urban education in this handbook, it seems appropriate to consider, even if only briefly, the urban issue of the Latin American large cities and metropolises.
The City, the School and the Urban World Although in the countries from this region the term urban education is not widely used, it is important to say that it is especially in the urban context of the large cities and metropolises in the region that public education acquires its outline and characteristic. From a school for the elite and symbol of distinction that it was in the past,2 it became, in the social imaginary, a synonym of low-quality school, intended for the students from the most deprived layers of the population. This process started between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, when most countries in the region, encouraged by the development ideologies, promoted mass education. Policies for greater access and permanence in the school have been implemented since then, with the aim of expanding the right to education to segments that had been previously excluded from the school system.3 Of liberal nature, such policies were based on the ideas of social progress, economic growth, modernization, social mobility, as instances in which education should play a fundamental role. That is, without better levels of education there would be no social advancement. However, “this massification of education, of democratic concern, conveyed within the germ of distortion,” as Portillo and Bustamante (1998) pointed out in the Venezuelan case. With it, they say, “quality was rapidly replaced by quantity, to a greater number of students came teaching of less quality,” until it reached the scarce levels of quality of education today. There is no doubt that this situation ended up giving rise to great social and educational inequalities due to the differences in purchasing power of families. This, therefore, jeopardized the very principle of equality as part of the right to education. Apart from some differences, what one notes is that, despite the measures that were taken for decades to overcome this situation, a progressive deterioration of the public instruction systems has been evident in Latin America.4 In an effort to understand this situation, Argentine researcher Adriana Puiggrós (1999) delves into history and shows that the public education systems in the region,
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historically centralized by the State, “became the fundamental place for the teaching and learning of the public: the learning of collective values, norms, rituals, language.” She shows that in the 1960s Latin America had one of the highest rates of educational growth in the world. However, since the 1980s there has been a visible collapse in the education systems in the wake of changes made by the military dictatorships for the implementation of the neoliberal programs. According to Puiggrós: One may have different ideological opinions about the political systems that were successful in education in our region, but it is unsustainable that public education did not have any perspective before a new repression began to unfold under the military dictatorships and culminated with the neoliberal constitutionality. We believe that many possibilities then opened up for educational change whose success depended on modernity, debureaucratization and decentralization of the systems by means of participative and extensive models. The Latin American States – as they became prisoners of the contradictions of their own development – have, since the 1980s, faced a double crisis caused by external debt and by tax deficits, which extend to this day. Data from the World Bank noted by Carlos Alberto Torres (2001) reveal that, in from 1970 to 1987, out of the 17 countries with higher international debts, 12 were in Latin America. Torres concludes that in this context, “the magnitudes of education,” that is, “the success of expansion, diversification and improvement of the educational systems,” has been obscured “by the perverse miseries of Latin American education.” In fact, “elementary and secondary education in the region continue to be segregated by social classes, in which the poor go to public school and the middle and upper sectors blossom educationally in private institutions” (p. 25). These facts are closely related to the deteriorating living conditions of the poor populations, especially in the great cities and urban conglomerates in Latin America, whose uncontrolled growth, mainly due to the expansion of industrialization that started in the early 1960s, made urban life increasingly hard and hostile. A report by the United Nations, in 2003, shows that out of the 24 largest urban conglomerates in the world, with over 8 million inhabitants, four are located in Latin America – Mexico City (18.7 million), São Paulo (17.9 million), Buenos Aires (13 million) and Rio de Janeiro (11.2 million).5 According to estimates, Lima and Bogotá will soon be part of this group of cities that have grown at a staggering rate after the 1950s. Currently, most of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean is urban (77.6%), larger than the European population (73.3%) and a little smaller than the North American population (80.8%). Around 146.7 million poor people live in the cities of the region, nearly half of them in just two countries: in Brazil (30%) and in Mexico (17%). These high rates of urbanization result from rural exodus, or from other internal migrations, both from other cities and from bordering countries, which took place mainly after the 1950s, giving rise to the metropolization of these cities. The imbalance between these large migratory flows and the infrastructure of the city, added to the lack of planning and the considerable poverty of a large fraction of these populations, resulted in severe shortages of transportation, health, housing, and
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infrastructure in the urban conglomerates. The inter-relation of these phenomena with the logic of capital, real-estate speculation and urban legislation resulted in a structure of population distribution, of services and infrastructure that can be seen today in contemporary Latin American cities. Large poverty belts were formed in the urban outskirts, turning into ghettos and giving rise to increasing social segregation. A sector of informal economy, made up by street vendors, has grown and changed the look of the cities, bringing forth a series of social, economic, aesthetic, and cultural problems. The ancient historic central areas, symbols of the foundation of such cities as idealized by colonizers, have deteriorated and are openly decadent. In cities where there were restoration projects for these areas, or where they are in progress, street vendors as well as homeless people who used to live outdoors in the central streets and vicinities are transferred to other places, in an effort to “clean up the city” and restore its glorious past (Quesada-Avendaño, 2006). The Latin American metropolises are characterized, in addition, by simultaneously holding both a formal and legal city and an illegal and irregular city. According to each country, these illegal cities receive different names: callampas, in Chile; pueblos jóvenes, in Peru; favelas, in Brazil; vila miseria, in Argentina; vecindades or colonias populares, in México; tugurios in Costa Rica; ranchos in Venezuela and Guatemala (QuesadaAvendaño, 2006). This situation suggests that there is an order behind the apparent chaos. “Urban legality” participates in this scenario, as a set of laws, decrees and norms of urban and construction practices that govern the production of spaces in the city. By establishing what is permitted and what is forbidden, it also defines territories that are in and out of the law (Rolnik, 1997). The center-outskirt logic, in the present context, also starts to go through changes. Shopping malls, high-standard residential neighborhoods located in the outskirts, and the business centers created in places where there was nothing before are some examples of new centralities which may come up anywhere with no compliance with traditional logic. According to Rachel Rolnik (1997), a new model of the city is configured: an “unstructured city.” Not only the elites segregate themselves, but also the middle and working-class sectors, which is also a means of protection against crimes and delinquency. These factors, added to the increase of diversification of services in the outskirts, bring forth the existence of several centers. “The Latin American megacities and other capitals of ‘smaller size’ are nowadays polycentric, with several poles of development,” notes Quesada-Avendaño (2006). This process, in her opinion, has given rise to a great diversity of ways of living in the city, of thinking it and appropriating its different spaces. Thus, a great change in the urban cultural model is underway, with not only high rates of poverty, violence and social inequality, but also with great multicultural complexity. The situation depicted by the above author in the end of her paper gives the dimensions of the challenge facing the cities and countries of Latin America, and consequently are also present in the public schools of this region: (…) how to reach the social inclusion of several social sectors within this urban complexity and reestablish the public spaces of the city in the face of the continuous privatization of the space. How to incorporate the 146 million poor people – which the
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official cyphers cast – who live aside, excluded from the city – a hard and impossible task with the present model of urban and economic growth that promotes an increasing social segregation and polarization. And they exclude a bigger and bigger “army” of indigent people which overpopulate the urban outskirts, many of which attempt to earn their living since they were little kids, practicing magic and cleaning windshields in the Latin American streets and traffic lights. (Quesada-Avendaño, 2006)
The Educational Reforms in Latin America in the 1990s From the 1990s, Latin America was hit by an overwhelming wave of educational reforms, a kind of tsunami that caused huge turbulences in all public teaching systems in the region. Even if we consider some reforms that were put in place during the previous decade, it is in the 1990s that they gain strength and visibility. The educational systems in force, many of which were constructed and structured over a century ago, remained in check. With the new millennium coming, systems were considered outdated, ineffective, low quality, and not compliant with what was expected from schools in order to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. Actually, this feeling was not exclusively in Latin America. Other parts of the world were already going through similar processes. Many of these had been anticipated in the reform of school systems as a result of the pressures exerted by neoliberal policies and by globalization – multiform and strongly interrelated processes, which were enhanced in this period. It became increasingly evident that the great transformations, or mutations, that were affecting contemporary society were a consequence of the new economic order, of the changes brought forth by the technological revolution and by the new systems of information and communication. These processes did not allow societies to keep school insulated from such changes. On the contrary, arguments of all kinds, from a varied range of social sectors, were convincing about the urgency of reforming the educational systems. The idea of globalization, which underlines all these discussions, has been utilized exhaustively, both by the international bodies and governmental representatives, and by theorists affiliated in different academic fields. The theories about the origins of these processes and how to understand them are controversial (see Burbules & Torres, 2004; Castells, 1999; Dale, 2004; Santos, 2001, among many others).6 Some authors prefer to use the word mundialization when referring to structural transmutations of contemporary society; others argue that this idea is nothing but a myth, a powerful discourse, “which fulfills the belief ” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 48). These discussions are out of the scope of this Introduction. However, it is important to mention, even if briefly, at least two points that are essential to understand the educational reforms that are underway in Latin America, and which somehow are present in the chapters of this section. First of all, we must recall that the 1980s opened an era under the sign of business transnationalization, financialization of wealth, and structural reforms with the aim of withdrawing the State from the role of coordinating social artifacts and assign them “markets” – a passage from the organized capitalism towards a reorganized or disorganized capitalism, such as some authors understand the dynamics of these processes (Moraes, 2004). In addition, and without underestimating the importance of
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in-depth discussions, one has to highlight that, either talking about “mundialization” or “globalization,” the focus is the extra-national (Dale, 2004). Taking this into account, one may understand the homogeneity of the discourses that are the basis of educational reforms that proliferated in the 1990s throughout Latin America. These policies emphasized the need for innovation in the schools and the promotion of greater educational equity and quality. These are, in fact, new discourses and strategies to overcome old educational and persistent problems in the region. Unlike a not very distant past, in which policies emphasized the modernization of the education systems, the current reforms insist on the idea of school innovation. This emphasis meant that it was crucial that the reforms reached the education systems as a whole, including their forms of management, administrative and pedagogical organization as well as forms and strategies for their funding. Yet the changes (innovations) were to be elaborated by the subjects in the school’s everyday life (Cros, cited by Zibas, Ferretti, & Tartuce, 2006, p. 87). As a result, ideas such as competence, effectiveness and decentralization became key words in the proposals that were put in place in this period, whose policies are aligned with the spirit of reform of the State since the 1980s – strongly driven for and by the market. When referring to the regulatory role of the State, Portuguese researcher João Barroso (2005) affirms that since the beginning of the 1990s there has been some strain between the logic of the State and the logic of the market. This tension has given origin to intermediate institutions between the State and the market, such as the associations, the communities and the partnerships. His position is that “we cannot be prisoners of a false dichotomy between these two models” – State and market. For that reason, he defends the need of revitalizing other modalities of regulations for the public action. (p. 744) This scenario applied to both the developed countries and to developing nations, but certainly the ways in which these guidelines were translated were eventually not the same. In the case of the peripheral countries, it was about proposing tax adjustment policies, which had severe implications for the reforms implemented in the field of education. Proposals with that spirit emerged throughout Latin America. Virtually no country in the region was free from the effects of the reform storm of the 1990s. This led to a change in the General Law of Education for many of them, so that they could fit to this new ideology: Paraguay and Dominican Republic changed their legislation in 1992,7 Argentina and Mexico, in 1993; Colombia and Bolivia, in 1994; Uruguay, in 1995; Brazil, only in 1996. Chile was the country that took the lead in this process, by introducing reforms in 1985 and by approving its new education law in 1990. The pioneering nature of the Chilean reform is explained by the fact that it was put in place by the Pinochet government, which took the lead in the pushing the neoliberal education in Latin America (Puiggrós, 1999). In the Brazilian case, the delay in passing the new National Education Guidelines and Basis (law 9394/96) was due to the pressures from several sectors of society (professional associations of education, scientific associations, unions), all of them against the policies that involved strategies for the privatization of public schools. Adriana Puiggrós (1999) notes that after Pinochet, the other governments from Latin America received political-educational orientation and the program package from the World Bank, without adapting it to the reality of the country and without moderating any
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aspect of the reform demand. Neither the heads of government nor the experts had an interest in the concrete subjects of education. Their work focused on “adjusting” the educational system as was taking place in other areas of the State. Indeed, several analyses have observed that the World Bank, operating in tune and in partnership with a series of other transnational bodies, such as PREAL8 and CEPAL,9 has developed a strong agenda and influence with the aim of promoting and stimulating the institutional reforms in Latin America, justified as a strategy to fight inequalities. In fact, the 2003 World Bank report, previously quoted, says that: The key to reducing inequality in Latin America is institutional reform. To overcome the inequality that undermines their efforts to get out of poverty, poor people must gain influence within political and social institutions, including educational, health and public services institutions. To enable them to achieve such influence, the institutions must be truly open, transparent, democratic, participatory – and strong. This move, however, is not recent. Actually, it only continues the positions that the Bank has maintained since the 1970s: a former project financer with an increasing political dimension. Marília Fonseca (1998) notes that “in order to offer a basis for the social policy, the Bank produced, along the 1970s, a humanitarian discourse, backed up by principles of sustainability, justice and social equality.” According to her, this discourse may be summarized as follows: (1) fight poverty, by promoting equity in income distribution and social benefits; (2) search for effective handling of public policies; (3) search for administrative modernization through decentralizing policies, with the aim of making the community more independent in the handling of social services; (4) dialogue as a strategy of interdependent interaction between the Bank and the borrowers. The author highlights that “despite conveying a wide-range humanitarian rhetoric” such principles “undergo a reduction when they are incorporated to the Bank’s economic project for the developing countries.” Thus, she says that in the analysis of documents what first comes to mind “is the gradual substitution of the notion of equality for term equity.” And this is not a minor issue, as we will discuss later. Although the implementation of reforms was different in each country, one may say that the reforming policies were pervasive throughout Latin America. Of course, the explanations given by the international bodies to the movement were not the same as those produced by the academic milieu. Nevertheless, quite often, the discourses and jargons utilized give the impression that they share the same principles. In this respect, Zibas (2002) identifies two theoretical strands. The first one, which she calls hegemonic, proposes that the reforms are a response to the needs of the countries to adapt their schools to the new international reality, in which the basic social conflict is not made clear but disguised. From this point of view all the education systems should change in order to meet the new needs and to be able to join the new world order in a more competitive way. From this perspective knowledge would install “a new economic and social order, fairer and more democratic,” and the reforms, in their turn, would fulfill the function of facilitating “the formation of a citizenship especially aimed at the cooperation and construction of consensus” (p. 234).10
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The other strand, called critical by Zibas, emphasizes the relationship between the educational reforms underway and the current change process of the State, which is called on to restrict its spending with the social areas in order to accomplish the new logic of capital accumulation, as already mentioned. This process ends up generating new social dynamics, which produce new modes of cultural expression and social conviviality, creating the need to shape a new type of worker: “a human being who thinks, feels and lives in a way different from that one of few years ago” (p. 235). The analyses resulting from this perspective have been merciless in denouncing the neoliberal policies. Among the several aspects that have been analyzed, highlights are: the action of the international bodies, particularly the World Bank; and the marketoriented policies, with the consequent formation of an “educational market” that by prioritizing profit become exclusionary and antidemocratic. Such policies stimulated the implementation of programs that have led public education to be privatized in several countries, such as schools under concession and the vouchers system, among other modalities.11 Analyzing the voucher schools, Cosse (2003) notes that, despite much research have pointed out its ineffectiveness in other countries, here in Latin America this system continues to be utilized. In addition, he stresses, the most serious point ignored what has been exhaustively shown by a vast literature: that school achievement is strongly related to the socioeconomic condition of students, regardless of being a public or private school. Data presented by Raczinsky and Muñoz in their chapter confirm the exclusionary nature of the market-oriented policies, in the sense indicated by Stephen Ball (1995): The implementation of market-based educational reforms constitutes essentially a class strategy and one of its major effects is the reproduction of advantages and disadvantages linked to social class. (p. 197)12 One can see why certain authors argue that in the neoliberal ideology education gets the meaning of property: a property of special type, which only a few can have, as just they have the “right to possess it materially; the right to utilize it and enjoy it; the right to exclude other from enjoying it; the right to sell it or assign it in the market; and the right to possess it as an income factor” (Gentili, 2004, p. 243). Daniel Suárez (2004) seizes another aspect of this logic: the erasing from the social imaginary the idea of “public education as a social right and as a democratic accomplishment, partially acquired after years of struggles under the slogan of equal opportunities and historically associated with the social process of constructing the notion of citizenship.” (p. 260). This author draws attention to the reformulation of other concepts and categories of the progressivist discourse set forth by the reform, which replaces, borrows, and/or simply eliminates some of them. A clear example of replacement is the case of the notions of equality and equal opportunities. Initially associated with the democratic-liberal ideas, then, as banner of movements for democracy these two concepts are gradually displaced to make way for the notion of equity: a judgment founded in the appraisal of what is due to each one, considering man in his environment, according to the analysis of Fonseca (1998). As she puts it, “equity does not guarantee the equality of development standards, but it ensures the minimum amount required so that the countries
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may rationally be inserted in the global mode, without threatening the system’s balance” (p. 49).13 Many other notions went through a similar process, but we will not be able to examine them here. The important thing is to highlight that this discursive strategy corroborates the installation of a new logic, which utilizes a discourse that imprints new meanings to social life. In other words, what is at stake is the production of a new culture, whose purpose is to replace old values and representations, stimulating new practices to produce a new social consensus. In the case of education, this consensus relates to school and its functions. Moreover, the privatization strategies introduced by the current Latin American reforms are clouding the idea of public education. With the initiation of such policies over the last 15 years, the perception and meaning of what is public, as well the difference between public and private in education, has become more and more indistinct. This involves both conceptual and identity issues. A process which, apart from the differences between the several countries, seems to characterize a type of fragmentation similar to the one Tiramonti describes with regard the Argentinean case: the rupture of meanings and a concomitant dynamic of fragmented multiplication that dissipates the possibility of recovering unity. The allusion made early in this text (see Chapter by Faria Filho & Vidal) to a similarity between the Latin American public schools and the American urban schools, seems to crumble. The 1990s were also the stage of many reforms in the domain of teacher education. These reforms came together with those of basic education, following in this case the agenda of countries from other regions, mainly from Europe. Thus, the guidelines came from several international bodies,14 and therefore had similar political matrixes. For this reason, the proposals and changes caused the same types of discontent and adverse reactions. The multiplication of various modes of training courses is one of the emphases in the current policies, opening up huge areas for the entry of the private enterprise. The worsening conditions of teacher work and the unsatisfactory quality of many programs have heated up the debates about teacher education and professionalization in part due to the fact that they produce new hierarchies and forms of exclusion. The analysis of the Normal Schools in Mexico City in this section reveals several aspects of these politics. These institutions, which in the past were elite schools, today are sought by students who mostly come from impoverished social milieus, with the expectation of getting greater opportunities for work and some kind of social ascent.15 These expectations make it evident that the school still conveys a promise of the future. It is quite possible that the expectations of the young are slim, maybe because they are driven by the urgencies of the present and marked by some skepticism regarding the future. In any case, they indicate where we should look at if we intend to answer “how can we educate today?” By posing this question Tiramonti (2005, p. 907) proposes a review of the cultural substratum in the schools, their institutional organization, their articulations with the plots of the social world. Thus, it is important to remember that for many youths, and children, this everyday world is their workplace, such as Maria de Ibarrola portrays in her chapter. In addition, paying attention to this universe de-stabilizes the idea that growth in schooling levels is the major factor in improving labor conditions and wages. Ibarrola shows that these instances influence each other in different ways, depending on the interests at stake and the actors involved, on time and space, on the type
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of schooling and the nature of the labor market. In other words, school cannot be a separate world, with delimited borders as it used to be in the past – a project conceived somewhere else, without the assent of those who work in it, including the youths. The nine chapters that compose this section offer a broad view of the situation of public schooling in Latin America. Although the texts refer to contexts and educational experiences from just six countries – Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay – it is fair to assume that, on the whole, these chapters draw a representative picture of the current educational problems in this region. Certainly, many different readings can be made of these texts. I wish, however, to draw attention to one of the ideas that guided the project of the Handbook: that local contexts shape, in critically important ways, what will be effective at the school level. By that, I wish to refer to the specificities of each country, to local experiences of various levels without, however, disregarding the homogenizing forces and trends. The chapter by Raczinski and Muñoz, for instance, claims more power to the schools, based on studies that point to the importance of certain local initiatives at the school level as a condition for the improvement of teaching, not under any circumstances, but as part of a proposal that, understands the school as a system and suggests the approximation of micro politics and macro politics. Around 20 years ago, Mexican researchers Elsie Rockwell and Justa Ezpeleta (1986) put forward a similar conception manifesting their rejection of reductionist and functionalist views. They said then that the school “is certainly not the same throughout the capitalist world, or even in Latin American countries,” and emphasized that the school is the result of a social construct, insisting that such conception does not leave room for “any ambition of unifying it in an abstract and formal way” (p. 11). Other critical views have added to that, particularly when the neoliberal reforms became more threatening. In the mid 1990s, Argentinean Daniel Suárez (2004, p. 268) wrote vehemently about the double challenge that educators had to face: on one side “to contest urgently the devastating impetus of the neoconservative and neoliberal offensive” through a new pedagogical discourse that questioned in a radical way the logic and the politics of the cultural reform undertook by the New Right; on the other side, “to (re)construct new analytical and interpretive categories that allow linking the understanding of the institutionalized educational processes, relations and practices to the cultural (and also pedagogical) meanings constructed outside school, but that include it and determine it.” He understands that the redefinition of a new ethical language implies, among other aspects, a greater appreciation of the role of memory and history, not just “to recover the democratic sense of old struggles and achievements,” but also as a way of “intensifying the collective debate around values that give priority and demand equality, respect for diversity, for solidarity, for the public good, for justice” (1995, p. 268). The chapters of this section have been organized into three groups. In the first group three texts (Chapters 31 to 33) approach issues related to the Brazilian education system. The first text discusses the history of primary school, which established itself in Brazil during the mid nineteenth century. The other two texts refer to the school that takes shape with the expansion of the public school systems, and changes its features to cope with the high levels of school failure that were then observed.
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In History of Brazilian urban education: space and time in primary schools, Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana Gonçalves Vidal discuss the constitution of primary schooling in Brazil, showing that in the nineteenth century a new model of school is set up, aiming at civilizing the nationals and nationalizing the foreigners. The goal was to reach the level of progress of the European nations, and the focus fell upon the architecture of school buildings and the organization of school time. It also shows how the urban environment was decisive to the form and values that prevailed in the organization of the Brazilian school. The primary school appears in Brazil in the later half of the nineteenth century, inspired in the European mutual teaching model, so that the time the working class dedicated to studies did not impact their working hours, an issue tightly related to modernity and capitalism. At a later stage, the efficiency of elementary schooling is associated with the school building as a means to defend the superiority and specificity of official education when compared with other forms of socialization. That is, when the Graded Schools appear – the monument schools – schooling in grade levels becomes the definitive model of education for the nineteenth century. It was only under the New State (1937–1945) that proposals for a significant standardization of the school organization begin to emerge via an architectural model that tried to develop patriotic values in children. This model still had an elitist character. In the following decades, with the expansion of school systems, with proposals for simpler construction, start to emerge. Through the decades, the time spent in school progressively increased, but the length of eight years for fundamental education appeared only in 1971. The authors argue that the institutionalization of the elementary school has still not happened in Brazil. Today, contrary to what the analysts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggested, there is no shortage of school buildings, but they are irregularly distributed across the Brazilian territory. Learning cycles as transition policies for a new logic of compulsory schooling in Brazil (the Chapter 32) is a review that shows how the idea of cycles as a way of breaking the rigidity of school serialization in Brazilian public schooling gains impetus in Brazil in the mid twentieth century. Elba de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia de Souza argue that the adoption of learning cycles is a democratizing policy that can help assuring the continuity of schooling and prevent failure. The text highlights the multiple initiatives that have been developed in the country since the 1960s and 1970s, and also the justifications presented for the different proposals adopted. The data presented show that in 2003 18.9% of Brazilian schools in fundamental education had adopted learning cycles, exclusively or otherwise. Most of these schools were public and urban, and located in the Southeast region, although the Northeast region also showed a high proportion. Belonging to municipal or state school systems, these schools are more concentrated in populous metropolitan areas, where the extremes of poverty and wealth, violence and precarious functioning of schools are to be found. The text also discusses: the various principles commonly invoked as the foundations of learning cycles; the conditions for their implementation in the school systems that have adopted them; the implications that followed to the structuring of teachers’ work; the demand for their better training; and the enduring resistance that the implementation of learning cycles has faced. The authors assert that the history and trajectory of learning cycles in Brazil show the validity and applicability of their principles today. However,
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one has to admit that the pedagogical resources and the school practices have been inadequate or insufficient to cater for everyone. The issue of school failure is taken up again in the third chapter – School failure and public school: theoretical and pedagogical challenges in Brazil. Denise Trento Rebello de Souza and Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza present the several explanations put forward for the high levels of school failure and dropout during the last decades. The authors stress the explanations originated in Psychology, given that this discipline has historically been one of the sciences in which Education has more frequently sought theoretical support. In the first part of the text, various statistical data and the controversies around the strategies to promote the democratization of public school are presented. The analyses carried out show that there is consensus in the mainstream educational literature concerning the issue of the educational coverage (access to the educational system) and the need for improving its quality as the real challenge for the policy makers. Several explanations for the phenomenon of school failure are discussed, and also how the phenomenon has been approached by various psychological schools of thought. The authors understand that it was only the theoretical and methodological revisions in Latin America in the 1980s led by the more critical educational researchers that has enabled the overcoming of reductionist explanations. Such revision has brought a crucial change in the approach to this issue: from the analysis of the child who fails to the description and analysis of school practices and processes involved in the production of the difficulties in the schooling process. In the conclusions, the authors reflect on the fact that, despite significant progress in the way of generating knowledge about the schooling process offered to the poorer populations, little of this knowledge is reaching the groups that create, and decide upon, the public policies addressed to those populations. The second group of chapters (34 to 36) refers to educational reforms currently under way in three countries: Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. Discussing these reforms together makes it easier to distinguish the features that give them some homogeneity, and at the same time highlights the differences they exhibit in the different contexts. The Chilean reform is paradigmatic of the region, due to the fact that Chile has pioneered the implementation of these policies and permits a reasonable evaluation of such experiences. In the cases of Colombia and Uruguay, the programs are still in stages of development that could be classified as initial, although some results can already be known or felt, either positively or negatively. The focus of these texts is varied, as are the positions of the authors with respect to the way of conceiving and interpreting the reforms. In the chapter, Chilean educational reform: the intricate balance between a macro and micro policy, Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo depict the reality of schools located in poverty-stricken sectors. They question the success of the reforms carried out during the last 25 years, in view of the excessively centralizing character of these changes. They argue that the reforms of the 1980s have weakened the public education system by the adoption of two mechanisms: municipalization, and the implementation of the voucher system. In the 1990s, the State recovers its leading role, characterized by a reform focused on the improvement of the quality of teaching and greater equity of the results of learning. It maintains, however, the provision of
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resources through public and private financing agencies, and the voucher system. The results indicate that the opportunity of school access for pupils from the poorer areas has improved. However, the quality of education is still unsatisfactory as the inequality in learning conditions persists. Overcoming these difficulties implies a political vision that considers schools as systems, supporting actions that seek the improvement of educational conditions and that increase the school effect. From the observations made at the schools, several factors were identified that distinguish effective from ineffective schools. Based on that, the authors propose alternatives that can help improve the less effective schools (which constitute the larger portion of schools): to link more closely macro politics and policies of the schools; to strengthen the autonomy of schools and the responsibility for results in the education system; to promote greater equity through funding differentiated by socioeconomic level and mechanisms that prevent schools from choosing their pupils. These alternatives depend on changes in the organization and functioning of the system and not just on the availability of inputs and infrastructure as prioritized so far. Public policies and educational equity in the city of Bogotá is the problem investigated by Glória Calvo in the Chapter 35. Her line of argument revolves around the issue of the expansion of educational opportunities to the impoverished social strata, and the permanence of pupils at the school. The text discusses the public policies implemented in Bogotá since 1998 to deal with its problems. The ongoing programs are classified according to their objectives: (1) to promote equity, trying to make sure that children and youngsters from the lower social layers enter and remain inside the education system; (2) to improve the results of educational actions; (3) to develop professional competencies, focusing on excellence in secondary education. The issue of educational equity is examined under different theoretical perspectives, highlighting the difficulties faced in achieving this goal within the Colombian context. According to the author, the search for pedagogical equity expresses a concern with democracy and with the possibility that different social segments can exercise more fully their rights and duties. The text describes the five currently active programs proposed by the Colombian Secretariat for Education of the Federal District: Schools in Concession; Funding the Demand; Assessment of Basic Competencies and Citizenship; Leveling to Excellence; and Competencies for Work. After discussing criteria for the promotion of pedagogical equity, some recommendations are made: the need to guarantee the quality of education for the lower social segments; actions that foster the adequacy of the study plans to those pupils’ “deficient conditions”; and the revision of the basic education cycles as to their duration and to the minimum competencies necessary to their certification, based on principles that pay attention to the development of the human potential. The reform in Uruguay is analyzed by Juan Bogliaccini in the chapter – Primary education: changing mainstay of Uruguay – with a focus on the tensions this reform has been causing due to the implementation of Full Time Schools. The author calls attention to the prominent position that the public primary school had in the past as one of the main instruments to the formation of the nationality and citizenship in Uruguay, a country with one of the highest levels of educational development in Latin America. Despite that, since the 1970s the educational system has been under threat, especially
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from the growth of private schooling and territorial segmentation. The reform of 1995 had the equity in the distribution of resources as its main axis, and the creation of the Full Time Schools as one of its main programs. Such changes, according to the author, came in response to the transformations required by the inequality, segregation and segmentation that the country has been facing in the last decades. Analyzing the tensions created by the confrontation of the traditional structure with the emerging model, the text points out the biggest challenges faced today by the Uruguayan system: the job stability of teachers, the type of link between the school and the central administration, the cultural impoverishment of the least favored social segments and the need of the expansion of the new model to be based on a series of indispensable resources. The assessments show that the Full Time Schools have been showing favorable results, but they are in small number and the expansion of this model can only be assured with the same positive results if the level of resources is maintained. The author thus proposes the creation of a carefully formulated decennial plan. The last three chapters (37 to 39) do not have a thematic unity, but that is precisely why they bring elements to expand our understanding of the educational problem in Latin America. The first two texts refer to the Mexican context, and the last one, while having Argentina as a reference, goes beyond this context and touches upon an issue that is common to the whole of Latin America: the fragmentation of schooling. The chapter, Educational policies and realities: teachers’ initial education in Mexico, presents an analysis of the Normal Schools in Mexico City. Etelvina Sandoval discusses the current proposals for teacher education policies in Mexico, a society more and more complex and heterogeneous and with severe inequalities. The Mexican teacher education system is large, diversified, and marked, just as the other levels of education, by realities strikingly uneven with respect to quality of teaching and of the institutions that form teachers. Contrary to the international tendency of pushing teacher education to the universities, Mexico prevails in maintaining the Normal Schools. However, in spite of the various demographic phenomena that have propitiated the crossing of cultural frontiers in the country, the initial education of teachers has been characterized by its uniformity. The author argues that this initial education must have as its main focus the diversity of the Mexican context and the realities in which the teachers will work, because these aspects have been neglected – revealing a clear inconsistency with the prevailing discourses about diversity and interculturality. The text shows that, at variance with the complex realities and needs of the teaching profession in that country, the dominant idea in the Normal Schools is that teachers will work with a homogeneous population. Considering the policies that defend the preservation of these institutions, the author discusses the importance of strengthening the Normal Schools under new ideas and perspectives in face of the social changes that permeate urban education in Mexico and present teachers with major challenges. María de Ibarrola deals in the chapter – Learning to work in an industrial Mexican city in transition (1990–2000) – with the education of young that are preparing to enter the world of work under the changes brought about by NAFTA. She examines the opportunities open to youngsters between the ages of 15 and 24 to learn a profession in their immediate environment: the city of León and its shoe industry. In the cities of contemporary Mexico, the inequalities in working conditions are conspicuous. The
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informal job market, despite absorbing a considerable number of people, is not adequately included in official statistics and initiatives. The author argues that, whilst access to schooling has been on the rise, the economic crisis and the income discrepancies have also intensified, indicating that other factors may also play an important role in the differentiation of working conditions and wages. Among other findings, it has been seen that in-service training has been recognized as an important factor for facing the changes caused by economic globalization; and that in the shoe industry the most intense form of learning was the one resulting from the direct contact between workers, in which each one shares his/her knowledge with the others. In the conclusion of the chapter, the author presents some suggestions to link the school and the work world: to ensure the participation of the child in compulsory basic education; to create a wide learning system situated at the workplace; to evaluate what is being learned by the students that have just finished compulsory education; to formulate specific and innovative programs to ensure the quality, relevance and equity of education; and to take tacit knowledge and the informal ways of transmitting it as the basis of proposals for change that respond to the challenges of implementing new technologies, work organizations, and production processes. This section is concluded with a text by Guillermina Tiramonti, from Argentina. The fragmented face of the Argentinean education system is a study that spans the boundaries of public schooling by comparing widely different urban schools located in the city of Buenos Aires. They are urban schools because they are in urban space. The analyses take as their point of departure the identity crisis that befell Argentina in 2001 and established a watershed between what constituted the image of “being Argentinean” – literate, citizen and inserted in the work market – and the new situation, in which these references were lost. In face of that, the author discusses the need of repositioning the debate around the issue of inequality. She proposes a closer look at this system. The unequal configuration of educational opportunities requires the analysis of asymmetries in the processes that pervade the whole education system and of the fissures and differences that can be seen in the features of schools, giving shape to subjectivities. Fragmentation is understood as the loss of unity and common references. The fragment is itself a self-referred space, in which one can distinguish continuities and differences. The school has a different meaning to each group, and such classifications do not necessarily correspond to the rigid divisions between social strata. This fragmentation also affects those that dedicate themselves to teaching. There are several signs of the loss of social roots and strong asymmetries in their expression. The school is turned into the boundary of integration, but it does not offer a vehicle to deliver pupils from their situation of vulnerability. Two main lines of differentiation seem to demarcate the boundaries between the fragments. One of them is the kind of work intended, some of them inspired by the aesthetics of consumption, others based on the ethics of labor. The other differentiating factor is how the youngsters operate in the globalized space. The line separates those who have more freedom to change and choose more interesting scenarios for their lives, and those who are tied to national borders or forced to emigrate because of hardship in that country. To some, such options do not even exist. These are the pupils of the public schools. The poorer children inhabit globalization bound to the local. A level of mobility, the freedom to choose the places where one’s life happens, and the possibility of deriving gratification
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from work constitute the ingredients of a full life within the globalized context. The new factors of differentiation seem to reproduce the ancient experience of inequality.
Acknowledgements In different ways, I was helped by many people along the time I worked in this project. I thank Adolfo de Oliveira, André Bocheti, Denise Trento, Elba Barretto, Elza Pino dos Santos, Flávia Sarti, Gláucia Toni, Isabel Bello, Jessé Rebello de Souza Jr., Luciana Viviani, Luiz Ramires and Romualdo Portela de Oliveira. I also thank my family – Lino, Daniel, Mariana and Bernardo, Arthur and Flora. Special thanks to George Noblit and William Pink for their invitation and encouragement.
Notes 1. Burke makes these comments when he analyzes two books that have been recently published: The idea of Latin America (Mignolo, 2005) and A história do conceito de “América Latina” nos Estados Unidos (Feres Junior, 2005) [The history of the concept of “Latin America” in United States]. 2. See chapter by Faria Filho and Vidal. 3. This issue appears in most chapters of this section. About school failure and policies addressed in Brazil, see the chapter by Barretto and Souza, and the chapter by Souza and Souza. 4. The profile of American urban schools presented, for example, in Challenges of Urban Schools (McClafferty, Torres, & Mitchell, 2000) and in Reinterpreting Urban School Reform (Mirón & John, 2003), allows us to note that there is a great deal of similarity between these schools and the Latin American public schools. This suggests comparative studies, including research on the use of the expressions urban school and public school, as although they may be taken as synonyms at first, they are not wholly equivalent. 5. This statistical data was presented in a text by Florencia Quesada-Avendaño (2006), Imaginarios urbanos, espacio público y ciudad en America Latina [Urban imaginaries, public space and city in Latin America]. See also: Nuñez-Estrada, 1992, about the uncontrolled growth of México City; Rolnik, 1997, about urban policy in the city of São Paulo; Santos, 1996, about time and geographic space, including in the era of globalization. 6. It is worthwhile to highlight what is discussed by Dale (2004) who, by analyzing the relations between globalization and education, compares two theories: the one by John Meyer and his collaborators, which he calls “Common World Educational Culture,” and the one by himself, referred to as “Structured Global Agenda for Education.” According to him, essentially, those who propose the first perspective “argue that the development of the national teaching systems and the curriculum categories are explained by means of universal models of education, State and society, rather than by means of distinctive national factors”; whilst his position is based on recent works on international political economy, “which face the change of nature in the world capitalistic economy as the driving force of globalization and seek to establish its effect even if intensely mediated by the local, over the teaching systems” (pp. 425–426). 7. In the case of the Dominican Republic, that was its Decennial Education Plan (cf. Braslavsky & Cosse, 1997). 8. The Program for the Promotion of Educational Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean (PREAL), founded in 1996, is co-directed by the Interamerican Dialogue, USAID and IDB. The program does research commissioned by the World Bank or funded by it and has, in addition, the support of representatives of the great transnational capital. Its head office is located in Chile. 9. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (PREAL) is a branch of UNESCO, whose work started in the post-war period. Several authors, such as Oliveira (1995) and Almeida Filho (2003) have drawn attention to the redirecting of CEPAL in the 1990, which became one of the major sources of the ideas guiding the educational policies throughout the Latin American continent and the Caribbean.
578 10.
11. 12. 13. 14.
15.
Bueno To build these arguments Zibas uses a document by CEPAL (1992). According to her, this optimistic view has weakened lately due to the remarkable increase of social inequality and exclusion, including in the central countries. It is interesting to note that the assessments of the reforms undertaken in this perspective are limited to focusing on the role played by the State and the internal dynamics of each country. They often bring important elements and details when, for example, they identify the presence and action of different actors – the State itself, the businessmen, the trade unions, in addition to others. The several logics in the game, the tensions generated by the changes in various levels of the systems and their segments, ignore one of the basic principles that presided over the installation of such processes: the logic of the market. An analysis of this kind may be found in Braslavsky and Cosse (1997), a document of PREAL. In this respect, see the chapters about the reform in Chile and Colombia; and also the chapter on Argentina that analyses the issue of the fragmentation of the Argentine educational system. Raczinsky and Muñoz (Chapter 4) confirm the Cosse’s evaluation about the increase of social segregation. About politics for educational equity, see Garcia-Huidobro, 2004. BIRD, CEPAL, UNESCO and their various programs and workshops, such as: PROMEDLAC (Principal Project on Education in Latin America and the Caribbean), which meets every second year and is made up of representatives of the State members of UNESCO in the region; OREALC/ UNESCP (Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean); also, UNICEF (The United Nations Children’s Fund), among others. Something quite similar is also seen in Brazil. See Bueno (2005).
References Almeida Filho, N. (2003). O desenvolvimento da América Latina da perspectiva da CEPAL dos anos 90: correção de rumos ou mudança de concepção? In J. C. Ferraz, M. Crocco, & L. A. Elias (Edts.), Liberalização econômica e desenvolvimento. (1st ed.) (pp. 100–123) [The development of Latin America from the perspective of CEPAL in the 90’s: correction of the courses or change of conception? In Economic liberalization and development]. São Paulo: Editora Futura. Ball, S. (2004). Mercados educacionais, escolha e classe social. In P. Gentili (Ed.). (2004) Pedagogia da exclusão. Crítica ao neoliberalismo em educação. (11th ed.) (pp. 196–227). [Educacional markets, choice and social class. In Pedagogy of the exclusion. Critics to the neoliberalism in education]. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. Barroso, J. (2005). O Estado, a educação e a regulação das políticas públicas. Educação & Sociedade, 26(92), pp. 725–751. [State, education and regulation of public policies]. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Contrafogos: táticas para enfrentar a invasáo neoliberal. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. [Counterfires: Tactics to face the neoliberal invasion]. Braslavsky, C., & Cosse, G. (1997). As atuais reformas educativas na América Latina: Quatro atores, trˆes lógicas e oito tensões. Programa de Promoçcão da Reforma Educativa na América Latina e Caribe (PREAL). [The present educational reforms in Latin America: four actors, three logis and eight tensions. Program for Promotion of Educational Reforms in Latin America and Caribbe – PREAL] Retreived on August 15, 2005, from http://www.cpdoc.fgv.br/projetos/arq/Preal_Doc05.pdf Bueno, B. O. (2005). Magistério e lógica de destinação profissional. Educação e Linguagem. 8(11), p. 75–104. [Teaching profession and logic of professional destination]. Burbules, N., & Torres, C. A. (Eds.). (2000). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge. Burke, P. (2006). História de uma idéia tensa. Folha de São Paulo. São Paulo, May 28, 2006, p. 7. [History of a tense idea. Folha de São Paulo newspaper]. Castells, M. (1999). O poder da identidade. São Paulo: Paz e Terra. [The power of identity]. Cosse, G. (2003). Voucher educacional: a nova e dicutível panacéia. Cadernos de Pesquisa, 118, pp. 207–246. [Educational voucher: a new debatable panacea for Latin America].
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Dale, R. (2004). Globalização e educação: Demonstrando a existˆencia de uma “cultura educacional mundial comum” ou localizando uma “agenda globalmente estrutrada para a educação”? Educação & Sociedade, 25(87), 423–460. [Globalization and education: Demonstrating the existence of a “Global Common Educational Culture” or locating a “Globally Structured Agenda for Education”?] Feres Junior, J. (2005). A história do conceito de ‘América Latina’ nos Estados Unidos. Florianópolis: Edusc/Anpocs. [The history of the concept of ‘Latin America’ in United States.] Ferranti, D., & Perry, G. (Eds.). (2003). Inequality in Latin America & the Caribbean: Breaking with History? Retrieved on September 9, 2005, from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ COUNTRIES/LACEXT/EXTLACOFFICEOFCE/0,contentMDK:20384897~pagePK:64168445~piPK: 64168309~theSitePK:870893,00.html Fonseca, M. (1998). O Banco Mundial como referˆencia para a justiça social no terceiro mundo: Evidˆencias do caso brasileiro. Revista da Faculdade de Educação, 24(1), 37–69. [The World Bank as reference to the social justice in the third world: Evidences from the Brazilian case.] Garcia-Huidobro, J. E. (2004). Reseña Seminário Internacional sobre Políticas Educativas y Equidad. Chile: UNICEF, UNESCO, Fundación Ford y Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Santiago de Chile, 13 a 15 de octubre de 2004. [Synthesis of the International Congress on Equity Educational Policies. Organized by UNICEF, UNESCO, Ford Foundation & Alberto Hurtado University.] Retrieved on March 21, 2006, from http://www.unesco.cl/medios/biblioteca/documentos/ Gentili, P. (2004). Adeus a` escola pública. In P. Gentili (Ed.), Pedagogia da exclusão. Crítica ao neoliberalismo em educação. (11th ed.) (pp. 228–252). [Bye-bye public school. In Pedagogy of the exclusion. Critics to the neoliberalism in education.] Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. McClafferty, K. A., Torres, C. A., & Mitchell, T. R. (Eds.). (2000). Challenges of urban education: Sociological perspectives for the next century. Albany: State University New York Press. Mignolo, W. (2005). The idea of Latin America. London, New York: Blackwell Press. Mirón, L. F., & St. John, E. P. (2003). Reinterpreting urban school reform. New York: State University of New York Press. Moraes, R. C. (2004). Globalização e políticas públicas: vida, paixão e morte do Estado nacional? Eduação & Sociedade, 25(87), 309–333. [Globalization and public policies: life, passion and death of the national State?] Nuñez-Estrada, H. R. (1992). Crescimiento sin control o control del crecimiento. Reflexiones sobre el Área Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México. Gestión y Estratégia. México. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, n. 2. [Growth without control or control of the growth. Reflections on the metropolitan area of the Mexico city.] Retrieved on March 20, 2006, from http://www.azc.uam.mx/publicaciones/ gestion/ num2/doc2.html Oliveira, R. (1995). O legado da CEPAL a` educação nos anos 90. Revista iberoamericana de educação. OEI [The legacy of CEPAL to education in the 90’s]. Retrieved on March 20, 2006, from http://www.rieoei.org/ deloslectores/Oliveira.PDF Portillo, G., & Bustamante, S. (1998). Proyecto social venezolano (1960–1970) y su influencia en el sistema educativo. Dialnet, (2), p. 5. [Venezuelan social project (1960–1970) and its influence on the education system.] Retrieved on March 20, 2006, from http://www.revistaparadigma.org.ve/Doc/Paradigma982/Art5.htm Puiggrós, A. (1999). Educación y sociedad en América Latina de fin de siglo: del liberalismo al neoliberalismo pedagógico. Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, 10(1). [Education and society in Latin America in the end of the century: from the liberalism to the neoliberalism]. Retrieved on July 31, 2005, from http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/X_1/puiggros.html Rolnick, R. (1997). A cidade e a lei. [The city and the law] São Paulo: Studio Nobel/Fapesp. Quesada-Avendaño, F. (2006). Imaginarios urbanos, espacio público y ciudad en América Latina. Pensar Iberoamérica. Revista de Cultura. Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos, n. 8, abril-junio. [Urban imaginaries, public spaces and city in Latin America. Retrieved on May 20, 2006, from http://www.campus-oei.org/pensariberoamerica/ric08a03.htm Rockwell, E., & Ezpeleta, J. (1986). A escola: relato de um processo inacabado de contrução. In J. Ezpeleta, & E. Rockwell (Eds.), Pesquisa participante. (1st ed.) (pp. 9–30). [The school: A narrative of a unfinished construction process.] São Paulo: Cortez. Santos, B. S. (2001). Pela mão de Alice. O social e o político na pós-modernidade. 8th edition [By Alice’s hands. The social and the political in the pos-modernity] São Paulo: Cortez.
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Santos, M. (1996). A natureza do espaço. [The nature of the space]. São Paulo: Hucitec. Suárez, D. (2004). O princípio educativo da Nova direita. Neoliberlismo, ética e escola pública. In P. Gentili, (Ed.), Pedagogia da exclusão. (11th ed.) (pp. 253–270). [The educational principle of the New Right. In Pedagogy of the exclusion. Critics to the neoliberalism in education]. Petrópolis: Vozes. Tiramonti, G. (2005). La escuela en la ecrucijada del cambio epocal. [School in times of epochal change] Educação & Sociedade, 26(92), 889–910. Torres, C. A. (2001). Grandezas y miserias de la educación latinoamericana de Siglo Veinte. In C. A. Torres (Ed.), Paulo Freire y la agenda de la educación latinoamericana en el Siglo XXI. Buenos Aires: Clacso e Asdi. [Greatness and miseries of Latin American education of the Twenty Century. In (Torres, C.A.) Paulo Freire and the agenda for the Latin American Education in the Twenty First Century]. Retrieved on March 16, 2006, from http://www.isop.ucla.edu/lac/cat/flaedu.pdf Zibas, D. (2002). A reforma do ensino médio no Chile: vitrina para a América Latina? [The reform of High School in Chile: showcase for Latin America?] Cadernos de Pesquisa, 115, 233–262. Zibas, D., Ferretti, C., & Tartuce, G. L. (2006). A reforma de ensino médio e o protagonismo de alunos e pais. In A. Vitar, D. Zibas, C. Ferretti, & G. Tartuce (Org.), Gestão de inovações no ensino médio. Argentina – Brasil – Espanha. (1st ed.) (pp. 83–138). [The high school reform and the students and parents protagonism. In Management of Innovations in High Schools. Argentina-Brazil-Spain]. Brasília: Liber Livros.
31 HISTORY OF BRAZILIAN URBAN EDUCATION: SPACE AND TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho* and Diana Gonçalves Vidal† *
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil; University of São Paulo, Brazil
†
Our purpose is to sketch the process of the institutionalization of primary schooling in Brazil. We will focus on the historical constitution of school times and spaces, under the assumption that together times and spaces play a major part in the social and school orders. They are always personal and institutional, individual and collective, and the effort to circumscribe them, control them, materialize them in charts of years/series, schedules, clocks, sirens, or in specific rooms, schoolyards, individual or double desks, must be understood as a movement that has had or has proposed multiple trajectories for the production of the school. Hence it’s educative strength and it’s centrality in the school apparatus. The organization of this chapter around three topics – home schools, monument schools, and functional schools – explores the three main moments in the history of primary education in Brazil. These are examined from the viewpoint of the physicalarchitectural place occupied by the school, as well as by the multiple temporalities experienced in it, and seen from the perspective of the pedagogical innovations and education reforms. Although we will examine some of the aspects of rural schools, our focus is on the urban schools as most of the changes occurred in the capital cities. This analysis also touches upon the material and methodological changes introduced by the reforms as part of their strategies of pedagogical renovation. They indicate the response to social problems in the establishment of a hegemonic school model throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here the focus was to civilize the nation in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery, and to nationalize the foreign, with their origins in immigration (subsidized or not): this often involved the confrontation between a school (and state) government and a home government. The changes processed in school contents in the last 200 years can be understood in the same manner. The modifications effected in what we now call syllabi and curricula were also intimately related to the challenges faced by the affirmation of the modern school form, both in what it required in terms of production of new social practices, and in what it meant in terms of revising the pedagogical principles governing the exchanges between the school world and the social world. 581 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 581–600. © 2007 Springer.
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Writing about the grammar of schooling, David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1999, p. 85) stated that “little has changed in the ways that schools divide time and space, classify students and allocate them to classrooms, splinter knowledge into subjects, and award grades and credits as evidence of learning.” They were referring largely to the last 150 years, in which they identified a remarkable continuity of school practices in the United States. In particular, they regarded the introduction of the Graded Schools, already common in North American big cities in the 1860s, as a landmark for primary education. Although we agree with the authors when they argue that the organization of school times and spaces, together with the classification and hierarchial ordering of pupils and contents have been the pillars of the structuring of modern education systems, it is also necessary to stress that when they are taken in direct correspondence to the precepts of the pedagogical field, the configuration of these elements is not always observed for what it reveals about the social struggles in which the school is involved in its institutionalization as a place of passage for all childhood. The long process that allowed the school to establish itself as a specific institution, with its own doings, not infrequently clashing with other social institutions, particularly the Church and family, is sometimes obscured by the huge triumph it achieved in society’s imagination. The reverence we display today towards the imposition of school’s time, knowledge, and practices over the social (Church, family, community, and social groups), together with the normative belief about the need and importance of schooling as a means of human formation and preservation of cultural unity, were not constructed without both forward and backward steps, in which the limits of the school’s actions were constantly reassessed, the objectives redefined, and the modes of action revised. If the school has conquered an elevated position in society, this does not mean that it has not accepted demands, adapted to tensions, and assimilated many conflicting interests from the various groups (themselves jostling each other within society). Quite the opposite, the longevity of the school institution has only been possible because it was (and still is) in permanent change, despite apparent immobility. It comes as no surprise that to the distribution and daily use of time in schools in the first half of the nineteenth century were connected to one limited teaching “program.”1 Such programs, in their extension and depth, were very different from those created during the last decades of the nineteenth century.2 and first decades of the twentieth century.3 The reforms in the programs closely matched the proposed changes for the use of school time. These changes in school time were themselves tightly related to the principles pedagogical methods and materials, and with the construction of school spaces, while also responding to the wishes of the governing souls. Our focus is on a school that organized itself above all in the urban landscape, to meet the growing demands for reading, writing, and calculation abilities. It was in the environment of villages and small towns that, initially, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there developed a sociability that assumed the practice of reading and, sometimes, writing. Likewise, it was in this same locus that the economic and cultural development turned indispensable the three basic abilities we mentioned. It was this urban school model that, mainly since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was publicized throughout Brazil in an intense movement to give the country a school system that would allow it to partake in the progress achieved by the nations regarded as
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civilized. Before we move on in the characterization of primary schooling in Brazil, it seems fit to draw a few comments about the relation between school and urban.
The Urban School: Some Issues To begin with, it is necessary to note that the intertwining of the school and the urban does not follow a unique pattern. Despite many studies calling attention to the fact that schooling in modernity is a phenomenon observed firstly in the cities (Chartier, 1991), and, moreover, that the strengthening of school as a socializing institution is tied to the large transformations that took place in cities from the sixteenth century in Europe (Vincent, Lahire, & Thin, 2001) and in Brazil from the nineteenth century, it can also be seen that other factors intervened in this relation in a way that rendered it more varied. Thus, phenomena such as the constitution of capitalism and industrialization, of religion and of religious fights, of variegated cultural and social formations, all stand as necessary to our reflection on the relations between the urban and the school. There are here continuities and ruptures in the representations and practices that produce (and are produced by) this relation, and understanding them is essential. In Brazil, one must consider the weight of the Iberian tradition in the construction and in the dealings with the public and the private, as well as their respective places in the forms of cultural production and reproduction, so that one can give a measure, for instance, of how much the city could – or could not – have been constituted and represented as the privileged locus for educative action. On the other hand, to build a slave-trading and Catholic society severely limited (without quite impeding) the development of schooling within our cities, even in those with greater sociocultural complexity. We can then say that there are themes and moments of the historical doing in which it is possible to see very clearly the intertwining of the school and the urban. The first of those is the theoretical production and that of the urban and educational ideas in the last centuries. It is indeed possible to say that the urban and school ideas and utopias were, above all since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, born out of the same thought matrices, as Cynthia Greive Veiga (2002) has already demonstrated. Both carried the weight and the belief in the redeeming view of modern sciences and rationalities. Both participated in the rationalization of culture and, faced with the heterogeneity of subjects, cultivated a homogenizing utopia. Both worked theoretically and rhetorically with a set of dichotomies such as barbarian and civilized, archaic and modern, old and new, rural and urban, among many others. Finally, in such ideas and utopias, to redesign both education and the urban, was to conceive of modernity. The theme of citizenship is another topic in which the urban and the school interlock. Both from a conceptual point of view and from the standpoint of historical experience, the theme of citizenship constantly refers to the city, to urbanity and civility, and thereby, via intricate paths, to education. If the modern political and educational thoughts have made school the entrance door to citizenship, they have also connected the notions of urbanity and schooling. It is no accident that in many Brazilian preschools at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries one of the basic disciplines was Urbanity.
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At the same time that the relationship between the school and the urban is characterized by all kinds of utopias that seek to articulate various memories and social projects, they are both indebted to the mercantilization of social life observed under capitalism. Established since the founding moment of the educational thought and of modern urbanism, the perspective of the city and of education as business seem fully realized by the end of the twentieth century. The relevance of this theme makes it an object of the concern of a considerable share of social thinkers – the education thinker here included – in the last centuries (some would say, since antiquity). They undoubtedly offer us incentives to understand and criticize the ways in which the intertwining of the urban with the school has taken place. There is, in fact, on a theoretical level, another interlocking here: the use of common theoretical tools in the understanding of the school experience and the urban experience. Obviously, it is no accident that the widely known work of an author such as Michel de Certeau serves the dual purpose of helping us understand the city and the school, or more to the point, the experience in/of the city and the experience in/ of the school. By making explicit the differences between the discursive rationalities of the urbanists, writers, and prescriptions in general, on one side, and the astuteness of the tactics of the walkers, readers, and practitioners in general, on the other side, Certeau gives us essential elements to help us avoid the traps of apparent obviousness and lack of conflict hidden under terms such as citizenship and rationality, when they refer to the school and the urban in modernity. In fact, the most varied conflicts of interest are explicitly and articulated around those two points, offering themselves to our view under the multiple facets taken by the historical process of schooling society. Under this perspective, to focus on the public school in Brazil during a significant part of the period analyzed means to understand the history of a school that develops within the urban environment, and that is made public in the dual sense it has acquired to us: of something that takes place within the public sphere – in opposition to happening within the private sphere of the home – and of something that constitutes an institution maintained by the public authorities for the whole population. Mostly in the nineteenth century, there were many private or domestic schools in Brazil. They were created by parents or a great farmer, maintained by these people with their own resources and installed in the teachers’ home or some other private place. Bringing these schools to the public sphere was a dynamic commonly found in almost every Brazilian state or province,4 making state or public a primary (or elementary) school formerly organized by a private teacher/master. That required the government to take responsibility for paying the teachers and supplying the schools with materials in addition to adapting or constructing schools buildings. In this analysis we are therefore most concerned with the history of the process of schooling and the constitution of the school model of socialization of new generations. We try to display its general features, always keeping in mind that it develops very unevenly across different Brazilian regions and that consequently our analysis will often only capture its most important and defining lines. To delve into more specific moments and environments would require a study based on different sources and a different theoretical and methodological framework, quite impossible for us at this moment and under the bounds of the present text.
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We intend to follow the debates that took place in the field of education throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and more specifically those debates that referred to the distribution and organization of pupils, classes, and school spaces. This procedure highlights the challenges the school had to face, both of a pedagogical order and of a social and political order, in its process of institutionalization.
Home-Schools The colonial period (1500–1822) gave us only a small number of royal schools or public chairs of first letters, created mainly since the latter half of the eighteenth century. With teachers recognized or labeled as such by the public bodies responsible for education, these schools operated in improvised spaces, such as churches, sacristies, local council rooms, entrance rooms to Masonic Lodges, commercial buildings, or in the residences of the masters themselves (Barbanti, 1977; Hilsdorf, 1986). In the latter case, the teachers sometimes received a small allowance to help with their rent. It was not unusual for the four-hour teaching period to be divided into two sessions: from 10 to 12 A.M., and from 2 to 4 P.M. However, we cannot say that only those who went to school had access to the first letters. On the contrary, there is evidence that a network of domestic schooling, that is, of teaching and learning of reading, writing and of calculation, particularly of the first of these, served a number of people well above that of the state public system. Until well into the nineteenth century, as far as one can tell, these schools, sometimes called private, sometimes domestic, exceeded in number those with a direct link with the State.5 They made use of spaces provided and organized by the parents of children and youths the teachers were to instruct. It was not unusual to find neighbors and relatives alongside those children. Paying the teacher was the responsibility of the head of a family, usually a farmer. Another school education model that established itself during the nineteenth century was characterized by the initiative of parents as a group creating a school then collectively hiring a teacher. The fundamental difference in this model, quite similar to the previous one in other respects, is the fact that the school and its teacher kept no links with the state, despite the growing efforts of the latter in several moments to subject these experiences to its designs. It is this multiplicity of school models, to which one could also add the boys-only and girls-only college, and the preceptorship, that we note existed in the nineteenth century. The word ‘college’ is used here with the same meaning it had during the Modern Age (see Hamilton, 1989). All of them, with the exception of the single-sex college, made use of improvised spaces in families’ or teachers’ houses and in public or commercial buildings. Slave children were largely forbidden to attend those schools until the last decades of the nineteenth century: this did not mean that they did not have contact with letters, and were not instructed, simply that they were educated in a more familiar or communal model of schooling. The issue of the space in which to harbor the public primary school began to surface mainly in the second decade of the nineteenth century, when intellectuals and politicians initiated the debate around the need to adopt a new teaching method in Brazilian
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schools: the mutual method (Bastos & Faria Filho, 1999). They argued that the way in which the school was organized, with the teacher teaching each pupil individually, even when their classes were composed of several students (the individual method), prevented the school from being offered to a larger number of people, making the school costly and less efficient. Brazilian politicians and intellectuals demanded faster, cheaper schools with better trained teachers.6 The method they advocated (largely employed in Europe) made it possible, according to its proponents, for a single teacher to have up to 1,000 pupils. They only required adequate space and materials and, above all, the help of teaching assistants. Everyone recognized that to accommodate dozens or even hundreds of apprentices it was necessary to build new school spaces. Moreover, such spaces were regarded as indispensable to the success of the school project they defended. Such space should take into account not just the number of students, but also the mobility of assistants among classes, the mobility of students inside the classrooms, the need to affix notices and other materials to the walls, among other innovations proposed. The advertising to promote the superiority of the mutual method was intense during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Emperor Pedro I himself to called for its adoption and, in 1827, made it mandatory in all first letters public schools of the Empire. The first educational law of independent Brazil was sanctioned on October 15, 1827 and determined that: in each capital of province there shall be a School of Mutual Teaching; and in those towns, villages, and more populous places in which a public building can be found suitable to the application of this method the school shall be of mutual teaching, its teacher being obliged to instruct himself at the respective capital within a given period, and at his own expenses, should he lack adequate training in this method. (Villela, 1999, p. 150) It was as part of the advertising of the mutual method that in 1825 the Minas Gerais newspaper O Universal circulated the following concern: “The problem to be solved is therefore: how can we generalize a good elementary education without large expenses by the Government, and without taking from the working classes the time they need to dedicate to the various pursuits of their occupations?” (O Universal, July 18, 1825). This preoccupation, as regards time and its use, in school or otherwise, was at the center of modernity itself, and was naturally a central aspect within the schooling processes. The discussion turned, on one side, to the relation between the school and other social institutions or occupations, among them the family and work, seeking especially to make parents realize the importance of the school and of making sure their children attended school regularly. However, it seems to us that this was not the main issue. The central aspect here was the progressive establishment of the school time, which needed to be in constant dialogue with other social times. This school time was gradually invested, in the discourses of that period, with a specificity that showed up in a more productive perception of teaching, made possible from the repartitioning and sequential organization of school contents, necessary to the activities of teaching assistants in their relation with the group of apprentices (divisions).
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Beginning in 1834, the distancing of the central government in the Empire from the expansion of elementary public schooling, signaled a transfer of responsibility for schooling to the provinces. The diversity of economic and political activity across several Brazilian regions, together with the relatively high costs of maintaining mutual teaching (e.g., expenses for notice boards, geometric solids, benches and desks for all students, pointing sticks and daises for the assistants, bells and rattles for sound signals, sandboxes for writing, slates and blackboards), appears to us to be two of the major reasons for the decline of mutual teaching as early as the 1840s. This was followed by its progressive combination with simultaneous or individual teaching, creating the hybrid method, or of its substitution by individual teaching. The material and spatial reality of the Brazilian school remained a topic of debate for the next 30 years. In the 1870s the diagnostics from the various professionals working at schools or in the administration of the services of instruction, or still from politicians and other people interested in the education of the public, such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers were unanimous in stating the precariousness of the spaces occupied by the schools, particularly the public ones, but not just these, and defended the urgency of the construction of buildings specific to the carrying out of preliminary education. The newspapers of the time circulated texts denouncing the destitution of primary education: Since the teacher is poor, and meager is his salary, the school is installed in any room, as long as it is cheap and can absorb his wages. For furniture, he will seek two or three wooden benches, a chair for himself, a desk upon which he can at least rest his elbows and make notes, a pot and a mug, and so we have raised the well-appointed palace of instruction. Inside, twenty, thirty or forty children will group, having as their sole horizon the somber cracks of a lattice, and during four or five daily hours they will torment the ears and the larynx vocal chords in a dismal uproar, breathing vitiated air and dust, ruining their health, tiring the intelligence, killing the will to learn, the natural child curiosity and the patience (…). The result is the school becoming the children’s bad dream. (Editorial of A província de São Paulo, 13/01/1876, apud Hilsdorf, 1986, p. 104) This editorial summarizes several of the arguments used by the critics of nineteenth century schools: the poor salaries of the teachers, the lack of buildings adequate for the teaching, the material and methodological poverty of the classes, and the disrespect for rules of hygiene. Nevertheless, in this same decade the province of São Paulo saw the start of investments in school buildings with the inauguration in 1876 of the first school building in the borough of Arouche, with “benches made in the American system at the Ipanema plant,” followed by others in the boroughs of Luz and Santo Amaro. (Hilsdorf, 1986, pp. 104–105) It was particularly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the efficacy of elementary schooling finally managed to associate itself to the school building, thereby indicating the victory of those who claimed the superiority and specificity of official education with respect to other forms of social formation and socialization such as the family, the Church, and even of communities. Such representation was
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articulated at the junction of various factors, among which we wish to emphasize those of political-cultural, pedagogical, scientific and administrative orders. With regard to the first of these, we must consider that the institutionalization of schooling and the strengthening of the Imperial State were both phenomena of a politicalcultural order. Related to this is the fact that schooling, in the modern world, has emerged as an institution that has functioned to display and strengthen state power structures. Some even mark the realization of modern statehood as the point at which education was formalized. In Brazil, as demonstrated by Ilmar H. Mattos (1994), school education during the nineteenth century was progressively taking the features of a fight of the state government against the home government. In these terms, symbolically, to take the school away from the domestic environment also meant to distance it from the cultural and political traditions around which the domestic space organized and presented itself. Second, the pedagogical discussions, especially those that referred to the methodological proposals, demonstrated the need to build places dedicated to the school as a condition for it carrying out its specific social function. Thus, the defenders of the intuitive method in the third quarter of the 1800s, just like the proponents of the mutual method at the beginning of the century, argued that the classroom space should respect the new pedagogical principles then associated with the lessons of things. The new method insisted on the importance of changing teaching from abstract to concrete, allowing the student to acquire knowledge through the senses. It made necessary use of an innovative arsenal of didactic-pedagogical materials (globes, notices, collections, desks, notebooks, books) that were supposed to define a school. Such a standardization would limit the places where schooling could take place, thereby maximizing the benefits possible by the newly conceived spaces for schools. The development of scientific knowledge, notably that of medicine, and within it of hygiene, and its approximation to the pedagogical doing had a decisive influence upon the definition of the need for a specific place for the school (Gondra, 2000). At the same time that they developed a sharp criticism of the awful conditions of habitation and of the other buildings to the general population’s health, the hygienists emphasized above all the damage caused to children by the appalling school buildings, regarded as detrimental to their health and learning. Finally, the lack of adequate spaces for schools was also seen as an administrative problem, in the sense that the school institutions, isolated and distant from each other, ended up not being inspected, failing to offer reliable indicators of the development of teaching and, moreover, absorbing a significant part of the budget in renting the school house and that of the teacher. So, teachers were not controlled, statistics were forged, teachers mixed their teaching activities with other professional pursuits, and many times the classes literally did not take place.
Monument Schools It was necessary to wait until the mid-nineteenth century, first in São Paulo and then in several other Brazilian states, to propose the creation of Graded Schools. In and through these schools, the Republicans tried to make visible the Republic and its exemplary, and sometimes spectacular, educational project.
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The Graded Schools, conceived and built as veritable temples of knowledge (Souza, 1998), embodied simultaneously an array of knowledge and of political-educational projects, and introduced the ultimate nineteenth-century education model: that of the graded schools. Presented as the way in which the Republicans could break free from the Imperial past, the Graded Schools looked forward, projected a future in which, under the Republic, the people, reconciled with the nation, would beget an orderly and progressive country. Often monumental, these schools were built from blueprints according to the number of pupils, usually four, eight, or ten classrooms, distributed along one or two floors, with spaces allocated to school library, school museum, staff common room, and administration. Erected symmetrically around a central courtyard, they offered separate spaces for the education of boys and girls. To the formal division of the drawing, a wall was sometimes added, creating a physical barrier and preventing communication between the two sides of the school. These buildings had separate lateral entrances for boys and girls. Despite being based on standardized blueprints, the buildings took on varying features, having their façades altered. Many designs proposed a variation on the size of the classrooms according to the grade of teaching. The classrooms for the first series were larger than those for the final years of primary schooling. This was in agreement with the constant dropout of older pupils observed during the process of establishment of the Graded Schools (but not only then). Normally, toilets were not part of the main body of the building, being connected to it by covered passageways. The materials of intuitive teaching, the desks affixed to the floor, the central position of the teacher, all seemed to indicate predefined places for pupils and teachers in the classroom. Outside it, the courtyard was the place for the distribution of children. Activities such as gymnastics or singing that took place in it sought to give it appropriate uses. The rigid division of the sexes, the precise definition of individual places inside the classroom, and the control of body movements during class breaks gave shape to a dispositional and motor economy that distinguished the school pupil from one not attending a school. On the other hand, contact with the monumental architecture, the wide corridors, the tall ceilings, the grand dimensions of windows and doors, the rationalization and cleanliness of spaces, and the way the school building stuck out among the other city buildings were designed to impress upon the students the appreciation for rational and scientific education, valuing a cultural and aesthetical symbolism constituted by the lights of the Republic. If new school spaces were necessary to accommodate graded schooling, to allow the respect for the hygiene standards of the late nineteenth century, to facilitate school inspection, to favor the introduction of the intuitive method and to disseminate the Republican ideology, new school times also commanded attention. In an environment where the school was until then an institution that adapted itself to peoples’ lives, characterized by isolated schools insisting on having their times and spaces organized according to the conveniences of the teacher and pupils, and taking into account the local customs, it was not enough to produce and legitimize a new place for education. It was also necessary that new time references and new rhythms were constructed and legitimized.
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A first dimension of school time to be changed was the definitive imposition of simultaneous teaching. After dividing the classes according to level of knowledge and age, the pupils were assigned to a teacher, sometimes helped by an assistant, who should propose collective tasks. Each and every student was supposed to perform the same activity at the same time. Following the principles of wellness in vogue at the time, which made use of the idea of mental fatigue, the school contents were distributed along the daily journey, approximately 4 hours, in a rigid schedule. Each period of 10 or up to 25 minutes, depending on which state of the country the school was in, corresponded to a class, and therefore to an exercise. After around three classes a 10-minute pause was made, when the pupils would march and sing inside the classroom. At noon there was a 30-minute lunch break. The detailing of the class schedules proposed by the Programs of Instruction, contemplating daily, weekly, monthly, and annual distributions of the teaching, learning, and evaluation process indicated the intent of delimiting the school time. To enforce schedules thus determined, in which minutes were counted and disciplines were distributed along their respective times for every day of the week and every year of the course, it was considered fit to provide these schools with norms and instruments for the control of time and school schedules. Instruments such as bells and tinklers were made part of the basic materials of Graded Schools, and many times of isolated schools as well. The Internal Regulation of Graded Schools and Isolated Schools of Minas Gerais determined that “every period of classes or of break shall be announced by the prolonged ringing of an electric bell or tinkler, at the discretion of the principal,” and furthermore that “disciplines programmed for each school day shall not be replaced even if there is shortage of classes in the week” (Article 13, paragraphs 5 & 6). The Regulation gave centralized control of the time to the principal of the school, subjecting the teaching work in one of its more fundamental aspects, namely, that of the daily distribution of disciplines along the period of a few hours in which the pupils remained in the school, to a predetermined order and logic, forbidding the substitution of disciplines or their displacement in time. The association of time and discipline is illustrated in the account of São Paulo inspector Mário Bulcão: The whole program of our schools should be organized distributing the disciplines along the days and hours of school work. In short: a schedule-program. In this way, the teacher would have before his eyes the discipline he should teach at any time of any day, and the inspector entering a school would know, by a simple look at his watch, which service would be being carried out. (Report, 1900, apud Souza, 1998, p. 220) And so it was this artificial time, adequate and ordered by human reason that the teaching regulations tried to impose on teachers, principals, pupils, and even families. Not by accident, this process occurred inside a social movement of rationalization of time, fitting to the capitalist relations that were then being established. The assessment of implementation of these tasks was one of the many functions of inspectors. At the Graded Schools we must note that the school principals tended to organize the time in
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their schools according to parameters other than those of the linearity and rigidity of the regulations. Despite the fact that the actions of teachers, pupils, principals, and even of inspectors were never a pure submission to the school order then imposed, we must recognize that, over time, the school acquired its own time and space, in spite of customs, health, hygiene, and culture of those attending it. Attendance, by the way, being for some a “fantasy” throughout the year, as some principals would express in their reports, was even more fantasized in months as December, a month of celebrations. Again, over time, we must acknowledge that the school simply stopped functioning during the last month of the year. The schooling in 4 or 5 years proposed by the Graded Schools, with readiness by the end of it in various knowledge areas of an encyclopedic character did not reflect to the wishes of the popular strata, who saw in the school (and not necessarily in schooling) a means of access to certain socially valued contents, such as reading, writing, and counting. Associated with the mandatory nature of teaching already announced since the 1870s, such schooling reinforced the intrusion of the State in family times and doings, dictating a new organization of daily tasks and schedules for the family, and also questioning the authorities constituted within the family sphere. It outlined conflict zones on what was regarded as the ideal school by the different social groups. The low attendance and the dropout rates in the final years of primary schooling can be seen as indicators of those disputes. At the same time, the lay orientation of the teaching in the Graded Schools and the establishment of a calendar of classes that respected few religious holidays pointed to other conflicts that would persist for almost a century in the standardization of state education in Brazil. It is inside this tension zone that the school culture developed, having the Graded School as its pivotal point. This is similar to what happened in the United States and described by Tyack and Cuban as promoting a grammar of schooling that crossed into the twentieth century: this grammar of schooling serves as a fundamental reference for the graded organization of classes, as well as for the rationalized use of time and spaces. It also guided the systematic control of the work of teachers and administrators. We can, however, identify changes that occurred over time, as we shall detail next.
Functional Schools Despite the fact that the first Graded Schools were built in São Paulo during the last decade of the nineteenth century, the construction of similar spaces was still a demand of a good part of state capitals in the 1920s and 1930s. In the city of Salvador, for example, at the few public schools: The teacher would meet with his own salary the costs of renting a classroom or a school building. There was no school furniture. It was up to the students to bring to the teacher’s home the chairs and desks, but poverty would not allow them to do so. The best they could do was to improvise with barrels, boxes, small board benches, narrow and precariously balanced stools, leather or rush chairs. Most
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common was for pupils to write while lying down facing the newspaper-covered floor, or else to perform their tasks kneeling around benches or chairs. (Nunes, 2000, p. 377) Regarded as models of a new form of school education, particularly insofar as they made possible a better use and performance of school time, the Graded Schools had quite distinct histories in the various Brazilian states. Such differentiation, generally speaking, followed the evolution in the organization of the states’ public systems of primary education up until the New State (Estado Novo) in the 1937–1945 period, when nationwide guidelines on education put forward by a central body (the Ministry for Health and Education) tended to homogenize school contents, methods, times, and spaces. Until then, education in several Brazilian states (and several provinces of the Empire) followed guidelines defined by the Departments of Public Instruction for the primary, professional, and normal (teacher training) levels: a legacy of the division into provincial and Imperial jurisdictions that took place in 1834. Regardless of not being established throughout the country, the Graded Schools in the 1920s and 1930s suffered changes in the form and culture of schooling they represented. The teaching reforms inspired in the New School ideas, the diversity of proposals they advocated and their different realizations notwithstanding,7 had the tendency of resignifying times and spaces of primary schools. In search of greater homogenization of the aesthetic and cultural message that the school buildings transmitted, a survey about colonial architecture was carried out in 1926 by Fernando de Azevedo on behalf of the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper. Collecting the impressions on Brazilian architecture of architects, educators, and physicians, the survey allowed Azevedo to propose a new standard for school architecture: the neocolonial. In their conception, school buildings should carry the distinctive mark of Brazilian identity so as to advance in children the attachment to the nation’s values and the signals of nationality. In this sense, evoking a supposed colonial architectural tradition, Azevedo pointed to the neocolonial architectural style as the school architecture par excellence. In the following year, when taking charge of the General Directorate of the Public Instruction of the Federal District (Rio de Janeiro), therefore the Brazilian capital’s, he initiated a construction program of school buildings, which in three years put up nine school buildings in neocolonial style. The principles that should guide the construction of these edifices were based on pedagogical needs (e.g., adequate lighting and ventilation, playrooms, play courtyards, toilets, etc.), aesthetic (e.g., promoting the taste for the beautiful and for the artistic), and patriotic (e.g., promoting Brazilian identity by recalling colonial architectural values, and by the cultivation of Brazilian traditions). The environment, according to the reformer, should be educative, that is, joyful, pleasurable, picturesque, and with a captivating landscape. The blueprints gave visibility to several aspects of the New School ideals. They incorporated spaces such as dental and medical clinics and laboratories, a requisite for school buildings from the 1910s. The single school entrance for boys and girls consolidated the principles of co-education promoted by the New School supporters in the 1920s. School libraries and museums were once again valued. Against the mere observation of pupils
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recommended by the intuitive teaching, the active school advised the constant activity of the student. Thus, instead of places of visitation, museums and libraries also became spaces of experimentation. The rigid division of schedules in the primary school was questioned by the new methods, particularly by the design method. The sequential division of school time in activities, previously related to hygiene and biological features of the pupil, was now replaced by the psychological time of the pupil’s interest. It is not the time that indisputably fixes the limit of the lesson, it is the psychological need, the interest raised of which the master must make use, working the subject without time limits, developing the work because the class is interested by itself, and therefore would not want to stop it. (Azevedo, 1930, p. 15) The high costs of the school buildings proposed by Azevedo earned him severe criticism from Rio de Janeiro educators and from the press. After all, given the shortage of public schools in Rio and the huge sums invested in the construction of just nine schools, Azevedo’s architectural plans were not satisfactory at a time when the expansion of the population attending primary school in Brazil was being emphasized. If, on one side, his project permitted a better rationalization of uses, with different spaces for each activity carried out inside the school, it was still attached to an aesthetical ideal of building that was reminiscent of the monumentality of the first Graded Schools. Expensive, the sumptuous school buildings of the first decades of the Republic absorbed a significant amount of the already meager budget for public instruction. The effort and expense made to bring to light the Republican realizations in the field of popular education became the target of criticism as movements for the democratization of the public school took shape. The monumental buildings began at this point to signify the restriction of education to the elite, and the contempt towards the education of the poorer. By criticizing the construction in the Fernando de Azevedo reform, a movement was to begin that would allow a change in the architectural conception of the school in Brazil. In the 1930s in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo a new policy for the construction of school buildings was taking shape. In 1933, Anísio Teixeira in Rio, and in 1936 Almeida Júnior in São Paulo introduced proposals for the construction of simpler and more economic school buildings. In this same period, in 1934, the Brazilian Education Association organized the first exhibition about school architecture. The standardization of the plants was also reaching the façades. The functionalist architecture offered scalable models of standard schools. The dialogue with the New School principles was being revitalized. A new survey, promoted by Almeida Júnior in São Paulo and published in 1936, revealed several criticisms of the school buildings of the 1890s–1930s. Educators, architects, engineers, doctors, hygienists, and psychologists were asked to express their opinions on the school buildings. To the São Paulo architect and teacher José Maria das Neves, the new buildings should be simple and inexpensive, refusing the colonial style. Of huge dimensions the school architecture did not admit symmetries; neither should it submit the placement
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of doors and windows to aesthetic standards. It was to the functional, rational architecture, making use of local materials, and respecting climate conditions, uses and customs, and not to architecture of façades, that the design of school spaces should be left (Apud São Paulo, 1936, p. 63). Noemy da Silveira Rudolfer, teacher of educational psychology at the Normal School of São Paulo, established the necessary relation between school time and space. By defending a closer approximation between the physical spaces and the activities of students and teachers, she affirmed that only thus the space would mean time: possibility of dilation of the school period to a more real, more integrated life (Apud São Paulo, 1936, p. 95). Almeida Júnior’s proposal projected school buildings varying from 4 to 25 classrooms, each classroom receiving 40 students, distributed along two or three floors, according to the population density of the borough where the school was located. They should have spaces for gymnastics, medical and dental clinics, showers, and orchards for the botanical studies and school hygiene. Buildings would be used in two daily shifts. In Rio, similar issues were discussed. Combining a model of nuclear schools or class-schools with that of park-schools or school parks, the Anísio Teixeira administration came up with even more original answers to the challenges of building inexpensive schools in different regions. Drawing support from the urbanist remodeling plan proposed by Alfred Agache, the Department of Education created a project of school building that sought to serve evenly the different boroughs of the city. Less densely populated areas would have school buildings of “minimal type,” with three classes or 240 pupils. To serve up to 1,000 students, up to 12 classes, “nuclear schools” were proposed. Approximately every four “nuclear schools” would correspond to a “park-school,” responsible for the gymnastics, musical and hygiene instruction, food assistance, and the practice of reading in children and youth libraries. The use of those spaces would be alternate, so that in the first shift the child would have the teaching “proper,” and in the second shift a fully equipped school park (Teixeira, 1935, p. 199). To complete the plan, “platoon” schools would still be built in three different models: 25 classes, for up to 2,000 pupils, 16 classes, for 1,300 pupils, and 12 classes for 1,000 pupils. The advantage of the “platoon” system consisted in optimizing the use of the school space. Classes did not have their own classrooms. Split into platoons, pupils moved between classrooms distributed according to preordained disciplines and schedules. By the end of 1935, 25 new schools had been built in the Federal District, two of the “minimal type,” eleven “nuclear 12 classes,” one “nuclear 8 classes,” five “platoon 12 classes,” one “platoon 16 classes,” three “platoon 25 classes,” and one “park-school,” apart from the reconstruction of the Machado de Assis school as a special, 6 classes school (Oliveira, 1991, p. 167). This intricate project associated different needs of space according to the location of the school, Secretary of Education financial resources, topographical conditions of each region, and pedagogical principles of social demands. The integration of the class-schools with the park-schools in alternate periods again displayed the time-space relation pointed out by Noemy Rudolfer. The proposal to reinterpret school space went even further with the abolition of the fixed desks. Chairs and tables constituted a new way of using the space in the classroom. Distributing the pupils in groups, the position of the furniture was altered, denying the posture facing the blackboard, and removing
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the teacher from the central position. In the reorganization of space and reordering of time, a new relation between teacher and pupils was being established. Changes in the conception of school time, brought about by the introduction of the design methods and of the centers of interest, changes in pedagogical relations as a consequence of the emphasis on the child’s activity, changes in the school space with the appearance of new school places such as children’s libraries and the hygiene educator office, these were some of the demands that the expansion of schooling imposed on the State. To value the experience and activities of the children, even if to discard it later, was a way found by the public offices to attract a growing number of pupils, with the aim of keeping them inside the school for a longer period, decreasing the distance between the school doings and the social doings of the popular classes. It was no small issue. To assess attendance, retention, and dropout rates, Teixeira carried out a survey which showed that school dropout reached all social categories in which pupils have been classified (indigent, poor, modest, and well-off). The average primary school attendance in the Federal District was around three years.8 After that period, poorer children would begin to work, and the well-off would prepare to enter secondary education. With the intent of adjusting to that reality, schooling was divided into two cycles: primary (first 3 years, with the objective of teaching reading, writing, and counting), and intermediate (the following 2 years, to improve the pupil’s cultural background). The goal was to fulfill the demand for elementary knowledge by the popular classes, as well as the general cultural honing by the elite. The new school buildings were also targeted at full-time education.9 This offered the opportunity for the school to realize the more cherished ideals of the New School educators namely, the laboratory school. Opening up to test these new proposals would allow for the observation and systematization of child behavior, the experimentation with new pedagogical methods and practices rooted in the Brazilian reality, and the construction of scales and measures, making it possible to define local scientific parameters. It also permitted the study of new social habits and their evaluation under Brazilian standards, as well as made visible the impact of the changes implemented by the action of the new educators in Brazil. In 1947, the full-time school project based on the articulation of class-schools and park-schools was implemented by Anísio Teixeira, this time in Bahia, when he became the Bahia State Secretary for Health and Education. It was based on similar principles to the Rio de Janeiro experience. To every four 1,000-pupil class-schools there would correspond one park-school for 4,000 pupils, working in alternate shifts. School times and spaces were distributed, according to Teixeira, in the following manner: The body of pupils would enroll in the four class-schools, where they would be organized into classes and series established by each school and where they would spend half of the complete nine-hour school period, divided into 4-1-4-hours. The other half of the time would be spent in the park-school, organized differently from the conventional school, with pupils now split mainly by age group and type of aptitudes not into groups of forty but of twenty pupils, which should during the week take part in work activities, physical education activities, social activities,
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artistic activities, and activities of organization and library. Each morning, half the students would be in the park-school and the other half would be distributed among the four class-schools. At noon, the students at the class-schools would go to the park-school, where they would have lunch, have a resting break, and then would be distributed, according to the program, among the different activities of the park-school. And the pupils who had spent the morning in the park-school would, in their turn, have lunch at the class-schools, and then be distributed among their school activities. (Teixeira, 1967, pp. 249–250) In 1950, the Carneiro Ribeiro Primary Education Center (the first and only institution to associate class-schools and park-schools in Bahia) was inaugurated. The experience was publicized by the United Nations, and the Center remained in operation until 1998. The Center also proposed offering a home to abandoned children. Full-time primary education was not, however, the biggest challenge faced by educators at the end of the 1940s. The expansion of the school system to the countryside, border regions and areas of immigrant colonization in the south of the country seemed to demand more immediate attention. At least, that was how the government would speak about the issue. The tone of official discourse was very similar to the diagnostics made at the end of the nineteenth century about Brazilian education. The statistics presented by the federal bodies were alarming. Of the 6.7 million school age children, only 3.2 million were enrolled in schools. Of the 44,000 schools in operation, only 6,000 had been built as schools and belonged to the government. All arguments, however, pointed to a watershed: urban schools and rural schools. The best buildings and most of the enrollments were in the cities. The countryside was presented as the focus of this attendance problem: it was suggested that virtually all of the population of school age students (from 7 to 12 years old) who were not served by schools were located in the rural areas. The proposal for the construction of rural schools was based on the ideal of simple buildings, without a well-defined standard, determined by a set of essential requisites, such as classrooms, covered patios for recreation, toilets, and a house for the teacher containing a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. Of the 6,160 buildings planned for construction between 1948 and 1949, only 1,216 had actually been built. The buildings were a result of agreements between the National Institute of Pedagogical Studies and the Brazilian states and territories, drawing from the National Fund for Primary Education (Presidential Bill No 4958 of January 14, 1942) (Brasil, 1942). The growing simplicity and economy of school construction proposed in the 1950s and 1960s, both for the city and for the countryside, pointed to changes in conceptions about school spaces and, therefore, about the place of the school in the Brazilian social environment. Instead of the lavishness displayed at the outset of the Republic, the struggle for the democratization of schooling made itself felt in functionalist buildings, technically designed for a quick and efficient education. They included specific places for machinery, such as a mimeograph, and in the more rustic solutions associating formal teaching to the teacher’s house in the rural areas. School times were also progressively dilating, both vertically (duration of the course) and horizontally (school schedules and length of school shift). Nevertheless, with the exception of isolated experiences, it was expected for children to stay in
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primary school for approximately 5 hours daily for 5 years. The extension of fundamental education to eight years would not come until the 1970s, with the approval of the Law of National Education Bases and Guidelines 5692/1971, and with the extinction of the Graded Schools. That, however, has not become a reality to this day. According to the 2003 census carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE),10 the average schooling of the Brazilian person is 6.4 years, and illiteracy among those 15 years old and older reaches 11.6%.
Final Comments The institutionalization of elementary, preliminary or primary school as a place of passage for all children was a long process in which the imposition of certain definitions of time, knowledge and school practices, sustained by the State, had to be constantly negotiated with the different social groups. Even though it involved reassessing the limits of school’s actions, redefining its objectives and revising its modes of action, a grammar of schooling was structured. Developed initially in urban areas and based on a written and industrialized model of society, this grammar of schooling managed, over time, to dictate all forms of schooling. Although this process has been going on for two centuries, it is still not totally consolidated in Brazil, especially in the rural zones. Recent statistics show very clear findings. Even though the 2003 census promoted by the IBGE reveals that only 2.8% of the population between 7 and 14 years of age were out of school, a breakdown of the data shows that a considerable fraction of school age children have not managed to finish the first cycle (first four series) of fundamental education, which grosso modo correspond to the old primary schooling. Data show that the average years of schooling for people between 10 and 14 years of age is 4.1 years: this would be the desirable schooling for students in the 7–10 years old range.11 If we isolate the rural context, this statistic is even more problematic. In 2000, almost one-third of the rural population was analphabet (29.79%). This rate decreases to one-tenth in urban areas (10.25%) at the same period. Contrary to the diagnostics made in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the schooling problem is no longer due to the shortage of places at school. According to Mansano Filho, Oliveira, and Camargo (1999, p. 40), since the 1980s there are, numerically speaking, enough places at school for all the population between the ages of 7 and 14. They warn, however, that the difficulty remains because of the series/age gap, and because of the criteria for the distribution of schools in the country, promoting a surplus of places in some units, whereas in others there is a shortage of places. The concern with guaranteeing that pupils remain at school has, again, provoked changes in the school times. According to the Law of National Education Bases and Guidelines promulgated in 1996 (LDBEN 9394/96): basic education can be organized in annual series, semestral periods, cycles, regularly alternating periods of study, non-serial groups, be based on age, competency and on other criteria, or by other forms of organization whenever the interest in the learning process so recommends.
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The Law still allows the reclassification of pupils, and the adjustment of the calendar to regional peculiarities, as long as the minimum of 200 school days per year is respected: an extension instituted in this law on the minimum of 180 days per year of the previous legislation (Law 5692/71). The relation between series and final exams, constituted at the end of the nineteenth century by the creation of the Graded Schools, was replaced by the “continual and cumulative evaluation of the pupil’s performance, with predominance of quantitative aspects over the qualitative, and of the results along the period over those of final exams, if they exist.” Lastly, the LDBEN fixed four hours as the minimum duration of effective daily work in the classroom for the fundamental school, which must be progressively extended aiming at the implementation of full-time schooling “at the discretion of the education systems.” The new mechanisms put in place try to give an answer to the tensions faced, still today, in the schooling process for all the population between 7 and 14 years of age, and therefore in the institutionalization of primary school in Brazil. These lingering problematics also stimulate us to keep asking questions: three questions are key, (1) “What type of school do the various contending groups in society want?” (2) “What are the multiple representations of school, of school time and space, at play in those desires?” and (3) “what can those representations tell us about the various social functions attributed to school and schooling by the distinct groups, as well as about the living conditions of those populations, and about the inequalities in Brazilian society?” Our own hope is that we might find in the understanding of these different hopes placed upon the school institution a path to the construction of a truly democratic school.
Notes 1. As determined by Article 1 of Law No 13 published in Minas Gerais in 1835, which is quite similar to other laws published around the same time in other provinces, “the primary instruction is composed of two degrees. In the first, reading, writing, and the four basic arithmetic operations shall be taught, and in the second level reading, writing, arithmetic up to proportions, and general notions of moral and religious duties.” Second-degree schools are those located in larger towns and villages, and firstdegree schools are located in places with smaller populations. Wherever there were second-degree schools, first-degree schools would not be installed. As to the contents, in schools for girls, besides the contents for the first-degree school, there would be “orthography, prosody, general notions of moral, religious and domestic duties” (Article 3). 2. “In the list of disciplines that became part of the syllabus of preliminary schools in the State of São Paulo since 1892 one can find all those disciplines of a scientific and moral nature that had been introduced in the syllabi of primary schools in several European countries and in the United States of America from the second half of the nineteenth century. They included: reading and fundamentals of grammar, writing and calligraphy, counting and calculating with integer numbers and fractions, practical geometry (tachymetry) with the necessary concepts for its application to the measure of surfaces and volumes, metric decimal system, freehand drawing, moral practice, civic education, elements of general geography, cosmography, Brazilian geography, especially of the State of São Paulo, notions of physical and natural sciences in their simpler applications, particularly to hygiene, Brazilian history and readings on the lives of great names of history, music reading and singing, gymnastics and military exercises appropriate to age and gender. An encyclopedic syllabus for a republican and lay school. From it the Christian doctrine had been excluded, denoting the lay character of the Republic” (Souza, 1998, pp. 171–172).
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3. The complexity of the syllabi in the 1920s and 1930s led to the creation of teaching books and guides. The contents of the programs were no longer included in the text of the education laws and regulations, as was then usual, and appeared in specific publications. That was the case of the editions prepared by the Fernando de Azevedo reform (1927–1930) and Anísio Teixeira reform (1931–1935) in Rio de Janeiro. To mention just a few examples: Programma para os Jardins de Infˆancia e para as Escolas Primárias (1929), Rio de Janeiro: Officinas Gráphicas do Jornal do Brasil; Programa de linguagem (1934), Departamento de Educação do Distrito Federal. Série C. Programas e guias de ensino, no. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Cia. Editora Nacional; Programa de ciˆencias sociais (1934), Departamento de Educação do Distrito Federal. Série C. Programas e guias de ensino, v. 1, no. 1, 2, 3 e 4. Rio de Janeiro: Cia. Editora Nacional. 4. The Brazilian history traditionally recognizes three political-administrative periods. The first, Colonial, goes from the arrival of the first Portuguese ships in 1500 to the Proclamation of Independence in 1822. The second period is called the Imperial, since with the separation from Portugal the monarchic regime is installed in Brazil. The third period begins with the establishment of the Republic in 1889. During the Imperial period, the various political-territorial units were called Provinces, which became the States after the Republic. 5. The Minas Gerais experience, which does not seem to be unique in this respect, clearly demonstrates it. In 1827, Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos claimed that in Minas Gerais there were 23 public schools and 170 private schools. 6. The first Normal School created in Brazil, in Niterói in 1835, aimed at disseminating the principles of the mutual method, preparing its pupils for its use (see Villela, 1999). 7. The decentralized character of the administration of primary education caused the Provinces, and then the States, to develop the education in their own territories. Hence the difficulty to analyze globally the changes made to primary education in Brazil. Transformations were local and differentiated. Despite topical variations, however, in the 1920s and 1930s several reforms were made in various States based on the ideas of the New School, particularly in São Paulo (Sampaio Dória, 1920–1925, M. B. Lourenço Filho, 1930–1931, Fernando de Azevedo, 1933, and A. F. Almeida Jr., 1935–1936), Minas Gerais (Francisco Campos, 1927–1930), Rio de Janeiro (Carneiro Leão, 1923–1926; Fernando de Azevedo, 1927–1930; Anísio Teixeira, 1931–1935), Ceará (M. B. Lourenço Filho, 1922–1923), Bahia (Anísio Teixeira, 1925–1927) and Pernambuco (Carneiro Leão, 1928–1930). For a study of the reforms, see, among many others, Nagle, 1976, and Carvalho, 2000. 8. The distribution of pupils in 1932 in primary education was: first year: 39.978; second year: 19.265; third year: 13.544; fourth year: 7.593 and fifth year: 4.150. Less than one third of the pupils enrolled in the third year. The fourth and fifth years represented just 10% of total enrollment (Teixeira, 1935, p. 36 e 77). 9. For full-time education we are referring to schools where students stay all day long (morning and afternoon), taking class and participating in other activities for about eight hours a day. 10. Results for the census were retrieved at http://www.ibge.gov.br on June 28, 2005. 11. In the 1999 census carried out by the IBGE we can see that 11.2% of the population between 8 and 14 years of age had not completed even the first year of the fundamental education, and that 27.4% of the population between 11 and 17 years of age had not completed the fourth year. At that time, the average schooling of a Brazilian was around 6.1 years.
References Azevedo, F. de. (1930). A Escola Nova e a Reforma. Boletim de Educação Pública, 1(1): 7–23, jan./mar. [The New School and the Reform. Report on Public Education]. Barbanti, M. L. H. (1977). Escolas americanas de confissão protestante na província de São Paulo: um estudo de suas origens. Dissertação de Mestrado: Universidade de São Paulo. [American Protestant Schools in the Province of São Paulo: A study on its origins]. Bastos, M. H. C., & de Faria Filho, L. M. (1999). A escola elementar no século XIX – o método monitorial/ mútuo. Passo Fundo: EDUPF. [The Elementary School in 19th Century. The Monitorial/mutual Method]. Brasil. (1942). Fundo Nacional do Ensino Primário (decreto-lei 4.958, de 14/1/1942). [National Fund for the Primary School System (Decree-law n. 4. 958, 01/14/1942)].
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Carvalho, M. M. C. (2000). Reformas da instrução pública. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, & L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 anos de Educação no Brasil (pp. 225–252). Belo Horizonte: Autˆentica/Prefeitura Municipal de Belo Horizonte. [Reforms in the Public Education. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 Years of Education in Brazil]. Chartier, R. (1991). O mundo como representação. Estudos Avançados, 5(11), 173–191. [The World as Representation. Advanced Studies]. Gondra, J. G. (2000). Medicina, higiene e educação escolar. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, & L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 anos de Educação no Brasil (pp. 519–550). Belo Horizonte: Aut eˆ ntica/ Prefeitura Municipal de Belo Horizonte. [Medicine, Hygine and School Education. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, & L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 Years of Education in Brazil]. Hamilton, D. (1989). Towards a theory of schooling. London: The Palmer Press. Hilsdorf, M. L. (1986). Francisco Rangel Pestana: jornalista, político, educador. Tese de Doutorado: Universidade de São Paulo. [Francisco Rangel Pestana: Journalist, Politician, Educator]. Mansano, F. R., de Oliveira, R. P., & de Camargo, R. B. (1999). Tendˆencias da matrícula no ensino fundamental regular no Brasil. In C. Oliveira, L. R. G. Arelaro, M. E. F. Rosar, F. R. Mansano, R. B. Camargo, & M. S. Sousa (Eds.), Municipalização do ensino no Brasil: algumas leituras (pp. 37–60). Belo Horizonte: Autˆentica. [Tendencies in the Enrolment in the Elementary School in Brazil. In C. Oliveira, L. R. G. Arelaro, M. E. F. Rosar, F. R. Mansano, R. B. Camargo, & M. S. Sousa Municipalization of the Education in Brazil: some readings]. Mattos, I. H. (1994). Tempos de Saquarema (2nd ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Acces. [Saquarema times]. Nagle, J. (1976). Educação e sociedade na Primeira República. São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro: EPU/Fundação Nacional do Material Escolar. [Education and Society in First Republic]. Nunes, C. (2000). (Des)encantos da modernidade pedagógica. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, & L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 anos de Educação no Brasil (pp. 371–398). Belo Horizonte: Autˆentica/Prefeitura Municipal de Belo Horizonte. [(Dis)enchantments of Pedagogical Modernity. In E. M. T. Lopes, C. G. Veiga, & L. M. de Faria Filho (org.), 500 Years of Education in Brazil]. Oliveira, B. (1991). A modernidade oficial: a arquitetura das escolas públicas do Distrito Federal (1928–1940). Dissertação de Mestrado: Universidade de São Paulo. [The Of icial Modernity: The Architecture of Public Schools in the Federal District]. O Universal. (18 de julho de 1825). Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. [The Universal]. São Paulo (1936). Novos prédios para grupo escolar. São Paulo: Secretaria da Educação e da Saúde Pública/ Diretoria de Ensino. [New Buildings for Primary Schools]. Souza, R. F. (1998). Templos de civilização. São Paulo: Ed. UNESP. [Temples of Civilization]. Teixeira, A. (1935). Educação Pública: administração e desenvolvimento. Relatório do Diretor Geral do Departamento de Educação do Distrito Federal. Dezembro de 1934. Rio de Janeiro: Off. Gráphica do Departamento de Educação. [Public Education: Administration and Development. Report of the Head of Education, Department of the Federal District]. Teixeira, A. (1967). A escola-parque na Bahia. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos, 47(106), 240–258. Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1999). Tinkering toward utopia. A century of public school reform. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Veiga, C. G. (2002). Cidadania e Educação na trama da Cidade: a construção de Belo Horizonte em fins do século XIX. Bragança Paulista: EDUSF. [Citizenship and Education in the City Net: The Construction of Belo Horizonte in the Late 19th Century]. Villela, H. (1999). O ensino mútuo na origem da primeira escola normal do Brasil. In M. H. C. Bastos, & L. de. M. Faria Filho (Eds.), A escola elementar no século XIX: o método monitorial/mútuo (pp.154–176). Passo Fundo: EDUPF. [The Mutual teaching in the Origin of the First Normal School in Brazil. In M. H. C. Bastos, & L. M. Faria Filho, (Eds.), The Elementary School in 19th century: The Monitorial/ mutual Method]. Vincent, G., Lahire, B., & Thin, D. (2001). Sobre a história e a teoria da forma escolar. Educação em Revista, 33, 7–47. [On history and the theory of school form. Education in Review].
32 LEARNING CYCLES: TRANSITION POLICIES FOR A NEW LOGIC OF COMPULSORY SCHOOLING IN BRAZIL Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia Souza University of São Paulo, Brazil
The idea underlying learning cycles is to correct the school fragmentation arising from the grading system by adopting a flexible school work organization. It is argued that this best fits the learning needs of compulsory school students, since it is able to avoid repetition between one or more academic years. Learning cycles started to develop in Brazil in the middle of the last century. At that time, Brazil was one of the countries presenting the highest retention levels in Latin America according to educational statistics: schools retained almost 60% of the students who were supposed to be promoted from the first to the second grade of primary school. Retention was so connected to school failure. There were many reasons to address this problem, other than political ones, such as the urgent need to make the four years of compulsory school universal, guaranteeing the Brazilian population the education required by the country’s quick pace of growth and urbanization. In order to conserve resources, it was necessary to look for alternatives that would make a greater supply of vacancies possible, since retention caused great harm to the public school system because it restricted its ability to meet the demand for education. There were also pedagogical and psychological reasons, such as the importance of fully developing students’ potential and enhancing their self-esteem. Fifty years later, organizing schools in cycles became a primary measure to democratize education in the sphere of public policies outlined for primary education. What has changed and what remains the same about the reality of Brazilian schools that may justify this point of view. Although Brazil has better development levels than other Latin American countries in many aspects, it has comparatively bad education indicators. Although the compulsory eight years school was established in the 1970s, the universal schooling was accomplished only by the end of the twentieth century. Moreover, although school indicators have gradually improved over the long term, retention has remained an obstacle for many Brazilians. At the turn of the century, almost half of primary school students presented an age/grade mismatch. This means that the number of vacancies required to enroll all students of this school level was much higher than the 601 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 601–618. © 2007 Springer.
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number of those which would be necessary to educate children from 7 to 14 years old, if they could study during the eight years of compulsory school without being interrupted by retention. This also means, of course, that correcting this mismatch would make it possible to raise more resources to improve school quality, as well increase the number of vacancies in the subsequent levels. In spite of these faults in the Brazilian school system, Brazilians have also been facing new school requirements. In response to these new demands, the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Brazilian Law for Education Guidelines and Norms (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional) enacted in 1996, have considerably extended the scope of basic education. Since then, the public basic school encompasses both primary school and early childhood education (for children aged 0–6), as well as high school (for students aged 15–17): this shift also indicates a progressive universalization of this last education segment. Under these circumstances, the extension of high school in a reasonable period of time also supposes the removal of barriers to the conclusion of primary school. According to the school census of 2003, however, about half (50.5%) of the 9.1 million students aged 15–17 were still in primary school,1 whereas only 49.5% of students of this age range attended high school. These data reveal the need for measures to correct the student flow from primary into secondary schools. Being admitted to school and then to be retained at that grade level for the following year, means to undergo an exclusion process of dimensions that are more tragic than the prior exclusion of students due to lack of schools in the past. Today, the fact that many students do not master basic knowledge and are not, therefore, able to meet course requirements in schools, is typically attributed to personal incompetence (Dubet, 2003). Learning cycles are a central part of policies intended to reverse this interpretation of student failure, such as policies also seeking to guide public schools to build an inclusive culture.
Learning Cycles: A Concept Under Construction We may point out a number of initiatives adopted by the Brazilian school system involving the concept of learning cycles. The shades of its meanings, resulting from different historical contexts and from concepts of education which have changed over time, indicate that the concept of learning cycles is to be built by the multiple experiences that intend to guarantee every citizen’s right to education. The first proposals of this nature date back to the 1960s and 1970s and are based on the school organization adopted in England. The English model was made known as a reference in Brazil in the middle of the last century. In the Brazilian case, they have generically been called continued progression and are characterized as intermediary stages between the graded school regime and the age promotion regime in force in the English system: note that in the latter, student progression is not interrupted during the years of compulsory schooling. The Brazilian experiences during this period, by contrast, were not much publicized. The use of the term learning cycle for alternatives to the non-graded school organization is recent. This term first appeared in the mid-1980s. Since then, many different
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names have been assigned to learning cycles, according to the specific arrangements of school systems.2 Some public school systems implemented learning cycles encompassing only the first two or three primary school years, where literacy is concentrated. In these cases, the learning cycle is usually called basic or literacy cycle. Other initiatives with learning cycles encompass all of primary school. Among them, some use students’ development stages as an organizer, setting the three so-called human development cycles for students as childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence.3 Furthermore, there are also continuous progression cycles that divide primary education into two sets of four years each: One goes from the first to the fourth year, when students have generalist teachers, and the other goes from the fifth to the eighth year, with specialist teachers. The introduction of literacy cycles in the 1980s marked a period of greater synergy between the education systems. Since the 1990s, many schools have adopted learning cycles in their whole primary school. Thus, they may now either simply connect the former initial grades, or reorganize all grades in several groups. Learning cycle proposals that are committed to the democratization of education go beyond striving to make student flow more regular. Specifically, they incorporate more encompassing social and cultural dimensions, together with a new understanding of the nature and the ways of knowing, teaching, and learning. Even in the most conservative formulations the explicit mention of grades as a basic reference for curriculum planning is kept, while the strict interval of the academic year is no longer considered the final term for students to acquire the expected knowledge. There are, however, learning cycle school systems which have invested in deeper changes to school work organization, school culture, and educational practices with the purpose of reversing their prior exclusionary character. Although there are differences between the meanings assigned to learning cycles in different policies, it is possible to find common characteristics among them: in particular we note the purpose of overcoming the selective character of schools, of making them more flexible in order to accommodate students’ differences, and the practice of sharing this project with the school community. The emphasis given to these three elements in the various projects, how they are taken and translated into actions capable of making school changes possible, varies both in time and in the school contexts even within the same school system. It is also very much related to management changes enacted, even when the same political party that is leading the Executive branch remains in office. The duration of cycles has also varied greatly among school systems. However, justifications for the number of years learning cycles should last, usually resort to a range of theories: these justifications center around assessments of students’ biopsychological and social development, pedagogical reasons, and factors referring to school system structure, or combinations of them (Barretto & Sousa, 2004). Reconsideration of the experiences of learning cycles suggests the need to overcome the excessive tendency towards psychologization of the periods marked by learning cycles in some school systems and suggests the need for a deeper analysis of social and cultural factors in the determination of the contours of the students’ school progression. In short, we argue that admitting the existence of multiple causes for low achievement in schools, can increase the probability for school to become more sensitive and responsive to the reality of the student’s life.
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Learning Cycles: A Typical Organization for Urban Schools Educational alternatives which aim to break free from grading have been implemented in urban schools, primarily because these schools have traditionally followed strict organization of students in classes. The decision to pass students to the next grade or to retain them in the same grade for another year, is a structural element of the way such schools are organized. Although the primary education system in rural areas has 97,000 schools, representing 57% of schools in the country (School Census 2003), virtually every one of these are small schools, with a small number of students due to the geographical dispersion and relatively small number of people living in the countryside. Because of the intense urbanization the country has gone through, only 15% of the population lives in rural areas (National Sample Household Survey – Pnad, 2003). Currently, there are about 72,000 urban schools, but they account for 82% of primary school students. More than half of these rural schools have only one classroom and they offer only the three or four initial grades of primary school. These schools are referred to as isolated or single-teacher (unidocente) schools, because they usually have multi-grade classes under the responsibility of a single teacher: this teacher teaches all students, who are not separated according to their education level. Although these rural schools have problems, arising mainly from the poor conditions of life and work in rural areas, these schools have an organizational and work dynamic that functions to minimize the artificial fragmentation of content frequently found in the grading system. Many challenges must be faced in rural education: these include the access-related issues and the time students can stay in school and the organization of school work to make multigrade classroom work viable. Such schools must also contend with teachers who are less well-prepared, as well as the low availability of teaching materials and the lack of funds for equipment and repairs. However, it does appear that rural schools use school time and space in a more flexible way compared to urban schools. Urban schools that adopt the cycles are, usually, public schools. It is up to the state or municipal4 governments to adopt them or not. Private schools, by contrast, usually prefer to maintain the traditional organization in grades, but they only account for about 10% of all primary school students. The small number of students enrolled in private schools, as might be expected, usually come from the middle or upper class. Students who go to public school, however, represent the full range of Brazil’s social strata. Thus, we cannot use the urban school category in Brazil, to explain the differences in public school services. In some municipalities and areas, urban public schools are the only ones available and students from all social strata attend them. In large towns and cities in metropolitan regions, by contrast, the types of public schools available tend to differ according to geographical location and the population that they serve. In Brazil, for example, a frequent distinction is that between the schools available in poor areas vs. the more affluent areas. We should note that schools located in poor areas, in decaying urban regions or popular neighborhoods especially where low-income people are concentrated, are not considered a formal category.
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How Many and Where are Schools with Learning Cycles? Although there was a large increase in the number of schools with learning cycles in the 1990s and while the importance of implementing learning cycles has been acknowledged both in the pedagogical discourse and by school management, this form of school organization is not the standard practice in Brazil: the graded regime remains the most common organizational arrangement. Learning cycles were adopted by 18.9% of primary schools in 2003, and 11% of them have exclusively this form of organization. However, if we consider the number of students attending schools with learning cycles, the percentage of enrollment is much higher due to the size of schools and their geographic location. In 2003, for example, about 36% of primary school students were enrolled in schools organized exclusively in learning cycles, or having more than one form of organization. When the option for cycles is made, it is usually extended to the set of school units of an entire school system. Sometimes, however, system managers give each school the option of deciding whether to adopt this kind of organization or not. This is one of the reasons why we need to understand learning cycles as a policy of school systems, rather than as isolated school policies (Franco, 2003). The number of enrollments in schools with learning cycles is not equally distributed among the five Brazilian geographical regions. When we focus on the data in the Table 1, we can see that schools with learning cycles are concentrated in the Southeast of Brazil. Here, fully 86.7% of students are attending schools organized exclusively in learning cycles: the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais have the largest number of these students. In the remaining regions, by contrast, the percentage of enrollment in schools organized exclusively by learning cycles is relatively low. Moreover, 41.3% of enrollments in schools adopting mixed regimes (grades and cycles) are also located in the Southeastern region. Among other mixed regime schools, the next highest percentage of enrollments is found in the Northeastern region (36.9%). That means that although very few Northeastern schools are exclusively based on learning cycles, a very substantial number of students attend schools adopting mixed regimes. However, there is a relatively large undefined area regarding the precise identification of Table 1. Primary school – Brazil 2003. Number of Enrollments per region according to school organization (Attendance in millions) Deloitte Brazil: North Northeast Southeast South Central West
34.4 3.3 11.9 12.4 4.3 2.5
Total
Exclusively learning cycles
More than one form of organization
%
Deloitte
%
Deloitte
%
Deloitte
%
100.0 9.6 34.5 36.0 12.6 7.2
12.4 0.2 2.3 8.4 0.8 0.7
100.0 1.5 18.8 67.2 6.8 5.7
7.1 0.0 0.4 6.2 0.4 0.1
100.0 0.7 5.2 86.7 5.7 1.6
5.3 0.1 2.0 2.2 0.4 0.6
100.0 2.5 36.9 41.3 8.2 11.1
Note: Enrollment numbers represent millions. Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC.
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the number of students attending learning cycle classes in schools adopting more than one form of organization: an analysis of the number of students involved in cycles is complicated because data are collected based on the school and not on its students. Suffice it to say that the statistical indicators used by the Brazilian Ministry of Education should be more sensitive in order to clear up these uncertainties. Nevertheless, the available information makes it possible to affirm that there is a significant movement in Brazil, which is relatively widespread among the different Brazilian regions, to change the form of organization of schools. According to the distributions observed in Table 1, the level of regional development is not a determining factor for cycle adoption policies. Stated more directly, learning cycles are concentrated in the richest and most populated Brazilian region (the Southeast), and they tend to spread into a large number of schools, particularly those in the poorest Brazilian region, which is also very populated (the Northeast). It is possible, however, to associate the implementation of the cycle regime to both poverty and population density (Franco, 2003). There are proportionally more schools with learning cycles in the Brazilian state capitals than in their respective state school systems. In spite of having more resources than many of the other municipalities in their state, these urban centers tend to have dense pockets of poverty: this poverty is unlike the widespread poverty found in the interior of the country. State or municipal schools with learning cycles, especially in the Southeastern region, tend to be concentrated in the metropolitan regions, the most populated ones, which is exactly where both extreme poverty and wealth are found. This is the case in Greater São Paulo, one of the largest urban concentrations in the world, Greater Rio de Janeiro and the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais. In these areas, there are many schools in poor neighborhoods. These areas also have high rates of violence and their schools do not work as well as schools in other regions. These factors mean that the conditions for implementing the changes demanded by learning cycles are very adverse, both from the point of view of the school culture and given the typical levels of the support offered to teachers and students.
Learning Cycles Analyzed by Academic Studies Studies on learning cycles intensified after the 1990s, when there was an increase in the number of schools adopting them. We will discuss key issues raised by these studies: this discussion is based on Cycles and School Progression in Brazil, conducted by a research group from the School of Education of the University of São Paulo (USP) which includes a series of publications from 1990 to 2002 (Sousa & Barretto, coords., 2004),5 as well as more recent work. This work encompass not only reflections about the fundamentals and conditions for the implementation of learning cycles which have, in turn, given rise to discussions about their assumptions and practical implications, but they have also included some important analyses. Such analyses focus on specific initiatives in the introduction of the cycles and examine the policies as they were formulated and implemented. Most of these studies, as might be expected, relate to state and municipal schools
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in the states and capital of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, especially those located in its capital, Belo Horizonte. This happens, of course, not only because the Southeast region has the most schools with learning cycles, but also because this region has the greatest number of graduate programs, where there is a focus on scientific publications.
Learning Cycle Fundamentals Despite the diversity in formulating learning cycles, there tends to be a consensus about the political, social, pedagogical, and psychological principles declared as fundamentals of the policies that propose them. Although several decades have gone by and the society, the world context and even educational systems have undergone many changes, the justifications for adopting learning cycles remains essentially the same (Barretto & Mitrulis, 2001). The cycle principles, however, lend themselves to different objectives. First, they have the potential to contribute by guaranteeing the right to education and to the democratization of teaching. Second, they play an important role in the preservation of the students’ self-esteem: it has been argued that they contribute to student development, while both respecting their differences and offering them quality learning. There have been some questions raised concerning the economy of resources when adopting cycles. School managers argue that the adoption of cycles usually results in good use of public money and a reduction in the money wasted when students repeat grades. A current reaction among some educators, by contrast, is to speak out against the implementation of learning cycles. They claim cycles have been adopted just because it was necessary to reduce expenditures on education. Typically, teachers do not identify investments compatible with the possibility of improving working conditions in schools with the quality of teaching. In spite such controversies over the economic arguments associated with the adoption of learning cycles, to date there are no studies which assess their real impact on investments and on government spending. Such studies would also be important to compare the gains in student performance resulting from their introduction. It is a common assumption among teachers that there are external influences from multilateral organizations in the determination of learning cycle policies: this is seen as a support for the economy of resources, which stems from the suppression of grade repetition. However, in the surveys examined there was no evidence that the adoption of learning cycles stems directly from pressure from these institutions, let alone that financial support is received from them. In this case, it is probably the general emphasis of the educational policy carried out by some school management teams in particular which can suggest this association.6 Another aspect which is greatly emphasized in the studies is that it is necessary to guarantee adequate conditions for the development of learning cycles. The most frequently mentioned conditions are the need for commitment of social actors to the proposal, adequate working conditions for their development, and teacher training. Besides working conditions, there is also an emphasis on the involvement of teachers and administrators who can reflect critically on the nature of the traditional school
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culture. This reflection is important for stimulating a conversation about breaking the current selective character of schools. These data also suggest the need for an investment in teacher training programs that go beyond their typical focus on the technical character of teaching. It has been argued that such new programs for teacher education should incorporate the political dimensions proposed in the reorganization of work in schools. Arroyo (1999), for example, places great emphasis on teacher training programs that are offered in exemplary schools. We must recognize that as learning cycles are not a finished proposal waiting to be put into practice by schools, their successful implementation depends greatly on the capacity of teachers at the school level to transform these general guidelines into a concrete project. Moreover, a more comprehensive reflection on the development of learning cycles suggests that it is also necessary for initial teacher education courses to include content that can lead future teachers to bring new perspective to their work, such as that required by the adoption of learning cycles.
Implementation Conditions It is noteworthy that in schools that have adopted learning cycles, this has been followed by the assignment or extension of collective work hours, as well as by the creation of mechanisms that enable individual students’ needs to be met. Among these mechanisms, the most frequent has been the catch-up programs offered to students in smaller groups outside of class or during regular classes. Nevertheless, according to many teachers, the proposed measures and resources made available have been insufficient to support the desired changes. This opinion has been voiced with higher or lower frequency depending on the state or municipal school and on the ability of the management team to support such conditions. Regardless of the context, however, this negative voice has been present. All too frequently, teachers do not identify themselves as co-participants in developing and implementing these cycle proposals: this is the case even in those schools that try to assure more participation of educators within a democratic management process. An often voiced concern of teachers is that they feel that the responsibility for all students’ learning success tends to be almost exclusively theirs. They believe, rather, that this responsibility should be shared by all levels of the school system. Research by Fernandes (2003) adds new and valuable insights into the working conditions in schools with learning cycles and the attitudes of the teachers who work in them: this is important because this is study of a school in a poor neighborhood of Niterói, a city in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. Instead of the typical research that focuses on the micro universe, the author’s thesis expands the survey to the whole nation by analyzing the questionnaires answered by teachers from a representative sample of schools in the tests of the 2001 Brazilian Basic Education Assessment System (SAEB). The analysis suggests that, new relations are likely to be established between schools with learning cycles and their neighborhoods. Working in particularly difficult social contexts, these schools tend to have a higher turnover of teachers. Overcrowded classrooms make it difficult to use alternative
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spaces for extra help to students, and therefore, this specialized attention is frequently not viable. The lack of staff is more frequent and the scarcity of pedagogical resources is more severe, which confirms the regressive character of public policies that end up more seriously affecting populations with less bargaining power. Nevertheless, though tending to move away from the conditions required for a pedagogical concept of learning cycles, which demands the continuity of the educational work and the solidarity of everyone in the school, the study suggests that it is in these schools and not in graded schools that teachers tend to be more committed to their pedagogical project and more involved with students’ learning. This probably happens because the very logic of the learning cycle contributes to destabilizing the way schools traditionally work, even though it has not affected radical change. In spite of adversities, Fernandes also points out some positive results for students, which stemmed from the adoption of learning cycles. This work demonstrates that by eliminating repetition, learning cycles have been responsible for the increase in the time students stay in school, for the advance in school progression and for the decrease in student absenteeism. It is hypothesized that students gain more from school because its role as the students’ socialization environment increases: thus, the significance of the school often replaces that of the streets, which is especially important for inhabitants of areas where violence and crime rates are high. Other authors have examined the impact of learning cycles. Bonel (1993), analyzing the implementation of learning cycles in the large school system of the State of São Paulo, suggests that the complex management of schools mediates between system management practices and what happens in the classroom. Bonel suggests that this mediation effect has made it difficult to be clear about learning cycles: as a result of this lack of clarity, they end up undergoing endless reinterpretations before they reach the classroom and frequently emerge in a form very distant from the original formulations. Several authors have pointed out that the discontinuity in the support of learning cycle implementation that arises from changes in the school management staff, has functioned to compromise the consolidation of these policies: they note that the successful implementation of learning cycles demands a longer period of time than the typical tenure of a school management team to produce the desired effects.
Learning Cycles and Curriculum The curriculum implications stemming from the implementation of learning cycles are not addressed in the literature. Just a few works include the required longer analyses of these issues. Duran (1995), for example, points out that the deep change in literacy paradigms occurring during the mid-1980s in Brazil with the dissemination of Emília Ferreiro’s research and of studies derived from sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, found fertile ground to develop in the proposal of the basic cycles. In the 1990s, there were a number of state and municipal schools that adopted learning cycles and guidelines for interdisciplinary approaches, and who also developed curriculum that integrated work projects or thematic complexes. These initiatives try to join the approach of issues with a strong social appeal to the treatment of the areas of knowledge, and
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connect that in turn to a perspective that values the cultural lives of students who come from different social backgrounds. In this way, the students are assured of the proper conditions to express themselves and to be recognized as individuals (Alavarse, 2002; Dalben, 2000b; Krug, 2001). It is worth pointing out one of the activities developed by the Plural School of Belo Horizonte, for instance, because of the questions it raises with respect to new approaches to literacy. The project is directed at adolescents from poor neighborhoods who live in conditions of great social risk. Although they are attending the final cycle of primary school, they have not been able to catch up with their age bracket in reading and writing. In most cases, students who fall into this category are black male teenagers with consecutive school failures, who are much stigmatized. Like others in similar conditions, these students typically limit themselves to performing school rituals. In general, they refuse to get involved with school projects, while they are frequently involved with violent acts which result in the school disciplining them. Authors such as Dubet’s (2000) and Charlot (1996), have shown how the behavior of these students also results in them being excluded from opportunities to learn. The innovative practices developed with a view to teaching these failing teenagers how to read and write called for several learning activities to be conducted off the school premises: instruction was given in a variety of cultural facilities in the city. Workshops on painting, graffiti, origami, theater, music and percussion were the main activities in the program. Arts and games proved to be the approache of paramount importance in establishing meaningful interactions with these teenagers. The willingness to listen to students helped to promote learning activities outside the school environment, which turned out to be meaningful social practices for the students. Such progress in the construction of individual and group identities has created conditions for improving writing and reading skills. This innovative approach to learning has also led students to systematically reflect on language, while new possibilities of work were opened to teachers (Belo Horizonte, 2004). Although this experience was limited to a single context, it not only opens up new possibilities for teaching failing and marginalized students, but it also suggests a range of practices that can be extended to other state and municipal school systems. Clearly, the acquisition of basic reading and writing skills by students in general remains a problem to be solved in Brazilian schools. We should note that even when learning cycle policies are based on a consistent educational project, as in the case of the Plural School, where they are implemented in schools where the majority of the teachers have a university degree and work in favorable working conditions, the problem remains. Literacy in the Plural School, however, is much less problematic than in schools that have not adopted learning cycles, together with an innovative instructional strategy. This draws our attention to the poorly conceptualized and insufficient measures which are commonly proposed with the learning cycles to address the difficulties posed by the low literacy levels in many schools: these strategies typically include inadequate individual help; catch-up programs taught by less experienced teachers; boring repetition of the same pedagogical approaches during extra help sessions; lack of connection with the activities originally performed in the classroom; and a lack of adjustment to the student’s culture.
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Another issue concerns the involvement of the teaching staff with literacy. Historically, primary schools have assigned secondary education teachers or teachers holding a college degree in education to the first four grades or the initial cycles. To teach from the fifth through the eighth grade or in the cycles that correspond to them, teachers have to hold a degree in the specific subjects. However, it is well-known that teachers holding a degree in specific subjects have great difficulty in dealing with students who do not know how to read and write. As a result of the training they undergo, even Portuguese language teachers do not feel prepared to deal with the initial teaching of the written language. Thus, by default, teachers who teach the initial grades or cycles bear the overall responsibility for literacy instruction. We suggest that with the progression of students having different competences and skills, stemming from learning cycles, all teachers must learn how to teach reading and writing. This means that their training must be reconceptualized to take this new challenge into account: this new focus on literacy must emphasize free reading and writing in order to replace the current practices which leave language void of meaning. If this is done, literacy can effectively become a reading of the world, full of relevant knowledge on both the physical and social environment.
The Importance of Assessment in Learning Cycles Among curriculum practices, assessment is the one that has received the most attention in publications. The importance of assessment is related to the elimination of the possibility of retention, at least in some school grades. This has been considered the most destabilizing aspect in educational work exactly because it confronts the education based on examination: this is a logic that makes curriculum, school routines and practices, and the expectations of teachers, students, and parents move around the “contents of the exams.” What is important in education, then, is what is “required” in the assessment. For the student, what becomes all important is the “pass or fail,” or obtaining a certificate or not. In schools that have adopted learning cycles, teachers report that they lose power and control of the teaching situation. In particular, they note that controlling the class becomes more difficult, particularly in classes of older students. According to many, in a non-retention system teachers would not be motivated to teach and students would not be motivated to learn. Parents tend to have divergent opinions concerning retention. Some admit that suppressing retention enables students to proceed with their studies without the tensions triggered by the graded system. Others, however, are concerned about students who are promoted one year after the other, but do not seem to have learned enough. They believe that some form of retention would be important to help with the catch-up activities for students. Since government standards still function according to a graded educational logic, rather than according to the requirements of a new educational model that includes cycles, it would not be appropriate to consider teachers’ views about the lack of control over the teaching situation in the learning cycle system as merely conservative. Rather, we should consider that such views still reflect the ethos and the routines that prevail in the schools (Sousa & Alavarse, 2003).
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However, if it is true that appropriate working conditions in schools are required for success in learning cycles, we must acknowledge that such working conditions alone are not enough. Despite the existence of favorable conditions and the innovations in educational practices found in some learning cycle systems, many teachers still resist non-retention policies. Sadly they are not the only ones to resist. It would appear that the population in general also resists a conception of education where there is no external pressure to make students study. Scholars, insist that learning cycles create the pressing need for student assessment to be an activity designed both to promote the development of students and to track their achievement over time. They warn, however, that although not visible yet in passfail statistics, educational and social exclusion may well be intensified by the learning cycle system whenever there are no conditions that effectively promote the learning of all students (Sousa, 2000).
Evaluation of Learning Cycles and Their Impact on Students’ Performance Analyses about specific learning cycle policies typically appreciate their historical conditions, motivations, the assumptions that support them, and the detail of the proposals. In most cases, they also the assess implementation processes, but they rarely point to the outcomes of the learning cycle system. Most of the research in this area is generally conducted in academic theses and dissertations. The vast majority of these studies use qualitative methodologies and case studies, which do not allow generalization to the whole system, unless from a naturalistic point of view. The qualitative approach, of course, enables better understanding of the subjectivation processes that lead to the construction and reconstruction of meanings that educators, students, and their families attribute to the changes proposed: this qualitative research allows people to understand the daily school operations wherein school practices are built, reveals the degree of satisfaction of involved individuals, and illuminates the complexity of the implementation of learning cycles. However, they neither provide inputs that give us a clear idea of the extent of the detected processes, nor enable us to understand certain more encompassing implications of cycle policies. In short, case study data is context specific. In these theses and dissertations, we find some initiatives to assess students’ learning results, such as submitting some classes or schools to exams, or comparing the student flow before and after the introduction of cycles. Due to its restricted nature, the treatment given to these data cannot be extended to all schools. As shown in these studies, the validity of learning cycle fundamentals is recognized by educators in general, but the recurring difficulties in cycle implementation are also pointed out. In this sense, texts warn us about the need to improve work organization conditions in schools in order to ensure the possibility of producing good quality education for all, and they also warn us about the importance of a deeper analysis of the values and attitudes that may lead to inclusive schools. This work includes numerous references to improvements to the age/grade mismatch, reinsertion of students lagging behind, reduction in the dropout and absenteeism rates and differential service to students.
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Studies relating to learning cycle outcomes involving large scale assessments and/or their impact on students are still extremely scarce. The evidence that has been presented does not support conclusive affirmations about wider social and educational consequences. Only three of the papers examined, proposed to review education policies by means of evaluation research involving representative data from schools systems. The first paper addresses the basic cycle in the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, and targets the effectiveness of its proposal with respect to improvement of student flow in basic education (Silva & Davis, 1993). It adopts a quasi-experimental model using the flow model developed by Fletcher and Ribeiro, and is based on the demographic census (Pnad) and on the educational census concerning basic education enrollments in its respective state school systems. Enrollments in the first and second grades in Rio Grande do Sul State schools are used as a control group. By following up the school progression of student cohorts between 1981 and 1989, the authors found that the introduction of the basic cycle has not basically altered student flow in the two States. They then started to analyze the cultural conditions and school conditions that seemed to contribute to the failure of these measures.This study suggests that school failure was not eliminated but, rather, postponed to the end of the literacy cycles. This was also demonstrated by surveys involving a smaller number of students, such as those by Andrade (1992), Mainardes (1995), and Silva (1991). This could have been one of the reasons that administrations who later extended learning cycles to the whole basic education system, restricted the possibility of having students fail at the end of the cycles: in some cases, these schools totally eliminated school repetition. Another evaluation study conducted by the same team investigated three government programs implemented in the São Paulo State school system. Their focus was to assess the impact of these three programs on learning for students in the São Paulo metropolitan area. The three programs were (1) the basic cycle created in 1984, (2) the standard work schedule for the basic cycle introduced in 1989 (6 daily hours for students and 40 weekly hours for teachers), and (3) the model school established in 1992 which, besides the basic cycle and the standard work schedule, ensured privileged general structure and operation conditions to some schools (Neubauer et al., 1996). Their conclusion was that students’ performance rates in model schools were significantly higher than in the other two schools, and that students in schools with a standard work schedule performed better than those in schools that did not have it. Beyond the specifics of cycles, the importance of general working conditions in schools to improve learning is thus evidenced, while differences in the results obtained among schools of the same type also indicates the weight of intra-school variables to determine school performance, when both the income levels and cultural environment of students were controlled. In contrast to the previous evaluations, Plural School has undergone an external evaluation focused on the implementation processes for the proposal, rather than on its outcomes and impacts. This evaluation was carried out four years after the implementation of the program, through a partnership of the Municipal Secretariat of Education at the Minas Gerais capital, the Ford Foundation, and the Federal University of Minas Gerais. This research was designed to examine the political and pedagogical project of the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, and had the following objectives: to evaluate how
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the social actors involved in it understood it, to analyze its implementation, and to support additional studies on educational reforms based on the data collected (Dalben, 2000a). Consequently, a study of the perception of the Plural School as expressed by its different actors was carried out, an extensive database with managerial and pedagogical information on municipal schools was organized, and a qualitative research study including multiple case studies, together with three ethnographic case studies, were conducted. This evaluation study recommended a structuring of the curricula parameters for Escola Plural’s political and pedagogical project for all three education cycles: these should indicate a set of cognitive skills to be developed by students. By doing this it seems to acknowledge that the great emphasis on the socialization processes given by the project should not affect the concern about the acquisition of systematic knowledge. The research also highlights the importance of developing parameters to establish teaching and learning evaluation references that appraise educational practices in municipal schools. The study also recommends the adoption of procedures for an assessment system that focuses on the issue of knowledge and its social use, according to principles in the proposal. The last noteworthy recommendation to Plural School was to invest in media campaigns to inform society about the educational projects involving the community to build a new mentality concerning the meaning of basic schooling. To a great extent this suggestion was proposed as a way of confronting the criticism that emerges from the idea that seriousness and good quality schools are only identified with the practice of student repetition. In the 1990s, besides the Brazilian Basic Education Assessment System, the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais implemented their own student performance assessment systems. The evaluation of the educational system in Minas Gerais, conducted by means of external assessment of student performance, started with the basic literacy cycle and aimed at gradually involving teachers and the school community. Here, student performance assessment revealed that children are able to follow up the various learning process phases. The critical aspects mentioned were mastering writing skills and math basics (Vianna, 1992). While both comprehensive and representative of state schools, the outcomes were presented in a descriptive form: this oversight prevented analyses that could enhance our understanding of the relationships among the various variables that were included in the assessment. Although in the second half of the 1990s the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais extended the learning cycle system to cover all eight years of primary education, establishing two continuous progression cycles of four years each, no research reported information from their respective students’ performance. The only study that sought to establish relationships between non-retention policies and the quality of education was that conducted by Ferrão, Beltrão, and Santos (2002). Using information from SAEB (1999) and multi-level regression models, this research was designed to assess differences in the performance of fourth graders studying under non-retention regimes in the Southeast. Data from the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais were thoroughly analyzed to establish correlations between lagging student performance and type of school organization. Schools having mixed regimes (grades and cycles) which had not identified their students as belonging to one or the other regimes were excluded from
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the survey. The regression model controlled for the impact of various levels of student performance: to do this student proficiency was used as a response variable. The age/ grade mismatch and the form of school organization (cycles or grading), were considered as main explanatory variables. Different kinds of school administration, as well as students and school socioeconomic levels were also controlled. The analysis undertaken by Ferrão et al. (2002) confirms the findings of previous and smaller studies. They found that the majority students lagging behind were black males from the low-income group. Students’ proficiency level is analyzed with respect to the type of school organization (grades or cycles), students’ socioeconomic level, and age/grade mismatch. As might be expected, there are signs that performance is best for students at graded school students with both higher socioeconomic status and no age/grade mismatch. These students, however, are certainly not the most common profile of public education users in the two states studied. Interestingly, the analysis also suggests that there is no prejudicial effect to the quality of education as a result of non-retention policies in either state or municipal schools. That is, the performance of students with age/grade mismatch was not inferior to that of students with a proper age/grade relationship as a result of the school’s choice for cycles or grades. Similarly, there is no evidence that low-income students attending schools that adopt automatic promotion policies have worse performance rates. Although the media, many parents and educators themselves typically claim that the introduction of learning cycles has lowered the quality of education, there is no evidence based on available research to support these statements. It must be stated that large-scale assessments of the Brazilian educational system have revealed that students’ performance data are unsatisfactory in most schools. As Franco (2003) argues so well, one cannot blame the cycle system for students’ bad performance, since graded schools are the majority in Brazil. Moreover, the national data collected by SAEB in the period 1995–2003 indicate systematically lower progress by primary school students who were enrolled in poorer schools, compared to higher progress in more developed regions: it is in these latter areas where the majority of schools organized in cycles are concentrated. This suggests that in addition to learning cycles, the general operational conditions in schools allied to regional socioeconomic development probably have considerable influence on the level of student performance. Research also suggests that as learning cycle policies destabilize the traditional logic of school organization, they tend to drive teachers, students and parents to build new references for teaching and learning that are based on new relationships and interactions within the school environment.
Final Remarks In short, both the history and current trajectory of learning cycles in Brazil show the validity and modernity of cycle fundamentals when the purpose is democratizing education. The adoption of learning cycles has triggered the need to build new bases for school organization. This shift also reveals the difficulties with implementation, resulting both from poor conditions in schools to make the work based on other principles possible and from the destabilization they cause when they question prevailing values in school culture. However, the majority of surveys report improvements to student
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flow, a reduction in dropout rates, as well as an increased sensitivity of school actors to issues related to differences between students, curricula and assessment which, in turn, lead to questioning of social exclusion mechanisms. This shift is certainly impotant in a country that until recently was one of the champions of retention and was ranked very low in school performance in the international league tables. However, considering that the certifying role of schools tends to lose importance as access to schools becomes universal, we should be concerned about ensuring a good quality education for all mandatory school students to help them meet the requirements of the contemporary world. What the current research has brought to light is that the adoption of learning cycles has raised expectations for the development of supportive conditions in which all students can learn and not to be dismissed from school. Teachers often feel too pressured when they are held responsible for a problem for which the entire educational system, through all their decision-making authority has offered no satisfactory answer. Within the intense debate about assessment in learning cycles, we should not lose sight of the fact that, to date, the pedagogical resources and school practices have not been proper or sufficient when one talks about reinventing school for all: improving the education available to all students remains the explicit project of learning cycles. We should not forget that, side by side with democratic forces, powerful social exclusion mechanisms continue to operate in the society. These mechanisms which submit large segments of the population to poor living conditions also continue to operate in education system. They permeate the school system, in teacher, student and parent actions and attitudes, as well as the very theories of pedagogical action themselves. As in many other countries, the schools of Brazil are still impregnated with values identified with schools intended to promote the social privileges of some, at the expense of the majority. We argue that only if this larger political tension that ends up affecting school operation and particularly the operation of non-graded schools is taken into account, will it be possible to have a more clear expectation about the limits and possibilities of democratization of knowledge.
Notes 1. These 9.1 million students represent 86.6% of the population aged 15–17, estimated by the Brazilian National Sample Household Survey (PNAD) at 10.5 million. 2. Measures of the same nature and with the same name – learning cycles – have been adopted, as of this decade, in several Latin-language countries, such as: France, Portugal, Spain, Geneva, Quebec, and Argentina. Perrenoud (2004) calls this form of pedagogical organization a pluriannual learning cycle. 3. Therefore, they increase the length of primary education to nine years. This is to be compulsory for all Brazilian schools as of 2006. 4. Brazil is a federative country in which states and municipalities are responsible for creating and maintaining their school systems. The federal government is responsible for providing technical and financial assistance to states and municipalities, aiming to reduce the difference among the services. 5. The following graduate students participated in the research: Andrea Steinvascher, Ocimar Munhoz Alavarse, Paulo Henrique Arcas, Alexandre Cˆandido de Oliveira Campos, and Patrícia Moulin Mendonça. 6. The projects developed with assistance from multilateral agencies can be formulated and implemented not only nationwide but also by the states and municipalities.
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References Alavarse, O. M. (2002). Ciclos: a escola em (como) questão [Learning Cycles: The School (as) an Issue]. Unpublished master’s thesis. São Paulo: School of Education of the University of São Paulo (USP). Andrade, I. R. (1992). Ciclo básico: da proposta transformadora de alfabetização a` realidade de sua prática [Basic Learning Cycle: From the Transforming Proposal of Literacy to the Reality of Its Practice]. Unpublished master’s thesis. Campinas, SP: State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Arroyo, M. G. (1999). Ciclos de desenvolvimento humano e formação de educadores [Cycles of Human Development and the Education of Educators]. Educação & Sociedade [Education & Society], 20(68), 143–162. Barretto, E. S. S., & Mitrulis, E. (2001). Trajetória e desafios dos ciclos escolares no país [Development and Challenges of Learning Cycles in Brazil]. Estudos Avançados [Advanced Studies], 15(42), 103–140. Barretto, E. S. S., & Sousa, S. Z. (2004). Estudos sobre ciclos e progressão escolar no Brasil: uma revisão [Studies on Learning Cycles and Schooling Progression in Brazil: a Review]. Educação e Pesquisa [Education and Research], 30(1), 31–50. Belo Horizonte. Municipal Secretariat of Education. (2004). PRIMEIRO CONGRESSO DE ALFABETIZAÇÃO: Alfabetização, letramento e diversidade cultural. A experiˆencia do projeto de alfabetização com os alunos do terceiro ciclo [First Literacy Congress: Literacy, Social Uses of Reading and Writing and Cultural Diversity. The Experience of the Literacy Project with Students of the Third Learning Cycle] Belo Horizonte: SME. Bonel, M. M. (1993). O ciclo básico: estudo de caso de uma política pública no Estado de São Paulo [The Basic Learning Cycle: A Case Study Approach over a Public Policy in the State of São Paulo]. Unpublished master’s thesis. Campinas: State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Charlot, B. (1996). Relação com o saber e com a escola entre estudantes da periferia [How students from the poor areas of the cities relate to knowledge and school]. Cadernos de Pesquisa [Research Journals], 97, 47–63. Dalben, A. I. L. F. (coord.) (2000a). Avaliação da implementação do projeto político-pedagógico Escola Plural [Evaluation of the Implementation of the Plural School Political-Educational Project]. Belo Horizonte: GAME, School of Education, Federal University of Minas Gerais. Dalben, A. I. L. F. (Ed.). (2000b). Singular ou plural?: eis a escola em questão [Singular or Plural? The School as an Issue]. Belo Horizonte: GAME, School of Education, Federal University of Minas Gerais. Dubet, F. (2000). Les inégalités multipliées. La Tour D’Aigues: Ed. De L’Aube. [Multiplied Inequalities. Eagle’s Tour: ed. Dawn]. Dubet, F. (2003). A Escola e a exclusão [School and Exclusion]. Cadernos de Pesquisa [Research Journals], 119, 9–27. Duran, M. C. G. D. (1995). Alfabetização na rede pública de São Paulo: a história de caminhos e descaminhos do ciclo básico [Literacy in State Schools in São Paulo: History of Successes and Failures in the Basic Learning Cycle]. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. São Paulo: Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP). Fernandes, C. O. (2003). A Escolaridade em ciclos: práticas que conformam a escola dentro de uma nova lógica [Education in Learning Cycles: Practices that Shape Schools According to a New Logic]. Unpublished Ph.D., dissertation. Rio de Janeiro: Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC/RJ). Ferrão, M. E., Beltrão, K. I., & Santos, D. P. (2002). Políticas de não-repet eˆ ncia e qualidade da educação: evidˆencias obtidas a partir da modelagem dos dados da quarta série do Saeb-99 [Policies for NonRetention and the Quality of Education: Evidence Obtained from 1999’s Saeb Forth Grade Data]. Estudos Em Avaliação Educacional [Studies on Education Assessment], 26, 47–73. Franco, C. (2003). Ciclos e letramento na fase inicial do ensino fundamental [Learning Cycles and Social Practices of Reading and Writing in Early childhood Education]. Paper presented at the 26th ANPED Annual Meeting, Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais. Krug, A. (2001). Ciclos de formação: uma proposta transformadora [Cycles of Education: A Transforming Proposal]. Porto Alegre: Mediation. Mainardes, J. (1995). Ciclo básico de alfabetização: da intenção a` realidade [Basic Cycle of Literacy: From Intention to Reality]. (CBA Assessment in the City of Ponta Grossa - PR). Trajetos [Paths], 6, 39–51.
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Neubauer, R., Davis, C., & Espósito, I. L. (1996). Avaliação do processo de inovações no ciclo básico e seu impacto sobre a situação de ensino-aprendizagem na região metropolitana de São Paulo [Evaluation of the Innovation Process in the Basic Learning Cycle and Its Impact on the Teaching-Learning Situation in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo]. Estudos em Avaliação Educacional [Studies on Education Assessment], 13, 35–64. Perrenoud, P. (2004). Os Ciclos de aprendizagem: um caminho para combater o fracasso escolar [Learning Cycles: The Path to Fight School Failing]. Porto Alegre: Artmed. Silva, R. N., & Davis, C. (1993). É proibido repetir [Retention is Banned]. Estudos em Avaliação Educacional [Studies on Education Assessment], 7, 5–44. Silva, Z. F. (1991). Um Estudo avaliativo sobre o ciclo básico de alfabetização em quatro escolas de São Paulo [A Study to Assess Basic Literacy Cycle in Four Schools in São Paulo]. Estudos em Avaliação Educacional [Studies on Education Assessment], 3, 49–69. Sousa, S. Z. (2000). A Avaliação na organização do ensino em ciclos [Assessment in the Organization of Learning Cycles]. In M. Krasilchik (Ed.), USP fala sobre Educação [USP speaks on Education], 34–43. São Paulo: FEUSP. Sousa, S.Z., & Alavarse, O. (2003). Avaliação nos ciclos: a centralidade da avaliação [Learning Cycles: The Centrality of Assessment]. In L. C. Freitas (Ed.), Questões de avaliação educacional (pp. 71–96) [Issues on Education Assessment]. Campinas – SP: Komedi. Sousa, S. Z., & Barretto, E. S. S. (coords.). (2004). Estado do conhecimento: ciclos e progressão escolar (1990–2002). [A State of the Art: Learning Cycles and School Progression (1990–2002)]. São Paulo: School of Education of the University of São Paulo; Brasilia: MEC/Inep/Comped. [Research Report]. Vianna, H. M. (1992). Avaliação do ciclo básico de alfabetização em Minas Gerais [Assessment of the Basic Cycle of Literacy in Minas Gerais]. Estudos em Avaliação Educacional [Studies on Education Assessment], 6, 61–93.
33 SCHOOL FAILURE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS: THEORETICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL CHALLENGES IN BRAZIL Denise Trento Rebello de Souza and Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza University of São Paulo, Brazil
To understand the issue of urban education in Brazil one must also understand the formation of the Brazilian urban centers, which were offspring of the economic policies implemented in this country, especially since the 1950s, which gave priority to industrialization. The growth of industrialization took place mainly in states of the Southern and Southeastern regions, attracting thousands of Brazilians, mostly from the poorer agricultural areas of the country. Peasants and small landowners saw in the urban centers the promise of better living conditions: employment and higher salaries, and the possible access to education and health. Thus, in cities like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre – capitals of their states – big urban centers developed, which today contain a large population, and constitute a major fraction of the Brazilian industrial base. Indeed these cities have the largest economies of the country. This large migratory flux was not addresses by public policies about housing, giving rise to large pockets of poverty called “favelas.”1 These are areas taken over by migrants in search of a space to live in the emerging cities. The migrants, having very little financial resources at their disposal, occupied areas, mostly public-owned, and there they built makeshift houses. These were originally built out of leftover planks and cardboard, and were usually located far from the more central boroughs, in areas without proper sanitation, electricity and transportation services. As the years went by, these residents, which represent the poorest segment of the population in the big cities, began to organize around popular movements, electing representatives to defend their social rights, and improving their living conditions. Along the way, demands for health and education services closer to their living place were important causes in their struggles, which were only partially addressed by the public authorities. However, if on one hand, there was an important victory in the expansion of the school system, on the other hand such growth was accomplished by the construction of school buildings with little concern for the corresponding human resources needed to work adequately with children and adolescents of these populations. These schools became known as peripheral schools, or schools 619 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 619–640. © 2007 Springer.
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of the outskirts of the large urban centers, their modus operandi were dominated by improvisation and vulnerability: transient and insufficient teaching staff, inadequate numbers of support personnel, and precarious infrastructure and maintenance, among other problems. Thus there are similarities between urban education in North America and the problems faced by the schools in the outskirts of large Brazilian urban centers. The pupils who attend these schools are mostly the children of migrants or themselves migrants from the poorer segments of the population, who live in favelas, slums or popular housing.2 Such children are those that appear in the statistics as the ones that fail at school, that display difficulties in learning to read and write, and are less likely to remain in formal education. They suffer directly the consequences of the precariousness of state policies, particularly with respect to the advancing formal schooling.
Improving the Quality as the Current Challenge of Brazilian Public Primary Education3 Public Education and the Process of Urbanization in Brazil4 In Brazil the dissatisfaction with the basic education system is both historical and consensual. The many unsatisfactory aspects of the Brazilian education system are well documented in the education literature. Until the 1960s the State basic education system was simply not large enough to meet the growing demand, making access to it a privilege available to only a few5 (Table 1).6 More than half of school age children were out of school. At that time, one of the most pressing problems was to expand the educational system in order to provide schooling for all. However, the awareness of access to schooling as “a right of everyone and duty of the State” was not clearly established among the people as a whole (Beisiegel, 1990). The demand for education for all became an issue only with the acceleration of the pace of the economic development and the increase in the rates of urbanization and industrialization that began in the Southeast region in the 1950s. As a consequence of an unequal economic development across the country, the prosperous states of the Southeast (particularly the State of São Paulo) experienced population increases fueled by a strong internal migration from the Northeastern states. Attracted by the possibility of finding jobs and better living conditions, thousands of migrants gathered their few belongings, sometimes leaving behind their close relatives to try to build a better life for their families. These first migrants created a path followed by many (Durhan, 1973). The 1970 demographic census showed that over 13 million Brazilians were not living in their state of origin. This figure represents more than 14% of the total population that year. By far the largest inter-regional movement was the net transfer of nearly 3.5 million people from the Northeastern states to São Paulo State, the Greater São Paulo City being the main destination. The same census showed that the majority of the Greater São Paulo City population (53%) had been born outside the region (Vaughan-William, 1992). This strong migration altered rapidly and radically the proportion the relative proportions
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Education provision among the population aged 7–14 years (in thousands)
Table 1. Year
Population
Enrollment
Rates of schooling
1950 1960 1970 1980 1989 1996 2003
10,402.7 14,406.4 19,693.0 21,934.2 27,509.4 28,525.815 26,266.814
3,767.9 6,540.5 13,209.9 18,476.6 22,616.5 25,909.860 25,527.401
36.2 45.4 67.1 84.2 82.2 90.8 96.9
Urban and rural population - brazil - 1940/2000
138
140 111
Inhabitants (in millions)
120 100 80.4 80 52.1
60
41.1
38.8 40
33.2
28.3
38.6
35.8
31.3
31.8
18.8 20
12.9
0 1940
1950
1960
1970 Urban
1980
1991
2000
Rural
Figure 1. Urban and rural population – Brazil – 1940/2000 Source: IBGE (2001). Tendˆencias Demográficas 2000.
of urban and rural populations in the country, as shown in the Figure 1. In 40 years the Brazilian population had changed from mainly rural to mainly urban. In 1940 the urban population represented 31.2%, and the rural 68.8% whereas in 1980 the figures were nearly reversed: 66.7% urban, and 33.3 % rural. According to the 2000 demographic census the urban population is 4.3 times bigger than the rural population, confirming to the country as a whole a trend initiated in the São Paulo State in the 1960s when the urban population overtook over the rural population. All spheres of social life and social services were affected by the fast, unequal and disorganized urbanization process across the country: housing, sanitation, electricity, water supply, health care, and educational services. As far as formal education was concerned, the organization of the educational system was affected by the increase of the demand for education at all levels. Demands
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from the working classes and from the emerging urban middle classes played no minor role in bringing about such expansion: the former group wishing to have access to basic education, and the latter hoping to ascend socially by means of an academic degree. In Primary Education, Brazil had then to expand its educational coverage considerably from the 1960s onwards, as shown in Table 1. In 1971, Primary Education, comprising of the first 8 years, was made compulsory for all children between the ages of 7 and 14. However, according to the official data, until the mid – 1990s there were not enough places in state schools to meet the demand. As it will be presented next, even those who did get a place at school had – and still have – before them the challenge of staying and benefiting from the process of schooling as the rates of grade repetition and dropout are historically very high.
School Failure: A Serious and Chronic Problem of Brazilian Public Education The high rates of grade repetition and dropout in the Brazilian education system are jointly known as the issue of the school failure. Historically these rates have been as high as 45% in the first grade and 40% in the fifth grade. The data presented next leave no doubt about how old and serious the problem is. Moisés Kessel (1954) in a classic study about repetition and dropout in Primary Education showed that, in 1938, 58 out of every 100 pupils that were enrolled on the first grade that year did not reach the second grade in 1939. And that only 4% of the pupils managed to complete the 4 years of Primary Education without repetition. During the 1980s, the scenario showed some signs of improvement concerning access to school, particularly for the younger generations. Data from the PNAD – National Sampling Survey of Households – (1987) 7 show that: ● ●
●
25% of all Brazilians with ten or more years of age completed only the first grade. 14% of youngsters completed Primary Education in 8 years (the ideal period), without any repetition, and only 36% will eventually complete Primary Education after having repeated one or more grades. The younger generations stay 8 years in the school system but manage to complete only five grades.
It can be seen in Table 2 that the rates of repetition for the first grade of Primary Education lowered slowly until the mid 1990s, reaching 44% in 1995. In 2002 there is a significant reduction of this figure in all grades, but the largest drop is observed for the first grade. This is largely due to the establishment of the system of cycles, mainly from 1996 with the promulgation of the National Education Bases and Guidelines Act (LDB 9596/96).8 The figures referred to above indicate that the difficulties of the Brazilian education system are not a recent phenomenon. On the contrary, it pervades the history of the Brazilian education in the last century. And that is so despite all the education reforms, education policies, and educational studies carried out during the last 70 years (Patto, 1990). Although the nationwide data present a general view of the education in the country, it is important to consider how the repetition rates are distributed across the schools. Studies have demonstrated since the late 1970s in Brazil (and since the end of the 1960s
School Failure and Public School Table 2.9
Primary education – repetition rates between grades (in %) BRAZIL- 1981–2002
Year
1981 1985 1989 1991 1995 2002
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Grades
Overall
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
57 51 48 46 44 15.1
28 34 34 34 31 14.2
22 25 26 25 24 10.1
18 23 23 22 20 9.1
34 40 41 40 35 13.6
30 33 34 32 28 11.2
27 29 29 28 23 9.2
21 21 22 22 18 8
36 36 35 33 30 11.7
in the USA) the existence of a positive correlation between school failure and socioeconomic status (Barreto, Mello, Arelaro, & Campos, 1979). More specifically, children more severely troubled by school failure are those coming from low-income families. As a rule, these families are migrants from the poorer regions of the country.
Controversial Figures In the beginning of the 1990s, a work published by Ribeiro (1992) brought to light some controversies involving the issues of rates of dropout and repetition, and access to the education system. The controversies are about the nature of the main obstacle to the democratization of the education system. Is it the dropping out of students? Is it the high rates of repetition? Is it the shortage of student placements in schools and of schools themselves? The correct assessment of the main obstacle is important because from it will derive the particular educational policies to tackle the main problem(s). Ribeiro’s work had a great impact on the discussion of the problem of repetition in the Brazilian education system as pointed out by Gatti (2004) in a comprehensive analysis of the quantitative studies in education carried out in Brazil during the last three decades. For that reason, we shall present his main arguments and conclusions. The controversies involving the rates of dropout and repetition that emerged with the work of Ribeiro (1992) were part of the process (initiated during the mid 1980s) of focusing on the teacher and her (his) teaching practice, as will be shown shortly (Souza, 2001, 2002). Ribeiro argues, using an alternative mathematical model called PROFLUXO,10 that the methodology used by the Ministry of Education Statistics Office leads to errors that distort the analyses of the Brazilian educational reality. Those errors would have led researchers and educational authorities to analyses and policies that do not take into account that the main problem in the education system – the extremely high rates of repetition, and not of dropout as the official data suggest.11 Using the PROFLUXO model, he claims that the repetition rates are higher than the official agency says (52.4% against 29.6% for the first grade in 1982) and the dropout rates are lower (2.3% against 25.5% for the first grade in 1982). So, he argues that, differently from the widespread belief, dropout is not the main problem in the first grades. He also found that in 1988 the Brazilian population attended the primary school for 8.5 years in average. This represents enough time for the conclusion of
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Primary Education by the young population. But they complete only six grades. Considering that the average age to start schooling is 7.5 years of age and the average period of attendance is 8.5 years, the probable age of dropout is around 16 years, independently of the grade reached. Recent data show that the scenario remains basically the same: in 2001 the Brazilian population attended the primary school 8.5 years, in average, but completed only 6.6 grades. Another conclusion of his work, controversial at that time but largely accepted now, refers to the issue of access itself. He claims that this problem seems to be practically overcome. If there was no repetition, the capacity of the education system would permit in 1988 the incorporation of 95% of school age children. Thus, Ribeiro (1991, p. 20) concludes that: This finding leads to the understanding that the notion of child’s early dropout from school caused by social or cultural determinants is misleading and that Brazilian families, on the contrary, make an enormous effort to keep their children in school. On the other hand it shows that it is the low teaching performance that prevents, through high repetition rates, the universalization of elementary education in Brazil. (our emphasis)12 His work clearly emphasizes the immense responsibility of schools (particularly the low teaching performance), and not of children or their families, in assuring primary education for all the students. That idea was significant and gained many adherents from the late 1980s on, as the school system and the school itself came under study. Some later studies, such as that of Franco (1995), have argued that the figures such as the possible incorporation by the education system of 95% of school age children must be viewed with caution. According to Franco, many researchers have denounced the “perverse strategies” that promoted a “superficial and inconsistent democratization” of school access. They refer specifically to the bad conditions of work and functioning of many schools: overcrowded classes, schools working with up to five daily shifts, lowering of teachers wages, among other factors. Franco’s main argument seems to be that a better quality of schooling cannot be achieved with the current rate of investment in state education. It is interesting to observe at this point that, although the emphasis may be placed on pedagogical aspects (Ribeiro, 1991) or school infrastructure (Franco, 1995), there is a consensus about the idea that the low quality of the schooling is the main problem to be solved. Therrien (1996) carried out an interesting study where she analysed the production (in various spheres) of the negative social representation of the teacher’s work in the educational literature. Part of her work was devoted to identify points of overall agreement within the pedagogic discourse related to the issue of the (low) quality of education. The first two points of agreement can be summarized in the following statements: (1) the educational coverage has been, since the 1980s, sufficient to meet the demand. (However it is also pointed out the existence of problems due to the way the increase of places was made). (2) once there are enough places, the challenge now is to improve the quality. Her work confirms that there is a consensus in the mainstream educational literature
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concerning the issues of the educational coverage (access to the educational system), and of the need to improving its quality.
Hegemony of Psychology in the Explanation of School Failure The Primacy of the Psychosocial Approaches Historically, Psychology constituted itself as one of the sciences in which, more than in any other, Education has searched for theoretical support in order to plan and intervene in school issues. The history of Psychology in Brazil reveals that school and the teaching practices has been a psychologist’s object of interest since the first decade of the last century. The hegemony of psychological science in the understanding and conducting the school problems brought, in several moments, problems that ended up generating reductionistic formulations, simplifying and limiting visions of the phenomena occurring in everyday school life. Besides, these visions are ideological and therefore, mystifying, as some scholars of the History of Psychology and of school failure argue (Patto, 1990; Mello, 1975, among others). In order to face the difficulties experienced by the students, reflected in the high rate of repetition and in the school dropout, educators have traditionally searched for answers in the knowledge constructed in the field of Psychology based on the following questions: Why are there so many children with low school performance? What would be the problems that they present? Would they be of cognitive, affective, cultural or social nature? How can these difficulties be addressed in the field of education? We can say that during a large period of the twentieth century, in the Brazilian case, the answers to these questions came from the most diverse theoretical perspectives. We can point to contributions from the following sources: Behaviorism (B. F. Skinner and his followers), Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud); Psychogenesis (Jean Piaget and Barbel Inhelder), Social Behaviorism (Bandura), Cognitivism (Jerome Bruner), and Humanism (Carl Rogers). The relation between Education and Psychology inaugurated internationally an important research field – Educational Psychology – and a field of professional activity – School Psychology. Although presenting different perspectives for the comprehension of the students’ difficulties at school, the appropriation of the above-mentioned theories made by Educational and School Psychology and by Education started from a point of view that searches in the child or from her or him the possible sources of difficulties experienced in the schooling process (see Angelucci, Kalmus, Paparelli, & Patto, 2004; Brandão, Baeta, & Rocha, 1983). In general, Psychology has traditionally identified the following to explain learning problems: (1) Innate and acquired characteristics. From this perspective, one believes that a child presents a determinate cognitive potential, which could be evaluated through the quotient of intelligence of the student. In order to measure these skills, Psychology constructed a series of instruments of evaluation. The aim of these evaluations was to identify the areas in which the children would have less capacity, in order to pedagogically intervene through educational compensatory programs, stimulating them through training and
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specific programs, or just by indicating the children’s incapacity to perform specific tasks which should be replaced by others on which they could perform better. For this reason, a series of psycho-metric scales were created, beginning in the 1910s, notably the Bitnet-Simon Test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, the Raven Progressive Matrices, the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test, the Bender Test, among others. Such evaluations were also used to refer students to special education, when one could verify that the intelligence deficit indicated a mental deficiency. It is important to note that the majority of the scales mentioned were not adapted to the Brazilian population, which introduced an additional problematic element to the process of the psycho-diagnostic evaluation of the school difficulties and yielded results that did not depict the real abilities of children. In addition, many topics raised by the psychometric scales are strongly linked to cultural aspects of the population for which the test was originally standardized.13 (2) Emotional and affective problems. In this case, the main problem of the child would be in her or his personality structure and functioning. Certain circumstances of life, usually with origins in a troubled family history, would interfere negatively with the learning process, including school-based learning. Based on this argument, school psychologists used modes of psychological evaluation that centered mainly on a psychoanalytical reading of the shaping of personality and of human development. Freudian psychoanalysis was introduced in Brazil in 1914, and later on it was introduced in initial courses of Teacher Education. Around the 1930s it received additional impetus from the hygienist movement which considered, among other things, the need for identifying “problem-students” who should be referred to the mental hygiene clinics and subjected to psychotherapy. From this perspective the teacher had a restricted role. The improvement of the student’s performance depended only on the good evolution of the case during the psychological treatment. (3) Organic aspects. This includes explanations whose hypotheses center on aspects of neurological characteristics. The child would not learn due to the presence of some modality of organic dysfunction, which would be noted in the beginning of literacy development, that is, in the first school years. Identified as dyslexia, dysorthography, dyslalia or hyperactivity, such disturbances of unknown origin should be treated through psycho-motor re-education or through medicine. The central point of the medical analysis for the verification of the difficulties is the symptoms depicted by parents and teacher: how are the problematic childrens’ attitudes different from those considered commonly present at a certain age for the acquisition of reading, writing and mathematic knowledge. From this perspective, one did not need to consider the quality of the teaching offered to the students – neither did one recognize the existence of difficulties underlying the literacy process. (4) Belonging to the lower social class. In this group, we find the explanations that consider cultural influences as the main cause of school failure. From the 1970s, in Brazil, psychologists and educators, under the influence of the “Deprivation Theories”14 originally of American researchers, claimed that children from poor classes have more problems at school. Such students have problematic affective, cognitive, nutritional and perceptivemotor development, which would be revealed in a series of consequences, namely: poor language skills, nutritional deprivation, difficulties in interpersonal relations, in short, types of deficits which would indicate learning problems. For this reason the implementation of
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compensatory education programs in schools was proposed, in the belief that they could minimize the effects of cultural deprivation. In the Brazilian case, we can state that the ideas present in the Deprivation Theories span and sum up the conceptions that traditionally explain the learning problems described in items (1), (2), (3), and (4). Therefore, the Deprivation Theories are taken here as emblematic of the line of argument that most contributed to what we call “the psychological reductionism approaches” that came to characterize Brazilian education. There are some common criticisms of the Deprivation Theories. First, it is pointed out that the issues involving the pupils’ (low) achievement should not be analyzed per se, apart from the school context where they appear and isolated from their social and economic conditions. Second, the conception of “culture” used by the Deprivation Theories, backed by the functionalist North-American psychology, is highly questionable, as it necessarily implies the misuse of comparisons between cultures. For example: electing the culture of so-called “middle classes” as a standard against which the culture of other social segments will be measured; arguing that some “cultures” do not provide their members with the necessary tools to succeed at basic school; and proposing compensatory education programs to supply the “deprived children” with the missing cultural elements. With respect to the theoretical-methodological approaches underlying the researches that produced the Deprivation Theories, they were directly or indirectly questioned and criticized by many authors in Brazil and in different countries. There are critical perspectives from Houston (1982); Soares (1986); Cruz (1987); Sawaya (2001); Collares and Moysés (1998); Patto (1990); Cagliari (1997), in what concerns the limitations of the studies on the evaluation of language when the subjects are observed in a single and artificial setting. Freitag (1978) provided the conceptual tools to disclose the functionalist conception of the school-society relation that are backing the Deprivation Theories, as they were proposed in the USA. Stubbs and Delamont (1976), Delamont and Hamilton (1982) and Rockwell (1987) present alternative proposals from observations in classrooms based on techniques from Anthropology that made evident the limits of studies that are exclusively based on psychometric assessments, surveys or any other type of standardized observation. Hammersly and Atkinson (1983) in the UK, Erickson (1986) in the United States, and Ezpeleta and Rockwell (1986) in Mexico and Latin America represent, among others, the qualitative tradition that has been developed in England since the 1960s and in the USA from the 1970s (ethnography, case studies, symbolic interactionism, participant observation, phenomenology and interpretatism). Despite the differences between these approaches, all of them attempted and indeed broke with the positivist models of research dominant at that time. Some authors claimed that there needed to be important changes in the ways we had been analyzing schools and their processes because the theoretical-methodological approaches available had proved to be insufficient to understand the complex and multifaceted nature of the school reality.
Psychology and the Critical Approach to the School Failure From the mid-1980s onwards it was noted, not only in Brazil, but also in other countries in Latin America, that the most critical educational researchers were concerned about how the school was being studied and described in the educational literature.
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Some argued the importance of rethinking the theoretical-methodological approaches adopted by educational researchers.15 Following a similar movement observed in the United Kingdom and United States at least a decade earlier,16 a common proposal was to substantially change the way we “talk about schools.” Some advocated that we had to stop using “false truths” and generic explanations about schools, and about pupils and their families (Patto, 1990). Others proposed that we had to rescue the school’s “non documented history,” for that is the history that constitutes everyday life at school (Ezpeleta & Rockwell, 1986). They had in common an importance attached to “looking inside schools,” getting to know the school participants in order to reach and know a level of reality that had hitherto been neglected. It was necessary to conjointly articulate the levels of analysis traditionally approached separately, as for example the individual sphere (subjectivity) and social sphere (social reality). This included the complexity of the schooling process in a society in which children are unequally treated, depending on the social group to which they belong. Significant contributions of Psychology to the educational field appeared when psychologists made an effort to examine Psychology itself, revising its theoreticalmethodological conceptions and its model of action. In this effort of self-criticism, some authors searched in other areas of knowledge (Sociology of Education and Philosophy of Education) for theoretical references, particularly in the historical-dialectical materialism, which could help to transform an all too instrumental Psychology into a Critical Psychology.17 Influenced by the concepts of Althusser (1974), Bourdieu (1974); Bourdieu and Passeron (1975); Baudelot and Establet (1971) scholars engaged in the theoretical discussion of the school-society relation and explained the role of the school as an ideological state apparatus and as a locus where the symbolic violence of the elites was practiced for the maintenance of the status quo. This articulation of the historical-materialist framework permitted the opportunity to rethink education and its shortcomings in a less naive form, by incorporating in the analyses of school phenomena their economic, social and political determinants. At the same time, it led on occasion to some rather non-dialectical passages and interpretations, as it swayed work toward another form of reductionism – the sociologism – by privileging the macro-structural causes, in a mechanical vision of the determinants of the problems of the schooling processes. The need to overcome the reductionism promoted both by psychologism and by sociologism has characterized the course of Psychology and its relations with Education. According to Tanamachi (2002, p. 79), in the Brazilian case: The necessity to search for more far-reaching conceptions of Psychology and Education as well as the need to consider the set of attributions that are proper to them are the main moves pointed by the scholars who have taken part of the critical movement of the School Psychology. As far as school failure is concerned, the theoretical conception that allows us to analyze the schooling process and not the learning problems moves the center of the analysis from the individual to the interior of the school and to the set of institutional,
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historical, pedagogical and psychological relations that are present and which constitute the school’s everyday life, as well as the individuals who actively participate in the context. Some authors have looked for theoretical support for the understanding of the phenomena of school failure in the concept of everyday life. In this context the work of Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller (1972, 1987) is taken as a reference. Thinking about everyday school life is to think about the set of characteristically heterogeneous activities undertaken and articulated by individual subjects. The observed activities in the school or in any context may be understood as everyday activities only when in reference to this individual subject. For this subject, his immediate everyday world contains his life, and within it, his work, his multiple activities, the several meanings that every particular situation has. In this way, the reconstruction of an everyday school life has as necessary references the teachers, the students, and mainly the parents, as social subjects (Ezpeleta & Rockwell, 1986). Under specific social, cultural and material conditions the protagonists of the school constitute the everyday existence of the singular school, and in doing so, mirror all the formal and non-formal elements of the system merged with those of their own social context. In the everyday experience of the subjects, to transit the school door means at the same time continuity. Ironically, it only shifts the contiguous social spheres while allowing individuals to keep their own identities. This then ruptures several institutional and social demands as well as the adaptations to the roles proposed by the school. The use of methodological perspectives of a qualitative nature, especially ethnography, contributes to this theoretical framework in how it comprehends school phenomena. New questions are formulated revealing the complexities of the issues involved, such as: What pedagogical processes and practices are involved in the production of school failure? What elements contribute to constitute the teachers’ conceptions and practices in the schooling process? How do educators envisage their actions, and those of their students? The construction of this knowledge demanded prolonged fieldwork with children, teachers and the school, in addition to a detailed process of participant observation, systematic recording of the facts, open-ended interviews, home visits, and participation in playtime. This was aimed not only at generating knowledge but also to develop trust between the researcher and the participants. In the field of Psychology, and in its interface with Education, the study that inaugurates in Brazil the theoretical-methodological critique comes with the incorporation of the Hellerian framework, as well as with the ethnographic perspective. The work is carried out by Patto (1990), in her thesis The Production of School Failure: Stories of Submission and Rebellion, brings to the forefront of educational research the roots of school failure in Brazilian public schools. By analyzing the historical development of the Brazilian educational thought, Patto makes us face facts that change the course of the analysis of the so called “learning problems,” and breaks with the traditional explanations hitherto present in the psychological and pedagogical literature of our country. Her work presents a detailed account of processes and practices developed in the everyday life of a state school located on the outskirts of São Paulo City. In its first part, she traces the origins of the scientific conceptions that form and shape the ethnic and class prejudices and stereotypes that permeate the beliefs (in the social life and even in the scientific discourse) about the social, cultural, and even moral inferiority of the
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members of the popular classes. The history of the explanations for school failure is then recovered by the analysis of the studies and researches published since the early decades of the century. In the second part, the analyses of the fieldwork are presented. From her work, we learned that there are some school practices and processes (observed at the school and on the education system) that can be, on their own, responsible for a great part of the existent school problems (such as repetition, dropout, and behavioral, to mention the most visible ones). There is a complex universe of institutional, political, individual and structural questions present in the school everyday life that lead to the school failure, keeping thus a high level of exclusion, mainly of the poor adolescents and children of our society. In order words, Patto’s study revealed the existence of school practices and processes inside the school and of the school system, which are responsible for most of the difficulties observed. Among these difficulties we can point out: (1) the practice of streaming, encouraging the identification and denigration of students considered “weak” and influencing the establishment of self-fulfilling prophecy; (2) the practice of student relocation, performed often without previous notice to the pupil or the family forcing students to have many teachers in the same year; (3) disrespect for children, underlying the public reprimands and humiliations that undermine children’s self image, vulnerable and still in development; (4) the practice of forcing the pupils to do meaningless and tedious activities in learning support groups. The author also refers to other practices and school processes related to the learning problems observed in school, such as the existence of negative expectations of school performance of poor children, presence of stereotypes and social prejudices against poor, black and “northeasterners,”18 perverse mechanisms of class attribution,19 apart from the bureaucratization and segmentation of pedagogical work, leaving to the teachers only the task of executing pedagogical proposals imposed on them. In this sense, teachers also suffer the same process of disregard and disrespect even though they have a personal and professional history through which their practice acquires meaning and sense. In a nutshell, both the educational system and policies have been organized in such a way that they encourage school practices that help to produce difficulties in the schooling process. The argument that school failure is a product of the school and of the educational system recovers at least two great issues to the understanding of the phenomena. The first issue refers to the political attitude of commitment to the excluded, mainly when we consider children and adolescents; and the second issue, not less important, refers to the role played by Psychology in the production of exclusion through its reductionist conceptions regarding school complaints and the discriminating practices. The theoretical framework that starts with the political awareness of the exclusion20 of significant segments of the population and has been appropriating certain methodologies of qualitative research, has been trying to cope with the elements that compose the schooling process. The conception of school education is broadened, not only in its role of socialization but also in its political role, as the school plays a fundamental part in the democratization of the State, thus being a “center of citizenship education,” as put by Weffort (1995). Ethnography, as an approach to research in Psychology in its interface with Education, has contributed to deepening the knowledge of the institutional and cultural
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dimensions of everyday school life, of teacher education and of the education of professionals in the area of psychology, especially who deal with children with learning and behavioral problems (Souza, 2004). Such contributions will be discussed further in the section “Recent research and works of intervention in public schools from psychology with a critical perspective.”
Centrality of the Teacher’s Work As the traditional explanations for school failure, and specially those based on the Deprivation Theories, were criticized, the school, the teacher and pedagogical practice gained more visibility, and the theme of continued education acquired prominence in the political and educational agenda, becoming a central element in the discussion about the improvement of the school quality. The analysis of official documents produced by the São Paulo State Secretariat for Education from 1982 to 1993, and of the educational literature, carried out by Souza (2001) reveals that the favorite strategy used in the continued education programs centered basically around offering courses, usually short ones, and activities such as conferences, seminars and lectures. This strategy had as its central objective the improvement of the professional competence of the teachers assuming that they had an inadequate and insufficient early education. This practice became systematic, and was developed by the State Secretariats for Education as a basic strategy to improve the quality of teaching and to deal with the failure of public education.21 Although the educational policies have focused attention on the issues of the centrality of the teacher’s work and of their professional competence to carry out their pedagogical activities, we notice that by the end of 1990s a process of questioning this discourse was started. As far as the increasing centrality attributed to the continued education of teachers as a means to obtain a better quality of teaching is concerned, some authors help us to question this assumption by reminding us of its limits vis-`a-vis the features and chronic problems of the teaching system (Andaló, 1989; Arroyo, 1996; Azanha, 1996; Bueno, Catani, Sousa, Souza, & Souza, 1993; Bueno, Catani, & Sousa, 1998; Franco, 1995; Patto, 1997; Souza, 2001, among others). Based on the analyses of these scholars, we can say that the main criticism to the proposal of continued education of teachers is grounded on the fact that such programs take teachers individually, isolated from their working context; they disregard or downplay the school and its institutional context as well as the concrete conditions offered by each school. These authors claim that a project aiming at improving the quality of teaching must consider, first and foremost, the complex interpersonal and institutional relations which give concrete life to the school in terms of reproduction, contradiction, conflict or social transformation. Besides, these scholars alert us to the importance of knowing the school culture and teaching culture better, addressing the bureaucracy and administrative shackles, as well as of rethinking the initial education of the teacher, the teaching career and the remuneration policies. The preoccupation with the competence of the professionals, as well as the centrality attributed to their role in solving the problem of school failure, is reaffirmed in
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every new program of teacher in-service education. This is neither recent nor original, in spite of reappearing under new guises in recent works about so called “skills and competences” (Paquay, Altet, Charlier, & Perrenoud, 2001). The use of the concept of competence, particularly “technical competence,” has received a major push in Brazil since 1982 when Teaching in primary school: from technical competence to the political commitment by Guiomar Namo de Mello was published.22 The analysis developed at that time triggered an intense debate in the academic world involving two concepts – technical competence and political commitment – related to the teachers’ work and to the manner through which this group was (and still is) seen by the academia, by the media and by themselves. Mello’s work inspired other studies which, taken as a whole, and perhaps unintentionally, contributed to the construction of an essentially negative perception of teachers. More than negative, it was a homogeneous portrait of the teachers and their practice: they were seen as people with no technical competence and no political commitment. That was the pinnacle of the discourse about the technical incompetence of the teacher and of the simplistic idea, propagated in the following years by the mainstream academic discourse and by the educational policies, that “if we have a school of low quality is because the teachers are incompetent.” From this perspective, the solution to overcome school failure and thus improve the quality of teaching and the public school was to offer continuing education courses aimed at redressing the deficiencies of their initial preparation. Usually, such actions were offered in Education Centers located away from the school in which teachers worked. The belief was that after these courses the teachers were ready to return to their working place and “apply” what they had learned. This procedure, however, turned out have little efficacy, according to what studies have been revealing for some time (Andaló, 1989; Candau, 1996; Kramer, 1989; Perosa, 1997, among others). If the values and ideas proposed in the courses cause conflict with those present in the school where teachers work, there is little possibility of a change. Azanha (1996) argued in the same direction: to improve the education of the individual teacher does not guarantee that the quality of the teaching activity will be improved as well. A teacher may be “good” in a school and “bad” in another. It will depend on the material conditions which each school has. Therefore, the work with teachers must be part of a broader project – the school’s political and pedagogical project – developed with the articulation of every part involved in the process. One can argue that this position, inspired initially in the work of Azanha (1996), represents a significant change in the approach to continued education of teachers. This constitutes a line of reflection and action which takes the school, not the teacher individually, as its object. The professional development of the individual teacher assumes a different meaning when planned and developed in a wider school project. Azanha joins other dissonant voices on the theme of teacher education, redirecting our eyes (including the theoretical one) to the school (Arroyo, 1996; Nóvoa, 1999, 1992; Patto, 1990; Perosa, 1997; Sawaya, 2002; Souza, 2001, among others). According to Candau (1996), the analysis of the academic research data about teacher education identifies at least three major trends that, in some ways, should be considered in a teachers education policy. The first considers that the process of continued education
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has to have as its fundamental reference the teacher’s knowledge, recognizing it and appreciating it; the second trend states that the proposals for continued education of teachers have to take into consideration the life cycle and the phases of professional development of the teachers; and the third one, that the school has to be taken as the privileged locus for the continuing education of teachers. The educational programs should be structured in a way that they consider the problems needing addressed and the projects in already in place – not only the academic content to be taught. Such studies, in general, point to the importance of creating school spaces and time structures that favor a collective process of reflection and intervention in the concrete teacher’s practice, recognizing the necessity to rethink the work of school supervision and co-ordination. It seems that, in general, the work on teacher continued education is based in the relevance of a professional practice grounded on the school reality, as well as on its problematization in the service of overcoming the difficulties found. The re-direction of the focus to the school and its processes has stimulated the development of studies and proposals changes in the field of Psychology and Education toward the construction of a school of good quality. The next section presents some initiatives considered significant to the field of Psychology and School Education.
Recent Research and Works of Intervention in Public Schools from Psychology with a Critical Perspective The adoption of a critical perspective in Psychology allowed the scholars to re-visit classic themes of Educational Psychology, such as: psychological evaluation, teacherstudent relationship, special education, learning problems and literacy, and the education of psychologists, among others. As far as the psychological evaluation of school learning problems is concerned, the recent studies have vehemently questioned the psychometric ideas present in the traditional models of evaluation (see especially the work of Machado, 2003). From a critical perspective of Psychology, it is necessary to re-invent psychological evaluation. The reconsideration should include the pedagogical, psychological, and social relations that produce a school history permeated by a series of events which reach their culmination in the destruction of the meaning of learning for the student as early as the first years of school. Based on authors such as Foucault, Deleuze and Gattari, Machado tries to unveil the process that produces non-learning at school. She takes reified conceptions about the incapacity of the students who have failed a year or those who are illiterate, and problematizes them in discussions with the students involved, their parents and teachers. This in turn aids in recovering a successful school trajectory for these students. Emphasis is given to activities in the educational field based that actually intervene in the lived reality. This task is done at the school, in teachers meetings and in individual spaces; aiming at understanding the different aspects that constitute what is called the “queixa escolar” (school complaint). The results show that, in most of the cases, the collective understanding of the schooling process and of its vicissitudes has helped to overcome the school difficulties of these students.
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Another research group proposes alternative activities for the school psychologist, creating collective spaces for reflection about the dilemmas, constraints and difficulties that are present in the relations that form the schooling process. Included are studies carried out by Rocha (2002), Aguiar (2002), Machado (2002), Tanamachi and Meira (2003), Sayão and Guarido (2004), Souza (2004), Kupfer (2004), and Freller (2001), among others. Such studies underscore the necessity to problematize the school’s issues in order to broaden the understanding of the set of affective, pedagogical and political relations present in everyday school life. Another research group approaches the policy of inclusion of the person with special education needs, following the actions proposed by the Salamanca Declaration of 1994. The researches conducted by Martínez (2005), Anache (2005), Neves and Machado (2005), Amaral (2004), Tada (2005), among others, have focused on the following themes: (1) the educators’ conceptions about inclusion and the repercussions of inclusion in educational practice; (2) principles of an inclusive practice in schools; (3) proposals of psycho-pedagogical actions which aid the inclusion process. Literacy appears as an important theme for research in a critical approach to Psychology. How to understand what goes on in the classrooms in the process of achieving the writing skills? As Maluf (2005, p. 69) points out, little is known about the psychological processes involved in the acquisition of writing skills. Besides, what practices and what knowledges are put into action by the teacher in order to effect such a complex task? Recent research has looked into such issues, discussing the importance of the school context and the formation of the teacher’s knowledge in the literacy process, (Zibetti, 2005). Themes which refer to affectivity in the process of written language acquisition (Tassoni, 2001), to the issue of error in learning and in the pedagogical practices of literacy (Molina, 2001), to toys as a mediation in the process of writing (Montibeller, 2001), and to the roles and meanings of the school notebook (Santos & Souza, 2005), among others, show the diversity of things which compose the process of literacy, and clarify issues in this area. Finally, it is important to note that there is a group of recent research that aims at discussing the professional education offered in undergraduate courses in Psychology, including the work of Tanamachi (2002), Meira (2002), M. P. R. Souza (2002), and Bock (2003). These studies stress the importance of including the epistemological basis of knowledge in Psychology and the educational dimensions of the psychologist’s work in the curricula, highlighting the ideological elements present in the building of the scientific knowledge in Psychology.
Final Remarks In order to understand the schooling process one must consider the following fundamental aspects: (1) the structuring role of the public policies; (2) the double political role of the school as an institution which reproduces the status quo, and at the same time is potentially transformative of the social inequalities; (3) the complexity of the teaching/learning process caused by social and class relations; (4) the construction of a theoretical and methodological framework in the field of Psychology and
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Education from a critical perspective of the understanding of the school and educational phenomenon. The conception of school failure from a critical perspective, that is, as a product of a schooling process, modifies radically the initial issues that oriented the research about the phenomenon. New ways of understanding psychological and pedagogical interventions are being produced in the field of Education aiming at the improvement of the school quality. We have had significant progress with the production of knowledge about the process of formal schooling, particularly regarding the education offered to the popular classes at the schools in the outskirts of the urban centers. However, the incorporation and transformation of this knowledge at the level of public education policies is still incipient and largely superficial, failing to result in improvements to the educational services offered to the majority of the Brazilian population. As far as the teacher education policies are concerned, the advances and improvements observed in the educational field are still localized, and fall short of the social needs for transformation of the school.
Notes 1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10. 11.
Favela is the Portuguese word for a shanty town or cardboard city. Public housing is characteristically buildings with very small apartments or houses constructed by the public authorities in areas with poor transportation, basic services and entertainment options. The basic organization of the Brazilian education system, its levels and main features, are, in short, the following: (1) Basic Education (Educação Básica): composed by: Pre-school (Educação Infantil), Primary Education (Ensino Fundamental) and Secondary Education (Ensino Médio). (2) Higher Education (Educação Superior). The Pre-school education is structured in groups based on the children’s age, catering for ages from 4 months to 6 years. The Brazilian primary education, comprising 8 years of compulsory and free education, caters for children between the ages of 7 to 14. The 1988 Constitution removed the upper age limit, making Primary Education mandatory and free for all, even for those that, for any reason, could not attend school at the proper age. The Secondary Education takes at least 3 years, including vocational courses. And at the Higher Education level, the number of years varies according to the course of studies. It is important to emphasize that the discussion carried out in this chapter refers to the public education system, that is attended almost entirely by children who come from the most disadvantaged social stratum. Cunha (1974); Freitag (1978), amongst others. Table Sources: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, coordenação de Trabalho e Rendimento, PNAD (National Sampling Survey on Households) 2002–2003. The PNAD is carried out periodically by the IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística)Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Although the national legislation dates from 1996, some Brazilian states, including São Paulo and Minas Gerais, had adhered to the system of cycles already in the 1980s. Tables sources: The data were collected from official agencies as published by the MEC/INEP. M. H. G. Castro, & A.M.Q Davanzo, (orgs). Situação da Educação Básica no Brasil, 1999, p. 80. For 2002 data is available from www.edudatabrasil.inep.gov.br (see MEC/INEP, 2005). The PROFLUXO model uses data from the PNAD, a national sampling survey of households, while the official agencies use data from the Educational Census. The rates of repetition are such that in 1982, 25% of all enrollment in Brazil at Primary Education is concentrated in the first grade, and in poorer regions of the country the rate reaches almost 50%.
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12. 13.
14.
15. 16.
17. 18. 19.
20. 21. 22.
Souza and Souza The expected percentage would be around 12.5% in each of the eight grades of primary school (Ribeiro, 1991). All quotations of texts in Portuguese were translated to English. Strong criticisms about the limitations of the use of psychological tests in the identification and measurement of children’s abilities can be found in several works, such as Richards (1997), Lewontin et al. (1984), and Patto (1997). One of the main documents produced in the 1960s about the Deprivation Theories in the USA is Perspectives on Human Deprivation: biological, psychological and sociological. Washington, US Department of Health Education and Welfare, 1968. Like in the USA, in Brazil the Deprivation theories assumed two main versions proposed initially by Cole and Bruner (1972): The deficit version and the difference version cited by Lemos, 1985. Patto (1990); Azanha (1990) in Brazil; Ezpeleta, J. and Rockwell, E. (1986); Rockwell, E. (1987) in Mexico; Assaél Jenny and Neuman, E. (1987); and Edwards, V. (1990), in Chile. We refer to the approaches denominated as “ethnographic”, “qualitative” or “participant research”, represented by the works of Stubbs and Delamond (1976); Sharp and Green (1975)”; Hammersly and Atkinson (1983); Erickson (1973, 1986); Woods ( 1979); Pollard (1982), amongst others. In Brazil, the critical movement had its beginning with Maria Helena Souza Patto’s doctoral thesis in 1981, entitled Psychology and Ideology: a critical introduction to school psychology. A pejorative word used to denominate people from the less developed regions of the country, the North and the Northeast. The criteria allow tenured and more experienced teachers to choose first. Therefore, the tendency is to choose the “easiest” or the “less time-consuming” groups (which means to avoid the literacy classes), so the most inexperienced teachers end up with the most difficult groups of students. The logic is not to “waste” good teachers with “bad” pupils. In the Brazilian education scenario, the works of Paulo Freire are considered as pioneering in recognizing the political dimension of the educative process. The analysis started by Souza has been confirmed by more recent investigations, particularly those of Santos & Souza (2005) and Tamboril (2005). This book is available only in Portuguese (Mello, 1982). In 2004 the book was in its 12th reprinting, which gives an indication of how widely its ideas have been disseminated.
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Erickson, F. (1973). What makes school ethnography ‘ethnographic’? Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 4(2), 10–19. Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 119–161). New York: Macmillan Publishing. Ezpeleta, J., & Rockwell, J. (1986). Pesquisa Participante [Participatory Research]. São Paulo: Cortez. Franco, M. L. P. B. (1995). Qualidade total na formação profissional: Do texto ao contexto [Total quality in professional education: From the text to the context]. Revista Brasileira de Estudos pedagógicos, 76(182/183), 117–138. Freitag, B. (1978). Escola, Estado e Sociedade [School, State and Society]. São Paulo: Edart. Freller, C. C. (2001). Histórias de indisciplina escolar: O trabalho de um psicólogo numa perspectiva Winnicottiana [Histories of school indiscipline: The work of an educational psychology in an Winnicottian perspective]. São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Gatti, B. A. (2004). Estudos quantitativos em educação [Quantitative studies in education]. Educação e Pesquisa, 30(1), 11–30. Hammersly, M., & Atkinson, P. (1983). Ethnography – principles and practice. London: Tavistok. Heller, A. (1972). O cotididano e a história [History and everyday life]. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. Heller, A. (1987). Sociologia de la vida cotidiana [Sociology of the everyday life]. Barcelona: Ediciones Pensínsula. Houston, S. (1982). Um reexame de algumas afirmações sobre a linguagem da criança de baixo nível sócioeconˆomico [A reexamination of some assumptions about the language of the disadvantage child]. In M. H. S. Patto (Org.), Introdução a` Psicologia Escolar (pp. 174–192). São Paulo: T.A. Queiróz. IBGE. (2001). Tendˆencias Demográficas, 2000. Retrieved on February 13, 2006, from http://www.ibge.gov. br/ibgeteen/pesquisas/demograficas.html Kessel, M. (1954). A evasão escolar no ensino primário [Dropout in primary education]. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos, 22(56), 53–72. Kramer, S. (1989). Melhoria da qualidade do ensino: O desafio da formação de professores em serviço [The improvement of the quality of teaching: The challenge of teacher in-service education]. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos, 70(165), 189–207. Kupfer, M. C. (2004). O que toca a` psicologia escolar? [Concerning the educational psychology]. In A. M. Machado, & M. P. R. Souza (Orgs.), Psicologia Escolar: Em busca de novos rumos (4th ed.). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Lemos, C. (1985). Teorias da Diferença e Teorias do Déficit: Os programas de intervenção na pré -escola e na alfabetização [Cultural difference theories and deficit theories]. Educação e Sociedade, 7(20), 75–89. Lewontin, R. C., Rose, S., & Kamin, L. J. (1984). Not in our genes. Biology, ideology and human nature. NY: Panteon Books. Machado, A. M. (2002). Avaliação psicológica na educação: Mudanças Necessárias [Psychological Assessement in Education: Necessary changes]. In M. Rocha, E. Tanamachi, & M. Proença (Org.), Psicologia Escolar: desafios teórico-práticos (pp.143–168). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Machado, A. M. (2003). Os psicólogos trabalhando com a escola: Intervenção a serviço do quˆe? [The psychologists working with the school: Intervention in favor of what?]. In M. E. M. Meira, & M. A. M. Antunes (Orgs.), Psicologia Escolar: Práticas críticas (pp. 63–86). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Maluf, M. R. (2005). O psicólogo escolar e a alfabetização [The educational psychologist and literacy]. In A. M. Martínez, (Org.), Psicologia Escolar e Compromisso Social (pp. 67–92). Campinas: Alínea. Martínez, A. M. (2005). Inclusão escolar: Desafios para o psicólogo [Inclusive education: Challenges for the psychologist]. In A. M. Martínez (Org.), Psicologia Escolar e Compromisso Social (pp. 95–114). Campinas: Alínea. MEC/INEP. (2005). Retrieved on June 20, 2005, from http://www.edudatabrasil.inep.gov.br Meira, M. M. (2002). Psicologia Escolar: Pensamento crítico e Práticas [Profissionais(School Psychology: critical conceptions and practices]. In M. P. R. Souza, E. Tanamachi, & M. L. Rocha (Orgs.), Psicologia e Educação: Desafios teórico-práticos (pp. 35–72). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Mello, G. N. (1982). Magistério de Primeiro Grau: Da competˆencia técnica ao compromisso político [Teaching in primary school: From technical competence to the political commitment]. São Paulo: Cortez. Mello, S. L. (1975). Psicologia e Profissão em São Paulo [Psychology and profession in São Paulo]. São Paulo: Ática.
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Molina, A. S. (2001). O erro e as práticas pedagógicas: Uma análise sócio-interacionista [The mistake and the pedagogical practices: A sociointeractionist analysis]. In S. A. S. Leite (Org.), Alfabetização e letramento. Contribuições para as práticas pedagógicas. (pp. 261–312). Campinas: Komedi; Arte Escrita. Montibeller, L. (2001). O brinquedo na constituição do sujeito e como elemento precursor da escrita [Toys in the constitution of the subject and as a precursor element of writing]. In S. A. S. Leite (Org.), Alfabetização e letramento. Contribuições para as práticas pedagógicas (pp. 313–346). Campinas: Komedi; Arte Escrita. Neves, M. M. B. J., & Machado, A. C. A. (2005). Psicologia Escolar e Educação Inclusiva: Novas práticas de atendimento a` s queixas escolares [Educational Psychology and Inclusive Education: New practices of dealing with school complaints]. In A. M. Martínez Psicologia Escolar e compromisso social (pp. 135–152). Campinas: Alínea. Nóvoa, A. (1992). A formação de professores e a profissão docente [Teacher education and teaching profession]. In A. Nóvoa (Org.), Os professores e a sua formação (pp. 15–33). Lisboa: Publicações Dom Quixote. Nóvoa, A. (1999). Os professores na virada do milˆenio: Do excesso dos discursos a` pobreza das práticas [Teachers at the turning of the millennium: From the excess of the discourses to the poverty of the practices]. Educação e Pesquisa, 25(1), 11–20. Patto, M. H. S. (1990). A produção do fracasso escolar: Histórias de submissão e rebeldia [The production of the school failure: Histories of submission and rebellion]. São Paulo: T.A. Queiróz. Patto, M. H. S. (1997). Para uma crítica da razão psicométrica [For a critique of the psychometrical reason]. Psicologia USP, 8(1), 47–62. Paquay, L., Altet, M., Charlier, E., & Perrenoud, Ph. (Dir.). (2001). Formando professores profissionais. Quais estratégias? Quais competˆencias? [Educating professional teacher: What strategies? What competencies?]. Porto Alegre: Artmed. Perosa, G. (1997). Formação docente e fracasso escolar. [Teacher education and school failure]. M. Phil. Dissertation, Instituto de Psicologia, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo. Pollard, A. (1982). A model of coping strategies. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), 19–37. Ribeiro, S. C. (1991). A Educação e a Inserção do Brasil na Modernidade [Education and the Brazilian inclusion on the Modernity]. Coleção Documentos, São Paulo: IEA, Universidade de São Paulo. Ribeiro, S. C. (1992). A educação e a inserção do Brasil na modernidade [Education and the Brazil’s introduction in the modernity]. Coleção documentos. São Paulo: IEA; Universidade de São Paulo. Richards, G. (1997). Race, racism and psychology. Towards a reflexive history. London and New York: Routledge. Rocha, M. L. (2002). Educação em Tempos de Tédio: Um desafio a` Micropolítica [Education in Time of Tedium: A challege for the mycropolitics]. In M. Rocha, E. Tanamachi, & M. Proença (Org.), Psicologia Escolar: Desafios teórico-práticos (pp. 185–208). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Rockwell, E. (1987). Reflexiones sobre el proceso etnográfico [Reflection about the ethnographic process]. Ciudad de México: DIE/CINVESTAV. Santos, A. A. C., & Souza, M. P. R. (2005). Cadernos escolares: Como e o que se registra no contexto escolar [Notebooks: How things are registered in the school]. Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, 9(2), 291–302. Sawaya, S. M. (2001). A inf aˆ ncia na pobreza urbana: Linguagem oral e a escrita da história pelas crianças [The childhood in the urban poverty: Oral language and children’s writing stories]. Psicologia USP, 12(1), 153–78. Sawaya, S. (2002). Novas perspectivas sobre o sucesso e o fracasso escolar (New perspectives on school failure and school success). In M. K. Oliveira, D. T. R. Souza, & T. C. Rego (Orgs.), Psicologia, Educação e as temáticas da vida contemporˆanea. (pp. 197–213). São Paulo: Moderna. Sayão, Y., & Guarido, R. L. (2004). Intervenção psicológica em creche/pré-escola [Psychological intervention in nursery/preschool]. In A. M. Machado, & M. P. R. Souza, (Orgs.), Psicologia Escolar: Em busca de novos rumos (pp. 83–92). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Sharp, R., & Green, A. (1975). Education and social control: A study in progressive primary education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Soares, M. (1986). Linguagem e Escola: Uma perspectiva social [Language and school: A social perspective]. São Paulo: Ática.
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Souza, D. T. R. (2001). Teachers professional development and the argument of incompetence: The case of in-service elementary teacher education in São Paulo, Brazil. Ph.D. Thesis, Institute of Education, London, UK: University of London. Souza, D. T. R. (2002). Teacher professional development and the argument of incompetence. Videtur, 16, 37–48. Souza, M. P. R. (2002). A queixa escolar na formação de psicólogos: Desafios e perspectivas [The school complaint and the psychologist’s education: Challenges and perspectives]. In M. P. R. Souza, E. Tanamachi, & M. L. Rocha (Orgs.), Psicologia e Educação: Desafios teórico-próticos (pp. 105–142). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Souza, M. P. R. (2004). As contribuições dos estudos etnográficos na compreensão do fracasso escolar no Brasil [The contribution of the ethnographic studies to the understanding of the school failure in Brazil]. In A. M. Machado, & M. P. R. Souza (Orgs.), Psicologia Escolar: Em busca de novos rumos (4th ed.). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Stubbs, M., & Delamont, S. (1976). Exploration in classroom observation. New York: John Wiley. Tada, I. N. C. (2005). Dialogando com Amanda: Algumas contribuições da psicologia histórico-cultural para a compreensão de uma jovem com Síndrome de Down [Dialoguing with Amanda: Some contributions of the historico-cultural theory for the understanding of a young female with Down syndrome]. Ph.D. Thesis, Instituto de Psicologia, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo. Tamboril, M. I. B. (2005). Políticas Públicas para a Formação Docente: Um estudo em Porto Velho-RO [Public policies for teacher education: A study in Porto Velho-RO]. Ph.D. thesis, Instituto de Psicologia, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo. Tanamachi, E. R. (2002). Mediações teórico-práticas de uma visão crítica em Psicologia Escolar [Theoretical-practical mediation of an approach in educational psychology]. In E. R. Tanamachi, M. Proença, & M. Rocha (Orgs.), Psicologia e Educação: Desafios teóricos o práticos. (pp. 73–104). (2nd ed.). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Tanamachi, E. R., & Meira, M. E. M. (2003). A atuação do psicólogo como expressão do pensamento crítico em Psicologia e Educação [The psychologist action as an expression of the critical thought in Psychology and Education]. In M. E. M. Meira, & M. A. M. Antunes (Orgs.), Psicologia Escolar: Práticas críticas. (pp. 11–62). São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo. Tassoni, E. C. M. (2001). A afetividade e o processo de apropriação da linguagem escrita [The affectivity and the process of appropriation of the written language]. In S. A. S. Leite (Org.), Alfabetização e letramento. Contribuições para as práticas pedagógicas (pp. 223–260). Campinas: Komedi; Arte Escrita. Therrien, A. T. S. (1996). Trabalho docente: Uma incursão no imaginário social brasileiro [Teaching work: A incursion on the Brazilian social imaginary]. Ph.D. Thesis, São Paulo: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. Vaughan-Williams, P. (1992). Brazil: A concise thematic geography. London: HarperCollins Publishers. Weffort, F. (1995). Escola, Participação e Representação Formal [School, participation and formal representation]. In L. H. Silva, & J. C. Azevedo (Orgs.), A Paixão de Aprender II. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes. Woods, P. (1979). The divided school. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Zibetti, M. L. T. (2005). Os saberes docentes na prática de uma alfabetizadora: Um estudo etnográfico [The teacher’s knowledge in the practice of a literacy teacher: A ethnographic study]. Ph.D. Thesis, Instituto de Psicologia, São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo.
34 CHILEAN EDUCATIONAL REFORM: THE INTRICATE BALANCE BETWEEN A MACRO AND MICRO POLICY Dagmar Raczynski* and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo† *
Asesorias para el Desarrollo and Catholic University of Chile; Ministry of Education and Diego Portales University, Chile
†
The Reform in Progress, Analysis, and Results The first part of this chapter provides a synthesis of Chilean educational reform over the last 25 years, ending with an overall assessment regarding the country’s present educational system. It is clear that the reform has been an on-going process that is still unable to produce a real effect where most required: in prevalent teaching and learning practices found within schools and classrooms. This is due to the fact that up until now, reform has been applied at a “macro policy” level, or rather, in the improvement of general conditions in the educational system and schools, while policies focused specifically on the steps that need to be taken to improve the quality of learning (the “micro policy”), have been weak. For international readers, it is important to provide a brief picture of Chile’s population, rural–urban distribution, politico-administrative structure and educational system. Chile has 17 million inhabitants, around 85% live in urban areas, and its capital Santiago, a city of more than 6 million inhabitants, contains almost 40% of the population. Chile has a presidential regime and is a unitary state. The state is broken up into 13 regions, 55 provinces and 345 “comunas” or districts. The “comunas” are highly heterogeneous in demographic, economic and social characteristics, when considering human development indicators as well as availability of social services. Some of them are also internally heterogeneous, while others concentrate high proportions of either poor or rich inhabitants. The Ministry of Education is in charge of educational policy, regulation, financing and evaluation. It articulates itself to the schools through 13 regional secretaries and 41 provincial departments of education. These latter are responsible for the implementation of educational policies in the schools, providing administrative and technical assistance, as well as controlling the schools. The country has more than 11,000 schools, that together provide education to around 3.8 million students, beginning at four years of age with two years of preschool (non-obligatory), followed by eight years of compulsory 641 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 641–664. © 2007 Springer.
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primary education and four years of high school (compulsory since 2002). Educational coverage in Chile is almost 100% in primary school and reaches 75% in high school. At the pre-primary level, coverage is lower, reaching 52% of the population of 4–5 years of age. Ninety two percent of the student body studies in publicly subsidized schools and 8% in private, tuition-charging (or paid), schools. Publicly subsidized schools are administered either by municipalities (local authority of each of the 345 “comunas”) or by private entities: 54 and 46%, respectively. Municipal schools are more frequent in small, poor and geographically isolated “comunas.” Yet they are also predominant in poor areas of Santiago and other cities. The system is characterized by marked socioeconomic segmentation, where municipal schools concentrate the poorest segments of the population; private subsidized schools serve some of the poor and middle level population and private paid schools the highest echelon. Before the educational reform presented and analyzed below, publicly financed schools contained 90% of the student body and were directly administered by the Ministry of Education. Socioeconomic segmentation did exist, but was less stratified than today.
Chilean Educational Reform: A Long Course of Action1 Chile’s educational reform has been characterized by two clearly diverse processes, with divergent principles. The first of these took place during the military dictatorship. The second began with the return of democracy to the country and the policies implemented by the coalition governments.
Neoliberal reforms during the 1980s Reforms implemented during the 1980s redefined the State’s social responsibilities, including in the area of education, leading to a weakened public school system. This was emphasized by two significant measures that have remained in effect until the present: (1) decentralization of the education sector via the transfer of schools from ministerial to municipal and private control; and (2) a new school funding system which introduced the school subsidy unit consisting of a voucher for any student who had registered and attended school the previous month.2 The objective of these two measures was that they would produce competition among schools for students, which in turn would promote greater efficiency in the use of resources and higher learning standards. The new school administrators, the municipal authorities, did not welcome these changes, as they were being given the power and responsibility to administer primary schools and high schools whether they wanted such responsibility or not, or whether they actually had or had not the real capacity to administer education effectively in their district. At the same time, a System of Measurement of Educational Quality (SIMCE, Sistema de Medición de Calidad de la Educación) was designed and developed, with the understanding that the competition model established between schools for student registration required information on educational results, so that parents
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would make school registration decisions for their children on the basis of these results, while at the same time each school would be aware of its standing as regards academic achievement. These modifications and policies were developed within a context of public expenditure restrictions. This was a consequence both of the external economic crisis affecting the country, leading to a drop in GDP of almost 15%, as well as the neoliberal ideology adverse to public spending prevalent in the government of that time. Total State spending on education was reduced by 27% between 1982 and 1990, from 4.9 to 2.5% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). As a result of measures introduced during the 1980s, the State relinquished leadership and presence in the education system. The responsibility to provide services was handed to hundreds of educational service “administrators”: 345 of these were municipal authorities that lacked any real experience or training in running schools. With the voucher scheme, there now were more than 4,000 private sector “administrators” as well. At the same time, the State made no attempt to renew ministerial responsibilities as regards the administration and regulation of a more diversified and dispersed system, apart from overseeing student attendance and the voucher regime. The State effectively delegated its responsibility to safeguard school standards to the market and was unconcerned about the conditions necessary within the system to strengthen the working quality of establishments.3
The reform process during the 1990s. The state reassumes control of education During the 1990s the State reassumed control over education, assigning more resources and working on wide-ranging educational reforms focused on improving the quality of teaching standards and equity in academic results, maintaining the provision of education via public and private administrators, and the funding system based on vouchers. The new wave of reforms implied a rupture with the previous measures and model, but also a certain degree of continuity, as indicated in Table 1. With the return to democracy in Chile, substantial changes have taken place as regards the general policy framework and the State’s role in education. From being a “subsidizing State” that spends as little as possible on education, limiting its role almost exclusively to assigning resources to educational administrators, it has gone to a “promoting State,” with responsibilities for the quality and equity of education, directly designing and implementing educational improvement programs. Educational reform during the 1990s included three areas of action, detailed as follows: Political and economic conditions that favor public sector interventions in education: The initial priority was to establish favorable political, labor and financial conditions that would facilitate the move towards a “promoting State.” Interventions within this area were arranged in three key areas: to build a consensus with actors within and outside the education sector regarding fundamental priorities, respond to the State’s and society’s debt to teachers (Teachers’ Statute), and ensure the financial resources needed by the proposed changes. Public expenditure on education rose threefold between 1990 and 2005, going from 2.4 to 4.4% of GDP. The Teachers’ Statute is a response to the debt with the Teachers’ Union, which recovered part of its labor rights
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Table 1.
Educational policy during the 1980s and 1990s: factors of continuity and divergence Factors of continuity with the 1980s
At policy framework level
–
At policy, programs and lines of action level
⇒ ⇒ ⇒ ⇒
Factors of divergence with the 1980s
⇒ From a subsidizing State to a promoting State responsible for national education (government spending on education rose from 2.6 to 4.3% of GDP between 1990 and 2000, underlining the importance of education within national development). ⇒ From access to quality and equity. ⇒ From the priority placed on administrative and funding issues to issues covering teaching and learning (pedagogical). ⇒ Period of compulsory education extended from 8 to 12 years. Funding system (subsidy ⇒ Changes in the status of the on demand) teaching profession and response to Administration of system: the social debt with teachers decentralized (municipality) (Teachers’ Statute). system ⇒ General and focused educational Promotion of private administration improvement programs. of subsidized establishments ⇒ New curriculum for pre-school, National system to measure primary and high school level learning achievements (SIMCE) ⇒ Professional development of teachers. ⇒ Development of prizes and incentives to improve school and teacher performance (SNED, Evaluation of academic standards and teacher performance). ⇒ Extension of the School Day. ⇒ Investments in school infrastructure. ⇒ Investments in equipment and didactic resources (textbooks, libraries and Learning Resources Centers, classroom libraries from first to fourth grade in primary school).
Source: By the authors based on Cox (2003).
(among them, tenure rights), and improved its income thanks to centralized mechanisms to set wage levels. Interventions directly focused on improving the quality and equity of education: These were carried out via the implementation of a diverse range of improvement programs designed and funded by the Ministry of Education and implemented through its framework. Part of these programs are universal for all State-subsidized schools, while others
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are specifically focused on schools that have high levels of social vulnerability and low learning results. In general terms, both initiatives transfer input resources and material and technical support to educational establishments. Outstanding among these programs were the P-900 (Program for the Improvement of education in poverty areas), the MECE primary and high school improvement programs (Improvement of quality and equity of education, implemented with the support of the World Bank), Rural Primary programs, educational improvement projects, the bilingual intercultural program, “Liceo para Todos” (“Schools for All” High School Program, oriented to reduce school dropout), and “Montegrande” (program that for five years supported selected high schools across the country), to name the most important. Along with these are the ENLACES (Links) program for information technology resources in the classroom, which presently covers 100% of all high schools and 85% of all primary schools. From a quantitative perspective focused on percentage of total educational resources spent, these latter programs are minor efforts.4 Compulsory measures of a structural nature for the whole education sector: Full day classes and curricula reform. These are measures that affect the whole system and modify structural aspects, which it is hoped will contribute to raising the standards of teaching and learning. Curricula changes were wide-ranging, affecting both primary and high school education, and implied a prolonged process that was not without its conflicts. This is a response to changes in society at national and international level, and expects students to acquire essential skills for integrating into an increasingly globalized world, without losing their own cultural identity. The underlying theme of the new curricula is to set out a quality educational core and at the same time leave a degree of flexibility, so that within this framework each particular school can draft its own plans and study programs. Full Day Classes (FDC – Jornada Escolar Completa or JEC) extends the school hours of students, teachers and the management team. Previously, the school working period was organized on a half-day basis. In real terms, the average daily schooling time for primary education has increased by 24% and for high school by 18%. FDC does not only involve the actual length of the school day, but also proposes changes to the way class time is organized: the relationship between rest and study periods; the balance between classroom and non-classroom activities; the availability of greater time periods for the individual and group work of teachers; the relationship between school, parents and guardians; and the time period allocated to different subjects, among other aspects. It also implies a significant investment in infrastructure (approximately 1,200 million in U.S. dollars), and a considerable increase in subsidy costs in order to pay for additional teaching hours.
The Results: What has Changed (and Not Changed) in Chilean Education Nobody doubts that in Chile today, opportunities within the educational system have improved. In fact, these opportunities are reflected in the way Chilean society perceives education. The last UNDP report on Chile is clear in this respect. The report mentions a “new platform” of opportunities where education plays a key role. According to this report, 73% of the population believes that today there are more opportunities for
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people to study (UNDP, 2004). Some results of Chilean educational reform that everyone agrees on are as follows: ●
●
Study opportunities for children and young people belonging to poor sectors have substantially increased, as can be witnessed from figures regarding primary and high school education coverage, the reductions in the drop-out and school leaving rates, and the expansion of higher education. Whatever the socioeconomic situation facing a family, the great majority of children and adolescents attend and complete their primary education and attend high school.5 Schools are better equipped to cater to the learning needs of students, thanks to substantial improvements in infrastructure; increases to teacher salaries; greater availability of learning resources within schools (textbooks, didactic resources, computers and Internet access, libraries, etc.); the development of educational improvement programs and projects; more demanding curricula; the extended school day for students and teachers; more welfare support for students from poorer families (food, grants, school supplies, oral health, etc.).
In spite of the above-mentioned achievements, there is also a broad consensus regarding two considerable shortcomings of our system: deficiencies in educational quality and its persistent segmentation. The learning level generated in students by the Chilean education system is lower than that set by the international standard to which it aspires. Measurements such as PISA (International Program of Student Assessment, of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and TIMSS (Third International Mathematic and Science Study) clearly show that Chile falls below initial expectations in Language as well as Mathematics and Sciences. Additionally, the scores obtained by schools in the test that accompanies the System of Measurement of Educational Quality (SIMCE, Sistema de Medición de Calidad de la Educación) have not risen on average, and the score gap between the lower and middle socioeconomic and cultural background of students’ homes or according to administrative body (which in Chile has a direct relationship with the socioeconomic level of homes), has remained constant (Figure 1).6 The intended goal of Chilean educational reforms over the last 25 years, of making significant progress as regards the learning achievements of students and the social distribution of such achievements, has not been reached. Consequently, the country has a universal obligation in terms of the quality of education and the type of teaching being given to different segments and social groups (because the standstill in the quality of education affects everyone). There is also a pending debt to the poorest sectors of society. Students from underprivileged families receive a lower standard of education and learn less, so becoming, as Bourdieu and Champagne (1999) pointed out, the “segregated from within.” Making a significant gain in terms of quality and prevailing over this new form of social exclusion are the great challenges that face the Chilean educational system today. The reasons behind these challenges are numerous. However, from our own particular view, there are two central hypotheses that may explain this situation. Even though educational reforms in Chile have substantially improved coverage and working conditions in the country’s schools, the expected leap in quality and equity has not taken place, as reforms have “fallen short” in two fundamental and interrelated aspects: the inability to visualize schools as a system and to help them to improve by focusing their actions
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Last SIMCE evaluations 4th grade primary (mathematics) 310 300 290 280 270 260 250 240 230 220 210 200
301.0
274.0 250.0
297.0
271.0
245.0
229.0 228.0 220.0 220.0
LOW
MEDIUM - LOW
MEDIUM 2002
MEDIUM - HIGH
HIGH
2005
Figure 1. SIMCE scores according to social strata of the students Source: By the authors using data from SIMCE MINEDUC (2006) www.simce.cl Date of retrieval July 31, 2006.
on the students’ learning process. These, in turn, have led to schools that have neither the necessary ability or capacity to “enhance the worth” of their students, which is to say, to improve their learning skills over and above what is expected given their socioeconomic and family backgrounds. In short, Chilean education policy has not shown the capacity to “empower” educational establishments and so create a greater number of truly effective schools. Actions taken so far have been inefficient, as they have not been able to reach the “heart” of the problem. The question that needs to be answered in Chile today is: how to raise the socalled “school effect,” beyond the context of external influences (family or social), via effective actions implemented within the school establishment and efficient teaching practices used by every classroom teacher? To concentrate efforts, or establish as the objective the creation of a greater number of effective schools, implies shifting the focus away from inputs used within the educational process and other context variables (classroom hours, curricula programs, etc.), towards schools as organizations and the teaching and learning processes that take place within them, in order to consider the support that schools really need and the best way of providing that support. The second part of this chapter deals with this question with the help of empirical evidence now available in our country. The third part of the chapter offers some policy outlines in order to move towards a greater number of effective schools.
New Impetus for Reform: The Aims that should be Guiding Chilean Education Policy As mentioned before, the main question that should be made by our country today is essentially what type of school do we really need if what is wanted is a qualitative leap in learning results? Focus is thus placed on the school – the “micro cosmos” where the
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majority of changes urgently required by the educational system are truly needed. Up until now, government policies have circled around this micro cosmos without really coming to grips with it. Public policies have provided a constant flow of initiatives to schools and there have been numerous actions undertaken, but consideration has not sufficiently been given to the “capacities” that schools have to assimilate and incorporate all these actions within an educational project centered on teaching and learning and the integrated formation of students. To identify and discuss the type of school to which the country should aspire is of primary importance, as this conveys the deeper meaning of educational policy to the school. This section describes, firstly, the characteristics inherent in effective schools and teaching methods in poor sectors of Chile; followed by the elements and processes that have led to quality improvements within educational establishments. The reference points for this analysis are at all times specific schools located in Chile.7
Effective Schools in Poor Sectors of Chile When raising the issue of effective schools, we are not at all proposing that they are all the same. Each school is a world in itself; it has a history; is and has been overcoming its own particular problems; students and families are all distinct; working methods used are distinctive in each case. Indeed, each and every school is unique. However, effective schools in poor sectors of Chile do share a certain emphasis in terms of organizational and teaching practices that makes them effective.8 At the heart of truly effective schools there is a management team focused on pedagogical needs, delineating the work undertaken by the establishment, guaranteeing an unceasing concern by management and teaching staff for the students’ learning process. This process is complemented by and receives feedback from the proficient work undertaken by teachers in the classroom, a task supported by colleagues, and receiving solid managerial support in technical and pedagogic issues. Management teams support and relieve the administrative tasks that are the responsibility of teachers, and are focused on supervising and supporting the classroom work of each teacher. These two areas forcefully engage and interact with the expectations held by managers and teachers as regards the learning possibilities of students. They believe in the potential of students and communicate this belief (in public) to them, and are demanding with them. These three areas, in turn, interact with aspects linked to the school environment, its identity, and the commitment and thoroughness with which such tasks are implemented. These elements reinforce effective management teams and the effective work undertaken in the classroom. Finally, each school has a specific stance as regards the role that the family should play in the school, acting in correspondence with this role.9 Tables 2 and 3 provide a synthesis of these elements. The key elements of the aforementioned effective management teams provide support to teachers in the classroom, and without efficient teaching, there is no school that can really be effective. The working aspects of teachers in the classroom that stand out in the effective schools studied are numerous. The main aspects are outlined in Table 3. Practically all schools involved in this study share these characteristics, although to
Chilean Educational Reform Table 2.
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Characteristics of effective schools in poor sectors of Chile
Institutional and pedagogic leadership: Effective schools possess leaders legitimized by the educational community, derived from the effective support “in the workplace” provided by management teams to teachers so that they may fulfill their teaching tasks. Such teams have high expectations as regards the ability of their teachers and the future of their students, They promote participation, provide appropriate feedback and constantly motivate teachers, both in word and example. This leads to a healthy working climate, identification with the school, and shared motivation to provide a good standard of work. Management teams focused on learning: The school community understands that the “essential task” of schools is the generation of learning skills in students. Management concerns itself about initiatives for the protection and social assistance of students, but is careful not to withhold energy and effort from the central task: the learning process of students. Schools where nothing is left to chance: Schools have an educational project that is explicit, understood and shared by the school community. The objectives of this translate into concrete and realistic goals, based on skills that all children should develop, and practices marked by the stamp of these objectives. Clear priorities are established in order to avoid a dispersion of efforts on activities that distract and wear down students and teachers. Effective classroom teaching, well prepared and rigorously implemented, with attention to diversity, sustained rhythm, and learning motivation, is the central focus of work. Responsible evaluation: A “culture of evaluation” is present that is geared towards improving the individual and collective performance of teachers: through evaluation, they learn from their errors and identify and exchange good teaching practices, which is knowledge that provides feedback for planning. Systematic evaluation also stimulates teachers to make their best effort. The evaluation of students is neither a routine nor the individual task of each teacher; rather results are processed, achievements and setbacks are analyzed, along with reinforcements and didactic innovations, etc. Consequently, evaluations made of students provide feedback for a teaching process relevant to students’ needs. Handling and specific responses to student diversity: The differences between students (in terms of previous knowledge and different learning speeds) are recognized and accepted as a reality, and are incorporated at the planning and development stage of activities in the school and classroom. Concordantly, these schools, except in some extreme cases, do not exclude students who are academically behind or show behavioral problems; rather they make an all-out effort to maintain them in the school. Clear and shared rules as regards the use of discipline: Rules are clear in regards to the coexistence of school participants and coherent in the application of discipline; rules are applied to both teachers and students. Emphasis is placed on positive reinforcement, mediation and reparation. The example represented by teachers and those in charge of management teams as regards commitment and discipline is recognized by students. High expectations and demands as regards knowledge acquired by students: In effective schools, teachers and administrators do not blame the family if a student has learning problems. Rather, they believe in, and make a constant effort to enhance, the learning skills of such children, who come from homes subject to material restrictions, low cultural awareness, with a limited availability of books and other learning stimuli. However, teachers do not only believe in the learning ability of their students, but also communicate this high expectation regarding their students’ future. Students repeatedly indicate that their teachers encourage them “to do more,” that they “should overcome the hurdles,” that they “have talent,” and the “importance of personal effort and a sense of responsibility to get ahead in life.” In accordance with this conviction expressed in the classroom, the main concern of teachers is to motivate students to learn and stimulate them to make their best effort. School–family alliance: Effective schools develop an intentional and collective stance as regards how to relate to students’ families, which is understood and accepted by all involved, and is frequently expressed via letters of commitment outlining responsibilities and rights, rewards and punishments. Nevertheless, here all similarity ends. Some effective schools only demand a minimum level of responsibility from parents with their child or children, and base this alliance on a basic commitment that the family will not attempt to counter the education provided by the school to its offspring. In the other extreme, some schools make an (Continued)
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Table 2.
(Continued )
effort to incorporate parents into the classroom via tutorial systems. Others allocate time to the development of parents, providing them with remedial courses along with general education and personal development. The central point here is that, although strategies may be dissimilar, all the schools concerned understand that the issue of the family and its participation in the education of children cannot be ignored. Efficient use of human resources: There are explicit criteria for teacher selection (whenever possible), in order to assign tasks and responsibilities, and to provide teachers with development opportunities in accordance to their needs. This is made possible by closely undertaken follow-up work by management teams, allowing them to identify the strengths and weaknesses of teaching staff.* Use of external support: Schools make the best use possible of externally provided resources and opportunities, whether in the form of material or technical support. They also try to insert themselves in networks that will allow them to identify solutions to their problems and satisfy different needs. They do not passively receive all that is presented to them; rather, they select what is needed, adapting it to their needs and then disseminating it. *
In municipal schools, this form of administration is limited to assigning, in the most efficient way possible, available teaches to the courses and tasks implemented by the school. Source: Taken from Raczynski & Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile), Ministry of Education, 2005.
a varying degree, and not necessarily present in each class or teacher. If we were to summarize these characteristics in one sentence, it would be as follows. The teacher effectively understands the content to be taught, knows how to motivate the children in order to teach said content; creates an atmosphere in the classroom appropriate for an effective teaching and learning environment; makes use of all the time available to teach; is demanding and provides feedback to the students with positive reinforcement. We must not forget that these “effective classrooms” are only possible if institutional mechanisms exist within the school that constantly stimulate and reinforce them. An essential part of such mechanisms is the collective work of teachers and coordinated lesson planning. Actions are planned which are then implemented in the classroom; problems faced by individual teachers are jointly discussed with colleagues. Actions are coordinated regarding the same course or subject material, and even, if necessary, regarding the problems of a particular student. Additionally, didactic materials, such as guides and tests, are created and shared. There is another important feature regarding effective schools and education that is important to underline: constant updating and adaptation to changes. This feature stands out when schools are studied that were previously effective but no longer are. These schools face enormous difficulties to adapt to changes, particularly the changing characteristics of their students. Effective schools are attentive and open to innovate and adjust their work to the needs and characteristics of an ever-changing alumni and dynamic local environment. Consequently, schools are only effective if they are organizations with the ability to learn, permanently search for ways to improve and adapt to the external factors that affect them, and make the most of opportunities responding to new challenges and risks.
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Outstanding characteristics of effective teaching in effective schools in poor districts
Student learning is the priority: Teachers painstakingly focus their classroom work with students on the acquisition of knowledge, are confident in students’ learning abilities and that it is their (i.e., the teachers’) responsibility to put into practice teaching methodologies that overcome or counteract any problems. To identify mechanisms that motivate students to learn is a basic concern of teachers. They know that the motivation to study is not a set factor that a student automatically brings to the classroom; rather it is the responsibility of the teacher. Acquisition of significant knowledge: Teachers involved in the study make a concerted effort to link up their teaching content with the current situation (affecting the children), previously acquired knowledge and the personal motivation of their students. They know that to go far, they need to start closer to home. This pedagogic rule incorporates a collection of practices directed towards student acquisition of significant knowledge. Consequently, students forge an active relationship with language and knowledge, numbers and logical reasoning. The teaching methodology and didactic instruments used in the same class are diverse and are constantly being varied, as this multiplies the chances that each student will find their personal point of connection and/or motivation with subject contents. High level of structuring and anticipation of learning conditions: The schoolteachers studied carried out intense and systematic work in lesson planning and preparation, backed up by those responsible for academic management within the school, and by their own colleagues. In the same way, classroom work is responsibly assessed, both collectively and individually. Classes are linked up with those given previously, their objectives are clearly outlined, activities are well anticipated and time allocations are controlled. Good use is made of the time available and the pace of work is intense. Teachers supervise, control and provide ongoing feedback to students. Teachers reach conclusions with the support of students; important aspects are reinforced and new elements being learned are clearly explained. This high degree of structuring the teaching process does not mean that it is rigid. Teachers are open to the unforeseen as well as teaching opportunities that spontaneously arise. Constant supervision and feedback to students: Teachers endeavor to maintain constant communication, and develop a relationship, with their students, who in turn perceive that they are being accompanied by their teacher on their learning journey. The “invisible hand” of the teacher (expressed in the countless questions, comments, instructions, corrections and decisions) motivates and involves the students, constantly providing assessment and feedback. If students have been organized for group work, each one receives supervision and care is taken to involve all students in the task. Intensive use of time, sustained pace: One of the most constant characteristics of the schools studied is the significant consideration given to the time they use, illustrated by the way teachers make the most of instructional hours. In effective schools there is very little teacher absenteeism; few classes are suspended, and when a teacher is absent, he or she leaves guides and planned activities to be used by the replacement teacher. In many of these schools, an effort is made to free up teachers from administrative tasks that either act as a distraction or make them lose too much classroom time. In line with this appreciation of time, most teachers make an intensive use of their instructional hours. Good teacher-student relationship: Pedagogic authority is intrinsic to the teacher-student relationship. The pedagogic authority of teachers in the effective schools studied is supported by the quality of their work and the fact that they are mediators between students and knowledge. It is this vested authority, backed up by practice, which students seem to recognize: these teachers are highly respected by their students, with whom they maintain a warm and trusting relationship. Didactic materials with teaching qualities: The use of didactic materials generally occupies an important place in the teaching practices of these teachers. In most of the classes analyzed, the teachers used a wide range of didactic resources: textbooks, books, learning guides, computers, games, videos, etc. Many teachers make use of everyday objects that are recycled and used in educational activities. The quantity of available materials in a school helps. However, the key variable here is the teacher’s creativity in the use of existing materials, and the ability to devise materials when nothing else is at hand. Source: Taken from Raczynski and Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile), Ministry of Education, 2005.
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This description of effective schools and teaching methods in poor sectors of Chile reaffirms that proposed by numerous studies regarding this issue in other countries (Brunner & Elacqua, 2003; Creemers, 1994; Edmonds, 1979; Mortimore, 1997; Murillo, 2003a; Reynolds & Creemers, 1989; Reynolds & Cuttance, 1989; Sammons, Hillman & Mortimore, 1995; Scheerens, 2000; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Slavin, 1996) Thus, the results are not particularly surprising. However, they are important because: ●
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they indicate that with a high standard of work at institutional management level and within the classroom, it is possible to improve the educational quality of schools that attend the needs of students from poor families. they show that the effective schools and teachers studied do not carry out particularly complex or inaccessible actions; they simply do well, with responsibility and thoroughness, that which is expected of a school, counteracting problems and creating learning environments that are favorable and stimulating for students; and they verify that to undertake a task such as the one they do, requires a balanced combination of subjective (commitment, expectations, willingness, thoroughness) and objective (organization, planning, assessment, studies and knowledge up-dating) elements. they reveal that key elements identified have to be simultaneously present to be effective.
There are not many effective schools in poor sectors of Chile. Data gathered regarding the reality of municipal and subsidized private schools indicates that these show various and distinct problems, distinguishing them from the characteristics common to effective schools. Many have leadership, a good environment, and commitment, but student’s learning does not form the core of their daily activities. As a consequence of the difficult context in which they are inserted (poverty, urban decay, insecurity, drugs, crime) they tend to favor a protective “social role” as regards children and adolescents, rather than focusing on learning objectives. Expectations of school managers and teachers are low; they do not believe in the possibility of carrying out good (academic) work with students under prevailing circumstances. Low academic results are primarily associated with the family backgrounds of students and negative factors present in the surrounding environment, and only afterwards with internal difficulties and deficiencies present in the schools themselves. In other schools, there is no collective effort or teamwork carried out by teachers, whether due to the lack of institutional motivation and support that would make such work possible, or the presence of interpersonal conflicts at varying levels of seriousness within the school community. In other establishments, it is the insufficient training and preparation of teachers that is the problem, or their inability to establish a relationship of respect and collaboration with the families of students. Other schools suffer from a lack of discipline. Moreover, there are schools that face problems regarding adherence to “basic regulations,” where neither teachers nor students respect school and lesson starting and finishing times, there is no minimum level of order and discipline, authority is ill defined, and lessons are cancelled due to lack of attendance or problems associated with order and discipline.10 There is a lot of descriptive evidence on these and other situations. Yet no assessment
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has been made as to the extent of these problems and their distribution throughout the whole school system.
How is School Effectiveness Achieved and Maintained? For the purpose of public policy, it is not enough to understand about effective schools. It is equally important to find the answer to the question of how schools actually become effective. In this section, evidence is presented and key questions are answered as to how this process of improvement takes place. As in the previous section, evidence has been gathered from schools located in poor sectors of Chile. The first assertion that should be made is that an improvement in school quality and learning results is a challenge that can be met in poor sectors. Of the 14 effective schools studied, 8 had improved their learning results between the early and mid1990s. This initial change was followed by a rigorous and disciplined period of work lasting from three to four years, directed at strengthening the pedagogic dimension (the learning process) of school management. Improvement is no easy task, nor is there any unique and universal recipes at hand. Each school followed its own course and found its own answers in order to achieve improvement. The main pillars of change, as could be expected in accordance with the results presented in the previous section, are located in what is referred to as institutional management and classroom practices. Change to achieve better results has always been due to an external push: the arrival of resources and projects linked to Educational Reform (highlighted by the P-900 Schools Program and Educational Improvement Projects); changes in the management or head of the UTP (Technical Pedagogic School Unit); arrival of a group of new teachers; support from an educational foundation and/or more active involvement of educational administrators in a school’s future; the disgrace and/or internal “warning” caused by the news of an extremely low SIMCE score. However, the journey towards improvement can only be started when such “external impulses” are intertwined with internal forces in the schools themselves, which take up the challenge, directing the task of transformation. Improvement is never an answer to just one factor or situation. In all of the cases studied, it has to do with a process in which different elements are linked together, and where recognition of progress and achievements offers an important incentive to continue the journey started. Improvement processes are slow and difficult, requiring leadership, effort and the perseverance of the team that has proposed to make such changes. The starting point is always a conviction regarding the need for change and the direction it should take. Nevertheless, the process followed was almost never clearly defined right from the beginning. In the cases studied, there was a level of pragmatism as regards the actions to take; searching for opportunities, testing new ways, assessing, correcting and redesigning actions. Within this process, it is possible to identify certain common milestones. These are summarized in Table 4. Analysis of improvement processes in schools shows that change is never the result of the faithful application of a program or external intervention, but rather the result of adaptations, interpretations and decisions taken by agents within the school, as it is they who adopt, provide meaning to and lead the changes. The improvement process can only be successful if it is built from within the school.11
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Table 4.
Milestones present in schools that have improved
Implementation of a detailed diagnosis regarding the situation of the school, its teachers and staff: The majority of schools undertook an early diagnosis that allowed them to identify their main problems. A detailed picture was drawn up, which was rigorous, avoided complacency, and included input from teachers. Two generic questions were present during this analysis: (1) Why is it that students learn or do not learn? (2) What can the school and teacher do to rectify this situation? The diagnosis included a detailed analysis of students’ knowledge or lack of, supported at times by tests and exams, and information regarding their emotional and family background. With this diagnosis in hand, “we began to establish priorities and realized that the school did not go in the right direction. The task was not easy for us. We had to stop blaming the usual factors: limited education of parents, family breakups, and community problems. From then on, we considered these factors as characteristics of part of our students and a challenge we had to deal with. We began by enhancing our team work on how to improve student performance under such circumstances” (direct quote from a group interview of teachers in one of the schools). Establishing priorities, needs in order of importance and actions to be taken: A diagnosis in itself does not improve a school. It only does so if it concludes in a plan of action with priorities and a timetable for implementation, with a plan that is regularly monitored and assessed. Priority actions should be specific and well defined. These actions are, as interviewees in one school pointed out, “small, positive steps” that have to be taken by the school in order to reach its goals. All the schools that improved had set short and medium-term goals, which were ambitious but obtainable. Levels of course repeating or drop out, average marks, reading levels in second primary grade, were transformed into key variables that helped schools define the best direction in which to head. These goals formed into a shared educational project, which was constantly adjusted and adapted, leading to a plan of action with objectives, activities, timetable and clear definition of responsibilities. Institutional management becomes (as it should be) pedagogic management: Management of the school increasingly begins to focus on technical and academic challenges. This means, for example, that administration work takes second place, and that all actions of the management team begin to focus on objectives to improve teaching, and working with teachers on their classroom practices. Work is started on didactic and pedagogic issues: the sharing of knowledge among peers, joint planning of classes, class observation, search for development and training courses, followed by an interpretation and transmission of elements learnt between colleagues, with suggestions for changes needed in the school. A new approach to managing discipline: All the schools that “advanced” recognized a change in the approach used to manage student discipline, moving from an approach marked by a strong use of authority, strict regulations and sanctions, to one in which strict regulations were present, but were internalized by teachers, students, parents and guardians, by means of conversations and reasoning, using positive reinforcements, socialization of values regarding responsibilities, respect, solidarity and self-control. Thus, schools established a “basic platform for discipline,” where the firm self-discipline of management teams and teachers acts as a behavioral model for students. Actions to strengthen school identity: The management team implements intentional and explicit actions to build an image of the school that underlines its strengths, motivating the pride of all concerned and reinforcing their commitment: this may involve sporting competitions with other schools, recreational activities involving parents, support for and acts of solidarity with surrounding communities, without neglecting the school’s main purpose: teaching and learning. Management that exploits opportunities: The school no longer passively receives resources, materials and projects from the Ministry or other bodies, but sets out to find them, negotiates, links them to the needs of the school and adapts them to its requirements. Creating opportunities also means making the most of those that are presented: “With the P-900, we realized the importance of establishing objectives in order to improve teaching quality. Before that, we would not really question the quality of what we were teaching or about issues regarding school management ” (direct quote from teachers in one of the schools). Relationship with the family: During the change process, some schools assess their relationships with students’ families, searching for ways to draw them in and involve them in school activities and the learning process of their children. Source: Taken from Raczynski and Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile), Ministry of Education, 2005.
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This conclusion has important implications for the way in which Chilean educational reform has been implemented. Those ministerial actions that have reached out to schools have generally been vertical, centralized, standardized, in the sense that they submit uniform instructions and solutions, without taking into account the indispensable connection between the particular situation of each school. Neither do they “make a concerted effort” to involve and commit management teams and teaching staff within the intended process of change. Analysis of schools that improved during the 1990s revealed the presence of certain elements of Educational Reform: participation in the P-900 Schools Program (improvement in the quality standards of primary schools in poor sectors); Educational Improvement Projects (EIP); national and international internships; and active use of didactic materials, including the ENLACES project. However, these components have also been present in schools that have not been able to produce or sustain good learning results. Why, with the impetus given by Reform, do some schools improve and others do not? Although there are various factors to explain this, evidence indicates that one main reason is that Reform results are mediated by organizational characteristics and teaching practices that prevail in the schools. Effective Schools have been able to link up the drive of external Reform with their own internal efforts, understanding and incorporating these elements in their daily procedures, in accordance with their own priorities and needs. The future challenge of Educational Reform is to recognize that educational change and improvement in the quality of education is based on the proficient functioning of schools. As long as this is not achieved, elements such as curricula reform, full day classes, educational improvement programs, professional development of teachers, textbooks and didactic resources, investments in infrastructure, and etc., although necessary and helpful, do not ensure a permanent improvement in the quality of learning and the reduction of the socioeconomic and socio-cultural gap in learning.
Challenges for Educational Reform Considering the key characteristics of school effectiveness and educational improvement of schools in Chile, this third section considers some of the policy alternatives that need to be taken into account in order to reach said objectives. The arguments needed to answer these questions are placed in four affirmations, which in our view represent the course that should be taken.
“Reconcile” Education Policy with Schools: From a Macro Policy to a “Schools Based” Policy To reconcile policy with schools implies, firstly, taking into account educational units as a starting point for any intervention or program. This has not happened in Chile, bar some exceptions. In general, a standardized and rigid design has been preferred, that imposes changes on schools and does not take into account their specific problems and potential. In other words, a design that reaches out to schools with resources and actions, but does not view such institutions as organizations using a systemic and
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integrated approach, rather a fragmented and partial one. Standardization of procedures and rigid program designs leave no space for specific situations and hinders schools from forging their own meaning of change. In other words, it makes it more difficult for management teams and teachers to disagree, negotiate and express themselves, and within this process adapt the proposed changes to their daily work within the schools. Recently the Ministry of Education has begun to modify its stance in this area, with policies that examine schools as a system. On the one hand, it has established a framework for good school governance and promoted public competitions for school principals. On the other, it has designed a Quality Guarantee System for School Management (SAGCE, Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Gestión Escolar) that has been running since 2003. This assesses, with the significant involvement of the management team and teachers and an external panel, the situation of the school in terms of leadership, curricula management, school coexistence, support to students and resource management; and stimulates schools to draw up an improvement plan, by providing a limited amount of resources to set such a plan in motion. This system marks an important change in direction, but has limited coverage and is restricted to proposing certain questions to the schools, without providing effective support to overcome the challenges faced in the five areas of diagnosis proposed by the system. Reconciling policies with schools has another essential component: effective teaching. In this context, it is time that education policy deals more thoroughly with the issue of the professional development of teachers, as there are recognized failures that affect both the initial training of teachers, along with subsequent developmental training or training while teachers are actually in employment.12 As regards training while in employment, the Ministry has worked on a teacher development model that is implemented in the classroom itself (the Language and Mathematics (LEM) Strategy.13) The LEM Strategy seeks to transform the teaching practices of kindergarten and early primary school teachers, via technical assistance carried out by a consultant teacher (qualified as a “master of masters”). This is a new and innovative initiative for the Ministry; innovative because it is provided by highly skilled coaches, and because it provides advisory assistance to teachers in the classroom and not just training outside of the classroom environment. However, its focus is placed on curricula implementation without concern for the limits a school may have in the area of institutional management, which, as was seen in section “Effective schools in poor sectors of Chile” is an essential support in effective teaching.
The Design of a “School-Based” Policy Implies Strengthening School Autonomy and Institutional Management and Learning Capacities School autonomy in Chile is restricted, and factors that limit autonomy are both varied and complex. Schools are the responsibility of municipal and private administrators, many of which do not have the experience or particular expertise to administrate schools. Consequently, they undertake the administration of the schools assigned to them without proper consideration of the technical and pedagogical implications that such work entails.
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There are more than 4,000 private administrators and they are rather diverse: private citizens or companies; some with many years of experience, others only recently arrived; belonging to religious orders or lay institutions; some with a clear profit motive and others with more social and educational concerns. The majority (67%) administers just one establishment; 13% administer 2; 9% between 3 and 10; and 8% more than 10 establishments (Elacqua et al., 2006a). Only a segment of these administrators support or compel the schools under their charge to improve the quality of their work. There are 345 municipal administrators, one for each municipal authority in the country. The pro-market policies of the 1980s created a split between two parallel lines of dependence and authority over municipal schools. Administrative aspects (human resources, finance or budgets and equipment) became the responsibility of the municipalities, while curricula, pedagogy, assessment issues and assessment guidelines, and control of the monthly attendance of students are handled by the Ministry of Education. This situation led to a certain paradox: administrators do not have a clearly defined role as regards technical and pedagogic affairs, but by controlling resources, they do yield a decisive influence on the educational management of schools. This paradox became more accentuated with the approval of the Teachers’ Statute law in 1991, which made the administration of human resources by municipal administrators more inflexible.14 To this is added the circumstance that the Ministry concerned has never considered municipal and private administrators as fundamental actors in the design and implementation of educational reform, demonstrated by the fact that educational programs and initiatives reach the schools directly, bypassing municipal administrators. The challenge today is to create and strengthen the pedagogic or educational approach of administrators in both private and municipal sectors. There is a need to strengthen horizontal networks that will allow municipalities and private administrators to learn from each other. Additionally, it is important to create within the Ministry a support strategy for the design, implementation and evaluation of local educational plans that incorporate provision of education by private administrators.
Strengthening Responsibility for Results and Accountability within the Educational System Today there exists a low level of responsibility among actors within the system at all levels. There is a lack of clarity as regards the roles and function of each particular actor within the system, and no proper mechanism to make each one responsible for the tasks assigned and results achieved. In a decentralized system such as the Chilean model, operating under a rationale of education vouchers, the consequence of low learning results should be assumed by administrators and schools. However, as regards the present situation, neither administrators nor schools take responsibility for the costs or benefits of the quality of education they provide. In addition, in the municipal sector the quality of teaching provided does not correlate with working conditions and wage levels. Added to this is the fact that families are not properly using information regarding quality when they choose a school for their children (Elacqua et al., 2006a, 2006b). These are all factors that weaken the chances of increasing the number of effective schools.
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On the other hand, a decentralized system should clearly establish and communicate the principles and priorities of short, medium and long-term educational policy, defining coherent guidelines, standards and regulations, and implementing a monitoring-assessment system for results that is transparent and widely disseminated to administrators, schools and families, coupled to mechanisms for providing schools with the support they may need, whether directly or through third parties. At present, there is no ministerial policy for monitoring and assessment, except the SIMCE system. The decisions taken by the Ministry are rarely based on the empirical evidence provided by studies and assessments. Those evaluations available are derived from one-off programs and initiatives. On the other hand, the SIMCE system measures learning results every two years in fourth and eighth grade of primary school and second grade of high school. Results are made public, but are to date incomprehensible for parents, as well as the management teams and teachers of many schools. Ministerial supervision has been the main support mechanism for schools. However, supervision has not been able to support or put “pressure” on schools to improve. The work undertaken is more of an administrative nature, rather than providing pedagogic and curricula back-up. The OECD report (2004) recommends that the role of supervision should be redefined as soon as possible, focused on educational assessment, with a clear sense of purpose, and the necessary experience and training required to bolster credibility among management teams and teachers. Effective accountability requires that the Ministry has at its disposal a minimum of instruments needed to make the necessary demands on all agents involved in the system. However, in general the Ministry does not have the legal powers to regulate the system and make demands on schools and administrators. Although there is an overall consensus that administrators should be responsible for the results obtained in their schools, in practice, the State demands no more than pupil class attendance in order to properly transfer resources.15
To Favor Greater Equity: Vouchers Differentiated in Accordance with the Socioeconomic Level of Students and Promotion of Socially More Diverse Schools There is a close relationship between the voucher system implemented in the 1980s and the present segmentation of the educational system. The end logic behind a demand subsidy is to make schools compete for student attendance and encourage that this competition is based on academic results. This logic might drive educational establishments to exclude from their classrooms those students who show a low academic performance or are more difficult to educate. At the same time, the Chilean school system is prolific with selection procedures: entrance exams are permitted and the requirement to present a child’s previous school reports; parents can be interviewed and students already enrolled can be expelled (González, 2005). Consequently, in practice, those who choose within this educational market are those providing and not those demanding service, which obviously reduces any pressure placed on the quality standard of the schools concerned. We need schools that are socially diverse. “Social segregation in schools is not only bad for the cohesion of society in general, from the point of view of children’s learning,
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it is also bad for the democratic development of the country” (Aguila, 2004, p. 33). Moreover, it has been categorically proved that young people learn more within a culturally and socially diverse educational context; which is to say, there are solid academic and social reasons for promoting greater integration within schools. Additionally, greater equity of opportunities requires major adjustments to the funding system. Presently, the value of a subsidy per student is, in practice, similar for all primary and all high school students. As is widely known, the cost of educating students is higher in the case of students with lower socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. There is an urgent need to establish a differentiated subsidy according to the social conditions of each student. Finally, in May 2005, the President of the Republic announced the creation of a preferential school subsidy for 400,000 students between pre-school and fourth primary grade,16 and who belong to the poorest segment of society. This decision needs to be passed into a law, which at present is making its way through Parliament. This law should be extended to all levels of education. These four points reveal that increasing the number of effective schools in poor sectors of Chile is a huge task that should simultaneously deal with policy aspects related to programs and the way they insert and combine with the “micro cosmos” of each school, as well as challenges of a structural nature related to issues of regulation and accountability, funding, and the municipal and private administration of education. We believe that, today, conditions are ripe to advance such a move. The main requirement is to generate conditions and establish capacities within administrators and schools that will lead to school effectiveness. These conditions are related to changes in organizational and operational procedures (in the “way of doing things”) and not only the availability of better inputs and infrastructure, as has taken place over the last 15 years.
Notes 1. There is wide range of written material analyzing Chilean educational reform, including a significant collection of articles found in Cox (2003) and García-Huidobro (1999). 2. This amendment to educational funding provided a key incentive for private sector expansion and the intense establishment during the 1980s and 1990s of private subsidized schools. These increased from a few hundred prior to the 1980’s to more than 4,000 in 2004. 3. Where this lack of concern is most clearly witnessed is in the deterioration of the working conditions of teachers. Their wages were substantially reduced, along with labor rights as they were no longer considered public employees; professional development was not promoted, and the teachers union was eliminated as a bargaining unit. 4. In the year of highest relative cost (1996) improvement programs represented less than 5% of public spending on education. 5. The increasing expansion of primary and high school education over the last few decades is underlined, among other aspects, by an important advance in school years attended by the population. Recent statistics show that 42% of the Chilean adult population between 45 and 54 years of age received a high school level of education. This percentage is lower than the average for countries within the OECD (61%), but is higher than the Latin American average. Furthermore, important progress has been witnessed in younger generations, with 60% of 25–34 year olds having received a high school education. At present in Chile, more than 50% of the population between 25 and 64 years has undergone more than ten years of school education (Chile, Ministry of Education, 2004).
660 6.
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10. 11. 12. 13.
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Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo There are numerous studies focused on analysis of SIMCE scores and their dependence on socioeconomic and cultural factors and municipal, subsidized private or fully paid private administration. (Bellei, 2003; Bravo, Contreras, & Sanhueza, 1999; Contreras, 2001; Elacqua, Pacheco, & Salazar, 2006a; Elacqua, Schneider, & Buckley, 2006b; Hsieh & Urquiola, 2003; McEwan & Carnoy, 1998, 1999, 2000; Mizala & Romaguera, 2000a, 2000b). There are no studies assessing the “school effect” employing aggregated value methodology (Martinic & Pardo, 2003). Various studies have been used as the basis for the following description and analysis. Between 2002 and 2003, we carried out a wide-anging qualitative study in conjunction with UNICEF, involving classroom observations and interviews with administration staff, teachers, students and parents, in 14 primary schools located in poor neighborhoods (socioeconomic groups 1 and 2 according to ministerial classification), which during the second half of the 1990s had systematically obtained SIMCE scores well above the average scores obtained by peers with a similar socioeconomic background (Chile, Ministry of Education, 2001). It turned out that eight of these schools had progressed from very low SIMCE results at the beginning of the 1990s, to quite outstanding scores by the end of the decade, allowing for a more in-depth study in factors for school improvement. Between 2003 and 2004, we carried out a complimentary study focused on eight schools that had experienced the opposite effect, going from good results during the mid-1990s to bad results in the 2000–2003 period (Bellei, Muñoz, Pérez, & Raczynski, 2004; Raczynski & Muñoz, 2005, respectively). Along with these studies, others were also used that had been carried out by the authors and other researchers, including: Asesorías para el Desarrollo-Santiago Consultores, 2000; Chile, Ministry of Education, 2000, 2006; Raczynski et al., 2002; UNDP, 2003; Eyzaguirre, 2004; Román, 2004). They are also varied in some of their basic characteristics. The effective schools identified in Chile are diverse in terms of urban or rural and regional setting; with different conditions as regards infrastructure and equipment; with between 60 and 1300 students enrolled; with grades of between 8 and 45 students per class; and teachers whose distribution as regards age, studies, qualifications and contracted hours are similar to the rest of the country’s primary school teachers. This suggests that neither the size of the school or classroom, or teachers’ age, or other factors often presented as “obstacles” to the educational process, make the challenge of obtaining good results within a context of poverty insurmountable. Possibly the only recurring aspect is that schools located in an urban setting, face a more complex social environment to achieve real effectiveness. In Chile where the administration of one or more schools is in the hands of private and municipal administrators, another element of effectiveness is added: effective schools maintain a fluid relationship with their owner or administrator in the sense that the latter do not interfere with but rather support the academic management of the school. In this respect municipal administrators are at a clear disadvantage, as the application of the Teachers’ Statute creates restrictions regarding the management of teachers. The scenes being described are supported by evidence contained in the studies cited in footnote 7. As can be gathered from the available studies on educational changes and improvements to schools (Fullan, 1982, 1991; Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1997; Harris, 2000; Mujis, 2003; Murillo, 2003b). A recent document (Beca, Montt, & Sotomayor, 2006) provides an analysis and proposes recommendations in this regard. The aim is to transform teaching methods used by teachers at pre-school level and during the first years of primary school, via advisory assistance regarding disciplinary and didactic materials in the sub-sectors of Language and Mathematics, carried out by consultant teachers. This advisory assistance will be given via training and support in the classroom through the study and application of didactic units that provide a structure for the teaching-learning process in the classroom. The Teachers’ Statute, endorsed in 1991, set a political foundation: “governance of the system, decisively achieved through meeting the expectations of professionals with the return to democracy” (Cox, 2003). On June 4, 2006, and in response to concerted high school student demonstrations linked to various issues, the Chilean President announced the setting up of an Educational Superintendence Body, with the responsibility to control and ensure improvements to the standard (quality) of education. Priority is placed on these students, for international findings clearly show that knowledge, abilities and basic skills, which are the foundation for subsequent learning, are acquired at an early age.
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References Aguila, E. (2004). “Hacia un Nuevo Ciclo de Políticas Progresistas en Educación “ [Towards a new cycle of progressive education policies]. Revista Avances, 47, 32–39. Asesorías para el Desarrollo – Santiago Consultores. (2000). Evaluación del Programa de Mejoramiento de la Calidad de las Escuelas Básicas de Sectores Pobres, P-900, Informe Final de Consultoría [Evaluation of the Quality Improvement Program P-900 in Primary Education] for the Ministry of Education (various volumes). Beca, C. E., Montt, P., & Sotomayor, C. (2006). Docentes para el Nuevo Siglo. Hacia una Política de Desarrollo Profesional Docente [Teachers for the new century: Towards a professional development policy for teachers]. Chile: Bicentenary Series, Ministry of Education. Bellei, C. (2003). ¿Ha tenido impacto la reforma chilena? [Has Chilean reform had an impact], In C. Cox, (Ed.), Políticas educacionales en el cambio de siglo. La reforma del sistema escolar de Chile [Educational policy at the turn of the century: Reform of the Chilean school system]. (pp. 125–209). Chile: Editorial Universitaria. Bellei, C., Muñoz, G., Pérez, L. M., & Raczynski, D. (2004). ¿Quién dijo que no se puede? Escuelas Efectivas en Sectores de Pobreza en Chile [Who said it is not possible? Effective schools in poor sectors in Chile]. Chile: UNICEF. Bourdieu, P., & Champagne, P. (1999). Los Excluidos del Interior [The excluded within]. In P. Bourdieu, (Ed.), La Miseria del Mundo [The Misery of the World], (pp. 363–368). Argentina: Fondo de Cultura Económica S.A. Bravo, D., Contreras, D., & Sanhueza, C. (1999). Educational Achievement, Inequalities and Private/public GAP 1982–1997, Working Paper, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad de Chile. Brunner, J. J., & Elacqua, G. (2003). Informe Capital Humano en Chile [Report on Human Capital in Chile]. Chile: Escuela de Gobierno, Adolfo Ibáñez University. Chile, Ministry of Education. (2000). Evaluación del Programa de las 900 Escuelas [Evaluation of the 900 schools program]. General Education Division. Chile, Ministry of Education. (2001). Construcción de Grupos Comparables de Establecimientos SIMCE 8vo Básico 2000 [Setting Up Comparable Types of Educational Establishments SIMCE 8th grade 2000]. Department of Research and Statistics. Chile, Ministry of Education. (2004). Indicadores de la Educación en Chile [Educational Indicators in Chile]. Chile, Ministry of Education. (2006). Bases de Datos SIMCE. Retrieved on July 31, 2006, from http:// www.simce.c1 Contreras, D. (2001). Evaluating a Voucher System in Chile. Individual, Family and School Characteristics. Documento de trabajo No. 175, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad de Chile, Marzo 2001. Cox, C. (2003). Políticas educacionales en el cambio de siglo: LaReforma del Sistema Escolar de Chile [Educational policy at the turn of the century: Reform of the Chilean school system]. Chile: Editorial Universitaria. Creemers, B. P. M. (1994). The effective classroom. London: Cassell. Edmonds, R. (1979). Effective school for the urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37(1), 15–27. Elacqua, G., Pacheco, P., & Salazar, F. (2006a). Segmentación Escolar en Chile: Consecuencia Inesperada de un Sistema de Vouchers [School Segmentation in Chile: Unexpected consequences of a Voucher System]. In V. Muñoz, & P. Coto (Eds.), El Oro por las Cuentas: Miradas sobre la Mercantilización de la Educación [Golden accounts: An overview of educational merchandising], (pp. 223–247). San José, Costa Rica: National University of Costa Rica & Luna Híbrida. Elacqua, G., Schneider, M., & Buckley, J. (2006b). School choice in Chile: Is it class or the classroom? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(3), 577–601. Eyzaguirre, B. (2004). Claves para la educación en pobreza [Key elements for Education in Poor Sectors], Estudios Públicos, 93, 250–277. Fullan, M. (1982). The meaning of educational change. Ontario: OISE Press. Fullan, M. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. London: Cassell. Fullan, M., & Stiegelbauer, S. (1997). El Cambio Educativo. Guía de Planeación para Maestros [Education Changes. Planning Guide for Teachers]. México: Editorial Trillas.
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Garcia-Huidobro, J. E. (Ed.). (1999). La Reforma Educacional Chilena [The Chilean Education Reform]. Madrid: Editorial Popular Publishers. González, P. (2005). La igualdad educativa, el financiamiento vía subvenciones y la administración privada de la educación: elementos para la discusión [Educational equity, vouchers and private administration of schools: inputs for a discusión]. In Políticas educativas y equidad [Educational policies and equity] (pp. 247–269). Universidad Alberto Hurtado - UNICEF - UNESCO, Santiago de Chile. Harris, A. (2000). What works in school improvement? Lessons from the field and future directions. Educational Research, 42(1), 1–11. Hsieh, C. T., & Urquiola, M. (2003). When schools compete, How do they compete? Am Assessment of Chile’s Nationwise School Voucher Program. NBER Working Paper 10008. (www.worldbank.org/researxh/projects/ service_delivery/paper_hsie-pdf ). McEwan, P., & Carnoy, M. (1998). “Competition and sorting in Chile’s voucher system”. Palo Alto: Stanford University. McEwan, P., & Carnoy, M. (1999). “The impact of competition on public school quality: Longitudinal evidence from Chile’s voucher system ”. Palo Alto: Stanford University. McEwan, P., & Carnoy, M. (2000). The effectiveness and efficiency of private schools in Chile’s voucher system. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22(3), 213–239. Martinic, S., & Pardo, M. (2003). “La investigación sobre eficacia escolar en Chile” [Research on school efficiency in Chile]. In F. J. Murillo (Ed.), La Investigación sobre Eficacia Escolar en Ibero América. Revisión Internacional sobre Estado del Arte [Investigation on School Efficiency in Latin America. International Review of the State of the Art] (pp. 209–236). Spain: Andrés Bello Agreement – Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. Mizala, A., & Romaguera, P. (2000a). School preformance and choice: The Chilean experience. Journal of Human Resources, 35(2), 392–417. Mizala, A., & Romaguera, P. (2000b). “Determinación de Factores Explicativos de los Resultados Escolares en Educación Media en Chile” [Explanatory Factors in Educational Results in High School in Chile] Serie Economía No. 85, Universidad de Chile: Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Agosto 2000. Mortimore, P. (1997). Can effective schools compensate for society?, In H. A. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brwon, & A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education: Culture, economy and society (pp. 477–487). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mujis, D. (2003). “La mejora y la eficacia de las escuelas en zonas desfavorecidas. Resumen de resultados” [Improvements and efficiency in schools in underprivileged sectors. Results summary]. Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación (REICE) [Latin American Electronic Journal on Quality, Efficiency and Change in Education], 1(2). Retrieved on March 15, 2005, from www.ice.deusto.es/RINACE/reice Murillo, F. J. (Ed.). (2003a). La Investigación sobre Eficacia Escolar en Ibero América Revisión Internacional sobre Estado del Arte [Investigation on School Efficiency in Latin America. International Review of the State of the Art]. Spain: Andrés Bello Agreement – Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. Murillo, F. J. (2003b). “El movimiento teórico – practico de mejora de la escuela. Algunas lecciones aprendidas para transformar los centros docentes” [The theoretical-practical movement to improve schools]. Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad. Eficacia y Cambio en Educación (REICE) [Latin American Electronic Journal on Quality, Efficiency and Change in Education], 1(2). Retrieved on March 15, 2005, from www.ice.deusto.es/RINACE/reice OECD. (2004). Revisión de las Políticas Nacionales de Educación, Chile [Review of national education policies, Chile]. Paris, France: OECD. Raczynski, D., & Muñoz, G. (2005). Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile [School Effectiveness and Education Changes under Conditions of Poverty in Chile]. Chile: Ministerio de Educación, División de Educación General. Raczynski, D., Pavez, M. A., Ruiz, C., Vergara, M., Abarca, G., & Galdames, V. (2002). “Análisis de la Oferta de Programas e Iniciativas del Sector Público y Privado desde los Establecimientos Educacionales” [Analysis of the Provisión of programs to educational establishments by the public and private sector] Final report for the Ministry of Education. Chile: Asesorías para el Desarrollo. Reynolds, D., & Creemers, B. (Eds.). (1989). School effectiveness and improvement. London: RION, Institute of Educational Research.
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Reynolds, P., & Cuttance, P. (Eds.). (1989). New directions in school effectiveness and school improvement. London: Cassel. Román, M. (2004). Enfrentar el Cambio en Escuelas Críticas Urbanas [Confronting Educational Change in Critical Ureban Schools]. Persona y Sociedad, XVIII(3), December 2004, 145–172. Sammons, P., et al. (1995). Key characteristics of effective schools: A review of school effectiveness research. London: OFSTED. Scheerens, J. (2000). Improving school effectiveness. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning. Scheerens, J., & Bosker, R. J. (1997). The foundations of educational effectiveness. Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd. Slavin, R. (1996). Salas de Clase Efectivas, Escuelas Efectivas: Plataforma de Investigación para una Reforma Educativa en América latina [Effective classrooms, effective schools: Research platform for Educational Reform in Latin America]. Serie Documentos No. 3, Programa Educativo para América Latina (PREAL), from http://www.preal.org UNDP. (2003). Evaluación del Plan de Asistencia Técnica para las Escuelas Críticas de la Región Metropolitana [Evaluation of the Technical Assistance Plan for Critical Schools in the Metropolitan Region]. Final Revised Report. Consultancy carried out jointly by UNDP-Chile and Asesorías para el Desarrollo for the Ministry of Education of Chile. UNDP. (2004). Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano en Chile. El poder: ¿Para qué y para quién? [Human Development Report on Chile. Power: For what and for whom?] United Nations Development Programme, Chile.
35 PUBLIC POLICIES AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY IN THE CITY OF BOGOTA Gloria Calvo Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Colombia
Education in big cities in Latin America not only relates to problems concerning the quality of learning, but to students’ social and cultural contexts. When talking about the Colombian case, and more specifically about education in the City of Bogotá,1 it is important to point out the existence of two separate circuits.2 One circuit generates an excellent education for the most privileged students, while the other is problematic and deficient with respect to the basic learning of students in the low-income sectors.3 This poor performance prevails in spite of new educational policies and by the effort of teachers who are committed to their pedagogical work. Considering this it is worthwhile, once again, to raise questions about equity and in particular further investigate pedagogical equity: pedagogical equity is understood as the ways in which teaching and learning processes are carried out in urban marginalized contexts. This chapter explores this issue in three ways. First, it deals with the current discussions on equity and its relationship with educational policies. Second, it discusses the guiding principles of the recent administrations of the Capital District, which were designed to offer a better education to the less privileged population. Finally, it highlights elements that an education committed to equity needs to address in order for students from big cities to be incorporated into the modern age through quality education.
Equity, Context, and Educational Policy The international community is also concerned about equity. Specifically, Latin American countries and those of the Caribbean are looking for all-embracing development models that can counter the policies from previous decades and address equity as outlined in the framework of contemporary globalizing movement (CEPAL – Comisión Económica Para América Latina/Economic Comission for Latin American, 2000). Inequality is the first thing a country with high indexes of poverty has to face. Such inequality, much like poverty, reproduces itself from generation to generation. Analyses 665 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 665–684. © 2007 Springer.
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done by CEPAL (2000) show that inequality is based on a conjunction of educational, demographic, occupational, and patrimonial factors. Therefore, if a greater economic stability is to be achieved and if a higher social equity is to be obtained with respect to these aspects, it is necessary to restructure policies in these different areas. Education is considered a vital tool to overcome both social and economic inequality. It has been argued that removing inequities creates a different educational environment in future homes, which in turn enhances the educational performance of future generations. It also offers more opportunities to enter the labor market and it makes it easy to have access to the technology, which supports modern culture. However, the recent progress achieved in Latin America is not very significant: ●
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Unlike those in the higher social strata, some sectors are being negatively affected by a new type of illiteracy, which is characterized by a lack of access to information and mass media that use technology as a tool. While Latin American countries have increased their coverage concerning primary education, this coverage has been relatively low concerning secondary and higher education. Students from the low-income sectors fail with greater frequency in school than those from the higher strata, which makes the former withdraw from the system. The quality of education in many countries continues to be much segmented with respect to social strata and at the interregional level. While urban environments feature better quality education than rural environments, the quality also differs in urban environments in terms of income.
The challenge for educational policies is to offer more continuous education and higher quality education. To achieve this, it is necessary to draw up programs and strategies directed towards family and community environments where children are prepared and educated before entering school, to improve contents and to provide opportunities to find employment (CEPAL, 2000). It is important to highlight that the contribution of education to equity is both partial and long-term. Recent Colombian governments have known about the problems regarding equity generated by the differences caused by contexts. Analyses and arguments about the significance of these differences in educational results, associated with different contexts, have been well documented. For this reason, a variety of different programs and strategies have been proposed in order to overcome them. Following are some examples of these programs and strategies at the district level: they include a subsidy indexed to demand designed to both extend the coverage and equalize the financing of educational public service; evaluation and subsequent development of basic competences and values with a view to create pedagogical and didactical models based on students’ previous knowledge; and leveling to achieve excellence through a program to improve the quality of learning and the promotion of labor competences designed to increase the range of students knowledge and make schools more productive institutions. These approaches are supported by authors such as Reimers (2000, p. 290), who believes that it is possible to reduce considerably these differences in performance, and that all children can learn at an equal level if they engage in learning under appropriate educational conditions.
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This concern for quality also includes a concern for democracy. The argument is that a highly educated population can better exercise their rights and duties, as well as forming pressure groups which can fight for better living conditions for all, both at an economic and social level. Reimers states that: … I believe that the paths in which it is still possible to progress are related to the strengthening of the institutional capacity to design and analyze policies inside and outside the government in order to support the creation of experimentation and evaluation networks committed to the establishment of support systems for schools that give education to low-income populations. … to what extend there are conditions in the region in order to promote a democratic dialogue on educational policies, which must be based on studies and the rigorous analysis of policy options so that the decisions made are well supported as a result of the democratic comparison and discussion of ideas. (Reimers, 2004, p. 284) The policies analyzed in this chapter fall into what is defined in the literature as compensating policies (Rawls, 1971) These polices are designed to provide coverage for students and to compensate for the prior limitations in their initial schooling. To date, the low levels of achievement of students in the lower social stratas, when compared with their more affluent peers, has not been eliminated by recent changes in school policy or administration: the problem, in great part, is a function of the lack of continuity in both programs and administrations.4
A Reading of the Category Related to Equity In spite of the fact that the major studies on educational inequality are from the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Bernstein, 1985; among others), the analyses were made in very different contexts from those in which Latin American countries are presently living. When analyzing these studies Reimers (2000) refers to several factors: consolidated educational systems vs. systems in a process of reform; access of broad social sectors to education vs. first generations who enter basic education (primary school and junior high school); and educational opportunities for the majority of the population vs. quality education for elites. These same dynamics are currently in play in Colombia. During the last decade the country has been implementing educational reform, while in one of the worst economic crises it has ever faced.5 As educational coverage has been extended in order to incorporate new social groups into the educational system, but it has also experienced high indexes of repetition and of leaving school before the legal age. However, there is now a new element in the mix. This is the attempt to establish links between policy and results, and more specifically, to study the results of the application of policies in order to expand the learning possibilities of the boys and girls from the most underprivileged sectors. In the text mentioned, Reimers notes that there are few studies in Latin America which have analyzed the relationship between educational policy and learning. When synthesizing the results presented by Muñoz Izquierdo,6 he argues that those researchers
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assume that education reproduces the most extended social inequalities and that is the reason why the poorest boys and girls learn less. With respect to the role of compensating policies,7 Reimers concludes that researchers assign them only a modest impact at best. Moreover, it is noted that there are no studies which analyze the mediating role of inequalities in the changing process: “As a result, we know little about the specifics of change in schools, when the aim is to redress inequalities” (Reimers, 2000, p. 34). There is some consensus in the specialized literature concerning school equity and the promotion of social equity, economic development, and the consolidation of democracy. This topic has been approached by sociologists as well as by economists and educators. The central focus of this work has been on the problems of educational equity among marginal populations.8
Pierre Bourdieu and Equity Although Bourdieu did not use this concept, he does talk about inequality, difference and distinction, which, along with the theoretical model he proposes, allows us to include a discussion about equity. Capital is the main concept for Bourdieu. For him, it is capital which allows access to the social world, occupying some specific positions in the social context. Capital is a mechanism which allows positioning oneself and to be positioned. In this way, people and groups distribute themselves in the social context according to their position, applying two differentiating principles that are considered the most efficient in the more developed societies: economic capital and cultural capital. That which individuals and groups share or that which differentiates them, depends on the proximity or distance with respect to the capital they own. “Spatial distances on paper are equivalent to social distances” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 30). Through capital as a differentiating principle, Bourdieu conceives the distinction, difference, separation, distinctive characteristic not as a natural thing, but rather because of the properties of the relationship established among the constructs mentioned. Actors distribute themselves in the social context according to the global volume of the capital they own and to the structure of their capital; that is, according to the relative weight of the different types (economic and cultural) in the total volume of their capital. Thus, the existing differences in the social context are associated with different positions, that is, goods and practices, which operate in society as constitutive differences or distinctive signs of the social system.9 It is necessary, of course, to recognize these specific distinctive signs, the characteristics that constitute significant differences in symbolic spaces or contexts.10 As Bourdieu suggests, these mechanisms: … guarantee the reproduction of the social context and the symbolic context, without forgetting the contradictions and conflicts which can be in the principle of their transformation. (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 40) Social institutions, among which family and school enjoy a privileged position, have a fundamental role in the training and education of the individual as a social actor.
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Specifically, school as an institution both formulates and contributes to the distribution of the existing cultural capital in the society and, therefore, to the reproduction of the structure of the social context. This reproduction “operates in the relationship between the family strategies and the specific logic of school institutions,” due to the fact that the latter tends to provide school capital11 to the cultural capital held by the family and transmitted in early education (titles, documents). The school system, even with its appearance of equality, actually functions to separate those who hold inherited cultural capital from those who do not have it: it does this, in great part, by maintaining preexisting social differences through the institutionalization of social frontiers. Bourdieu, however, thinks that “as we know the laws of reproduction, we have some opportunities to minimize the reproductive action of school institutions” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 160). It is unclear, however, what role he proposes for the school system, with respect to the balance of opportunities. According to his line of argument, it is clear that the school system is not responsible for the balance of opportunities and the democratization of culture. He argues the following points (Bourdieu, 1998): ●
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Schools should not reinforce inequality: the key is to reexamine their symbolic power with respect to the existing differences among the children they are entrusted with. To be alert against the effect of destiny, by which the school institution transforms previous inequalities into natural inequalities. Never to make value judgments about students; to exclude all types of value judgments which affect the individual (p. 161). To recognize the power of subjects in the constitution of the identity and image of school individuals (p. 162). To fight against the organization into a hierarchy of the activities (both theoretical and empirical) of the disciplines, etc., or when the unification of knowledge is advocated. He offers excellent recommendations for science, for reason, and for democracy (p. 165). To take into account and divulge the already existing and unequal competition in order to set in motion mechanisms to avoid disastrous consequences (p. 166). To set both compensatory and protection mechanisms in motion: this involves taking into account existing inequalities and to work to offset their effects (p. 166). To ensure that teaching does not leave inadmissible gaps because these gaps have adverse effects on the success of the educational enterprise as a whole: this involves the idea that there are absolutely fundamental things which are already known12 (pp. 169–170).
These reflections concerning the role of the school and centrality of equity become highly relevant in the context of educational policies for the big cities in Latin America. It is clear that a more equitable education is necessary in order to incorporate more sectors of the population into the codes of the modern age, which in turn will help the various societies develop.
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Amartya Sen and the Development of Human Abilities The concept of human capital as coined by Gary Becker (the 1992 Nobel winner for economics), sees the investment in education and training as key variables that affect development. Human capital is defined as the intellectual and professional abilities of an individual, which will guarantee his/her future income. Amartya Sen, another Nobel winner for economics, points out the similarities and differences between the concept of human capital: while related, they have been developed in two different research fields. The first one concentrates on the character of agents (agency) of human beings, who thanks to their abilities, knowledge, and efforts, increase the possibilities of production. The second concentrates on the ability of the human being to have the kind of life he/she considers valuable and to increase his/her real possibilities to make a choice. According to Sen, these two perspectives are related because they have to deal with the role of human beings and with the effective abilities they achieve and acquire (Sen, 1998, pp. 67–72). Human ability is related to choosing and doing that which is considered valuable through both direct or indirect means: the direct connection might be health and nutrition which are needed to study and work effectively, while the indirect connection might be education or training for better employment. The importance of the concept of human ability lies in the recognition that ability is not only an instrument of economic production of human capital, but that human ability is also vital for social development and improvement. Thus, the extension of a basic primary school and junior high school high quality education, impacts the quality of public debates and broadens the amount of participation in the society. The concept of human ability also points out the key role of education as an instrument for the development of a person: it is also an acknowledgement that all individuals can strengthen his/her abilities and skills. Thus, education is not only positioned as a variable which affects future economic development, but it is also seen as instrumental to the welfare of people, their possibilities of action, and their influence on social change. Sen also reintroduces the ideas of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations in order to emphasize the fact that the primary difference between a long-shoreman and a philosopher is education. He concludes stating that: … it is useful to think about the close relationship between productive abilities and the ability to have different types of life because this connection is essential to consider human capital in the broadest context of the perspective of abilities. (Sen, 1998, p. 3) When analyzing educational equity, Sen’s proposal is interesting because it advocates for the empowerment of the less privileged sectors through education, while arguing that it is possible for low-income boys and girls, just like those who attend institutions regulated by the policies implemented in Bogotá during the last seven years, to develop their human abilities and to consider education as a path to full citizenship. This proposal also
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notes the importance of the school analyzing its own sensitivity to the social context in which their students live and connecting this to students’ abilities and interests.13
Educational Equity Against the Globalization Hegemony Juan Carlos Tedesco (2003) and Emilio Tenti (2003), two Argentine researchers who work at the Instituto Internacional de Planeamiento de la Educación [International Institute for Educational Planning] (IIPE), in Buenos Aires, have been involved in a controversy which was contested in No. 45 of the Revista Colombiana de Educación (Colombian Magazine of Education). The focus of the debate has been whether or not hegemony exists in the present society; most specifically, they are debating the existence of a hegemony influenced by phenomena associated with globalization. Tedesco states that the new capitalism is not inclusive and that the way in which citizens are classified with respect to culture is determined by the characteristics of supply and demand. This, he argues, has also produced a change in the traditional ways of socialization of new generations as well as the cultural industry, the education of things. Acknowledging that there is a crisis in the traditional ways of socialization, Tenti insists that: … life itself, that is, experience, “the things” and all the system of conditions and interdependencies that structure the life of an individual from his/her birth educate as much or more than the family and the school (Tenti, 2003, p. 35). Tenti’s proposal for educational equity also focuses on learning and the need to overcome the singular demand for increased educational coverage for students in the lower stratas of society. Improving education, rather than focusing on compensatory polices, Tenti argues, will allow the less privileged to receive an education which can both strengthen their abilities and improve their status in the society.
Programs on Educational Policy Towards Equity The policies for the promotion of equity are best detailed in the development plans of the two previous administrations (1998–2000 and 2001–2004). Here, it is made explicit that equity is one of the problems to be solved by the central administration of Bogotá. The SED14 presents in its Sectorial Development Plan 1998–2000 (SED, 1998) a diagnostic of equity and the educational system concerning a range of issues: unequal distribution of State resources, school failure, the problems caused by low coverage, the unsatisfactory results of education with respect to basic competences attributed to the weakness of educational institutions, the small amount of time devoted to learning, the crisis of values, the traditionalism of teachers, the deficiencies of space and school equipment and supplies, and the lack of educational opportunities outside school institutions. It also reports a phase lag between the changes produced by economic development and conventional secondary education. This diagnosis highlights the significantly
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negative outcomes for students in strata 1 and 215: these students are in the poorest strata of the population and are clearly disadvantaged with respect to students from the higher strata. To address these problems a series of strategies and programs is proposed. The three most important are outlined below: (1) Policies oriented towards equity are discussed to provide opportunities for children and young people from strata 1 and 2 to enter and remain in the educational system. Two such strategies are: (a) A focus on the extension of coverage, which on one hand includes the creation of new educational establishments in marginal zones and, on the other, voucher schools. The first strategy targets the construction of 51 schools in neighborhoods which are designated as a priority by City Hall: the primary concern here is to end the marginalization that is a function of the lack of availability and access to schooling for students from these lowest strata. These schools are administered through agreements with private institutions, which will be paid according to the number of children cared for. Where is strategy fails to meet the demand, the Plan suggests that, “voucher schools are oriented towards allowing those children from strata 1 and 2 who cannot be taken care of to become a part of the educational system, using the installations of current public schools and those of new schools” (SED, 1998, pp. 30 and 31). (b) To focus State resources on the low-income population: perhaps the most important being those programs and strategies that include a differentiated attention to educational institutions according to achievements (later on called Leveling to achieve Excellence). The Plan states that, “The actions focused on improving the quality are directed towards the institutions that the evaluation of achievements allow identifying as low performance institutions and to which low socioeconomic students attend.” The Education of the Capital District, from 1999 on, established that “differentiated attention will be given to 100 institutions that will be renewed annually, for a total of 300 improved educational centers in 2001.” This renewed attention to low achieving schools signals several actions: “the improvement of infrastructure and school environments, supply of materials and training and technical assistance for teachers and directors who are working in the institutional plans for improvement. They also include direct support to students” (SED, 1998, pp. 31–32). (2) It is clear that those policies that are designed to solve the problems concerning the quality of education are also oriented towards improving the results of educational actions, “in terms of the competences and values which are expected to be developed by all students who study at these educational institutions.” The SED Plan points out that, “the last ones along with the family are responsible for training and educating children and young people.” It also points out that the SED “is responsible for offering favorable conditions in order for public and private educational centers to be able to achieve these results, by monitoring the
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progress and introducing corrective measures, such as incentives and direct support programs, at an opportune moment” (SED, 1998, p. 34). These policies that enable the systematic evaluation of achievement and values, while designed to improve the results of education for all students, are especially sensitive to the needs of students from the lower stratas of the society. (3) Policies aimed at improving secondary education, also lay out a framework to develop labor competences. These policies also noted the importance of studies about the possibilities of work for young people and on the way in which institutions were currently training them to achieve their goal: this work was to involve a dialogue with all the actors involved, such as the productive sector and the universities. The Sectorial plan of education 2001–2004 (SED, 2001), for example, proposed the objective of “improving knowledge and the ability to learn of people, activating the educational and cultural potential of the city” (SED, 2001, p. 9). Three policies were proposed, (1) to emphasize that education contributes in ways that make all citizens more productive and happy; (2) to transform all places, contexts, and actors of the city into opportunities to learn and; (3) to strengthen self-learning (SED, 2001, pp. 9 and 10). City Hall developed five programs designed to end marginalization: schools on concession, voucher schools, evaluation of basic and citizens’ competences, leveling for excellence and work competences. Each program is outlined below:
Schools on Concession16 This strategy is an alternative to the already existing programs17 and is focused the extension of coverage for students not well served by the schools. It is conceptualized as a new way of school organization, which is financed with public funds. It is designed to overcome the typical inflexibilities of public educational institutions and the inadequate programs of subsidies. It also tries to make good use of the advantages of the administration of private institutions in order to improve the quality education. This alternative scheme of educational administration recognizes that: … the socioeconomic stratum of students determines their first cognitive and affective acquisitions which affect their individual and social development. Although the compensating capacity of the school is recognized in terms of students’ family and social deficiencies, the influence of this variable on students’ performance is also recognized. (González, J. I., cited in CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 8) From the pedagogical point of view, the challenge is to reproduce the teaching and learning model which is used in the Proyecto Educativo Institucional18 (PEI), Institutional Educational Project, of the concessionaire institution in order to recreate these principles in the institutions on concession. For this reason, educational institutions19 with innovating pedagogical proposals and excellent academic results were chosen.
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The study carried out by CORPOEDUCACION (2004), makes possible a number of interesting observations about these institutions on concession: ●
●
●
● ●
● ●
●
They have a management model which emphasizes pedagogical development and student learning. They have designed strategies that generate effective learning opportunities which compensate for the range of cultural and affective limitations students bring to the school. These strategies emphasize the management of students’ socio-affective and emotional problems. They have designed an effective school atmosphere: the management of regulations and school wide coexistence is vital for this atmosphere. The interaction between students and teachers is central to this atmosphere. They have achieved a sustained improvement of student achievement. They have organized a functional academic community that is supported by appropriate working teams. They have a great variety of infrastructure, such as resources, programs, and projects. They have established new and collaborative relationships among students, parents, teachers and administrators. They have paid special attention to the environment from which students come, an environment which they recognize influences both the academic and social results achieved by the school.
The evaluation also noted how the scheme to hand the administration of educational institutions to well-known selected private schools has been particularly successful in terms of students’ academic and social development, as well as for its impact on the neighboring community (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 81). Moreover, the evaluation noted strong commitment of the program to issues of equity: The extend in which the program defines and limits its offer to students of strata 1 and 2 is considered as a parameter that shows that it is fulfilling the purpose to improve equity. (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 8)
Voucher Schools This project is carried out thanks to an agreement between the Secretary of Education Office of the Capital District-Bogotá (SED) and private educational institutions in the Capital District. These institutions are chosen through a technical process carried out by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia). This agreement includes the execution of a follow-up program to ensure that all that was agreed to was completed. This is done to monitor the quality of the educational service rendered by the educational establishments included in the program.20 The Office of the Secretary of Education of the District retains a bank of institutions currently linked to the subprograms for subsidy, and of those which could join this project if necessary. Those private educational institutions which render their service to subsidized students, present themselves on the dates established by the Secretary of Education Office of the District. Factors such as the solvency, liquidity, profitability, level of indebtedness, economic sustainability and the structure of costs, are analyzed in order to choose the
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institutions. In turn, the evaluation of the quality of these institutions takes into account information about their results obtained in State examinations and in basic competences. Importantly, each institution in the agreement must prepare and present a plan for educational improvement that is focused on increasing the learning outcomes for all children and young people in its charge. This requirement is designed to focus the efforts of the institution on increasing the quality of education when rendering public educational services. This policy raises the question of the quality of education offered to less privileged sectors. Although this alternative has been well evaluated as a way to increase coverage for such students, problems have also surfaced with respect to their effectiveness in educating students entering with the lowest levels of cultural capital: the lack of appropriate educational materials for such students is cited as the major problem. The impact of this policy initiative, with respect to educational equity, is shown in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1.
School environment and equity
Category
Dimension
Strategy
Policy
Strategies to enter and remain in the system
The way in which institutions get to know their students and the support offered to them according to their needs and in order to provide them with cultural capital (structuring of teaching and coexistence related to the context)
Individualized attention To obtain the acceptance of the school by the community: ensure that parents are aware of the importance of regular and continuous (year alter year) school attendance. Student report cards
Schools on concession Voucher schools
Incorporation of the characteristics of the environment
The way in which the institution gets to know the environment and works on those factors of resistance to quality school action with equity
Coverage without selection
Voucher schools Work competences
Offering a safe environment with identity
The way in which the existing conflicts of values between the institution and the context are dealt with in order for the school to influence students
Psychosocial and health care in order to improve learning and to manage vulnerability Agreements with other entities of the community in order to take care of health
Evaluation and development of competences
Offering a safe environment with identity
Availability of infrastructure and resources for learning and orientations for pedagogical practices
To be aware of that which Schools on the school can give even concession against the values of the Voucher schools environment: hygiene, good presentation Children take a bath at school and they return home clean. The supply of materials is achieved through cooperation. All contribute as they can and all benefit. They learn about democracy and solidarity
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Table 2.
Learning strategies and equity
Category
Dimension
Strategy
Policy
Pedagogical conceptions concerning equity
The way in which the pedagogical work is structured to produce a coherent and continuous systematic action in order to achieve equity
Privilege of affective pedagogies
Schools on concession Voucher schools
Equal classroom practices
Report on the way in which they work in the classroom, the teacher-student interaction, and on the difficulties and conflicts between school cultural capital and that of students
Sensitivity of teachers with respect to the arguments, initiatives, and suggestions given by others in order to achieve a more effective learning
Work competences
Support to those students who require it
Characterization of this type of students and strategies to provide them the support they need to achieve the learning proposed
To have possibilities of solving academic and coexistence problems which affect learning
Work competences
Evaluation of Basic and Citizens’ Competences Since 1998, the Secretary of Education Office of the Capital District has been applying census tests for the evaluation of basic competences in language, mathematics, natural sciences, citizens’ sensitivity, together with the understanding of third, fifth, seventh, and ninth grade students of basic (primary school and junior high school) education. The evaluation of basic and citizens’ competences is supported by the idea that evaluation is essential not only to identify, assess, and overcome difficulties, but to recognize and consolidate achievements. Competences are understood as to know how to act in a given environment or to know what to do with knowledge. The tests to assess competence in these two areas have been designed and applied by experts from the National University of Colombia (basic competences) and by experts in moral development (citizens’ competences): the focus of these evaluations is students’ performance or achievement, viewed as indicators of their competences. They recognize that the context of both the task and the individual are mediated through language in reflexive knowledge. To date, the interest in the evaluation concerning citizens’ values has been focused on three areas: (1) the development of moral arguments; (2) the comprehension concerning coexistence in the city; and (3) the sensitivity towards the most relevant topics related to this way of living. Institutions have rigorously followed-up students’ results through actions, such as the evaluation of portfolios. Based on these analyses, institutions have designed pedagogical strategies in order to better address educational equity (Tables 1 and 2 show the progress to date).
Leveling for Excellence This strategy was first called Differential attention according to the results of basic competences. It began in the second semester of 1998 to help those educational institutions
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with the lowest results on the achievements tests. Initially, these institutions were invited to a meeting where they were encouraged to voluntarily participate in the project. Also at this meeting were government institutions, universities, corporations and foundations. Those volunteering for the program were then assigned a technical team who were charged with evaluating the program. This approach to improvement was later called characterization: the focus here was on the results of the evaluation and the identification of the possible causes for the low achievement of students in the basic competences. This characterization was built based on the following factors: school practices in mathematics and language, learning environments, culture and institutional atmosphere, organizational structure and approaches, and implementation and results of school management. Based on the developed characterization an improvement plan was designed by the school, with the advice and assistance of the evaluation team. After the plan was formulated it was put into action and subsequently evaluated. The development of the program allowed for a redefinition and drawing together of its components around pedagogical, directive, administrative and financial management domains. The model for the program detailed four broad strategies: conceptual, methodological, operational, and administrative. The conceptual strategy explicitly defined three key concepts of the program namely, school improvement, accompaniment, and strengthening of the school as an institution. The methodological strategy detailed the cycle of school improvement. This started with the tests of basic competences and then established the process as, the commitment of the institution to improvement, characterization, preparation and implementation of plans, the second application of tests, the following up, the evaluation, and so on. The operational strategy included five stages: the selection of institutions, development of awareness, the selection of evaluation teams, and the collaborative implementation of the improvement cycle. Finally, the administrative strategy defined the roles of the different actors of the programs (SED, or central level; Center of local educational administration – CADEL,21 or local level; and, institutional level) and their organization and coordination. The research which is presently being carried out with the support of the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology22 (COLCIENCIAS), has identified variations in the institutions that participated in the program, with respect to the philosophy of the accompanying institution, of the proposal that was set into motion, and of the characteristics of the institution itself. In general terms, however, it appears that all the institutions that participated in the program on Leveling for excellence achieved the average established for the city of Bogotá in the evaluation of competences in language and mathematics and, in some cases, they surpassed it.23
Work Competences The study done by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (2004) reports that research to identify the role of educational institutions in training students to succeed in the world of work has been carried out for many years. Most are now aware of the importance of education for training individuals who face difficulties gaining access to education and learning skills important for success in work environments.
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This study recommended the inclusion of work related competences at all levels of the educational system, with a special focus at the high school. However, these same educational policies are not specific in terms of the competences to be included, which makes their development and evaluation weak. Much work, to date, is focused on understanding the topic and the typical difficulties in schools, and to conceptualize alternatives to provide skills which would allow young people to be suitably prepared for work in a variety of social environments. The National Ministry of Education suggests two types of work competences: general and specific. The former are required for the successful performance of the individual in any type of social and productive environment: taking into account the economic sector, the position, or the type of activity, it is considered that these competences are transferable and generic. On the other hand, the latter are oriented towards preparing an individual to develop the appropriate productive competences needed for a given job. It is argued that there is a large set of performances that can be strengthened in educational institutions: those most frequently mentioned are to behave politely, to work according to instructions, to share information, experiences, and knowledge, to fulfill the commitments of teamwork, to acknowledge the interests of other people and to have good worksite relationships. It is also argued, however, that educational institutions should also strengthen those competences that are typically less well developed. Skills high on this list are, to appropriately manage work languages, to optimize economic resources, to diplomatically and tactfully manage conflictive situations, to advise others when making decisions, to manage complex work systems and to autonomously manage time (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2004, p. 144). Undoubtedly, the educational policy of the Capital District is concerned with offering teaching-learning alternatives that impact the cultural and social deficiencies that student from broad sectors of the population bring to school. The group most targeted in these policies are students located in sectors which can be classified as both urban and marginal. It is important to note that the effectiveness of these programs is not equal. The Schools on Concession and the program on Leveling for Excellence, for example, have had the greatest achievements. Others, by contrast, such as the Subsidies for the Demand more directly affect the problems concerning the access to education, than its quality.24
Pedagogy and Equity An analysis of the programs aimed at equity suggest that an evaluation of the school environment, learning and the results of census evaluations are important. Such an evaluation is presented in the following three tables.25 It is clear here that the relationship between pedagogical practices and equity must aim at developing a more effect school environment for the less privileged boys and girls at the educational institution. If we accept the relevant role of school as a place to socialize, for example, then the policies analyzed in the case of the Capital District would affect social and cultural capital, according to Bourdieu. They would also enhance human development according to Sen, in the sense that they are sensitive to the deficient environments in which students live and they focus on strategies to change the current practices.
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Results of the students and of the institution and equity
Category
Dimension
Strategy
Policy
Comparisons between different moments of students’ learning and between different moments of institutional evaluation Establishment of goals and methods to report their levels of achievement: methods to follow up and provide feedback, and attention to students based on evaluations
Results of census tests
Not knowing about census tests Students do not know if they are doing well or not Teachers’ statements, such as: “these children will not obtain good results in this type of test” Goals to improve results and pilot tests to see how much averages have been increased Evaluation committees They analyze the cases of children with deficient achievements based on an all-embracing and holistic perspective of learning Support. Flexible promotion Individualized attention. Strategies for leveling through group work
Work competences
Schools on Concession Voucher schools
Voucher schools Leveling for Excellence
Pedagogical and didactical strategies related to equity can also be understood in terms of what the literature is starting to call educability. Clearly, an awareness of and sensitivity to students’ deficient environments will generate a more appropriate learning setting. This development is emerging as an increasingly strong tendency in the studies that evaluate education in big cities in Latin America. These studies have made it clear that if the students’ social environment and the learning problems that they bring into the school are not taken into account, the policies and educational reforms in general will not be successful. Undoubtedly, large-scale evaluations are essential for us to understand the quality of learning achieved by schools. According to the framework presented in this document, it is clear that urban education needs to understand the range of deficient environments of students from less privileged sectors and to design learning strategies that can deliver higher levels of student achievement. Sadly, educational institutions do not always take these factors into account. Addressing them, however, can promote significant changes in the achievement of the boys and girls attending these institutions.
Criteria for Pedagogical Equity in Educational Policies In sum, it can be argued that educational policies aimed towards equity in big cities in Latin America need to take into account the following three realities: ●
The inequality in the learning results obtained by boys and girls from Latin American countries, is a function of the fragmentation of schooling.
This fragmentation has been an historical constant in Colombia and has led those who study education in the country to state that elites are trained and educated, while all other people are civilized (Helg, 1987). In spite of the many policies designed to address the
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quality of education for students from the less privileged sectors (through such activities as improving infrastructure, increasing school libraries, training programs for teachers, and other activities such as the ones analyzed in the previous paragraphs), vast differences in achievement continue to be a constant. Sadly, this inequality is increased by regional diversity that prevents building a project for the whole country. ●
An education that pursues equity needs to recognize that there are marginal sectors in the big cities in Latin America.
Population groups who migrate into urban illiterate sectors, or in to sectors with precarious education, are also moving into the poor areas of the city. When the first generation of these groups enter schools this challenges the school to adjust the syllabi and the learning setting to be responsive to the range of deficits that the students bring to the school: this includes both social and economic factors related to cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1998). in order to have access to elaborate codes (Bernstein, 1985) that require academic learning. This situation leads to the perpetuation of social inequality because we go back and for the educational system without taking into account the learning needed to perform well in globalization environments, which increasingly require greater competences with respect to technological knowledge and to reading and writing in at least one non-native language. ●
Education is no longer the major factor for social mobility.
Greater levels of schooling are increasingly required and the educational emptiness (Tedesco, 2003), a displacement of basic knowledge towards schooling levels, is increasingly significant. We must recognize that young people who finish their basic education, have few opportunities to secure high status jobs and certainly cannot easily enter the university. In the best of cases, such students must opt for competing in a precarious labor market, such as working as a salesclerk in shops in the neighborhood. This situation requires a review of the cycles of basic education, primary school and junior high school, with respect to their length and to the minimal competences required for certification. Similarly, it is necessary for education to promote the development of a wide range of human abilities as proposed by Amartya Sen (1998). In closing, and taking into account Reimers statements (2000) about schooling, our current knowledge abut schools and learning can lead to improvements in the quality of learning of the less privileged boys and girls in the big cities in Latin America. To achieve this, of course, we need new guiding principles for practices and a change in the direction policy development. In particular, we need policies that pay attention to poverty and the marginality it creates, if we want less segmented societies.
Notes 1. Bogotá is a city with more than 6 million inhabitants and it is continuously growing because of people’s displacement as a consequence of armed conflict. Displacement not only occurs in the traditional way from the country side to the cities, but from cities to cities and from neighborhoods to neighborhoods. 2. Circuit is used in metaphoric sense in order to describe the follow situation: Education in Bogotá, as in other Latin American capitals, is highly segmented. That is, people can access a high quality education if they have the financial means to do so. Otherwise, cultural and work options will be limited.
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3. The analyses included in the Aula Reformada [Improved Classroom] (Calvo, Mina, & Cera, 2001) show that when referring to the learning of reading and writing, the boys and girls of the second year of basic elementary school in public and private institutions do not have enough knowledge about their native language. These deficiencies continue to be present in other national and international evaluations, such as the recent PIZZA test, in which Colombia was ranked among the lowest. 4. A more detailed analysis on these questions is presented in Camargo, Calvo, and Lache (2004). 5. This must be understood as those processes which started from the issuance of the General Law of Education, that is, Law 115 of 1994. 6. Muñoz Izquierdo (1995) cited by Reimers (2000, p. 34). 7. They are understood as those policies which recognize the first social, cultural, and economic inequality, and design strategies to affect them positively. 8. An extended analysis about this theme is in Calvo, Camargo, and Gutiérrez (2004). 9. According to Bourdieu existing differences in practice cannot be confused with the differences achieved in research. Predictive distances of meeting again, affinities, sympathies and wishes are the characteristics that define their model. “… proximity in the social context predisposes people to become closer …” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 36). 10. Spaces or contexts built up by language based on reality. 11. According to Pierre Bourdieu, school capital is part of the cultural capital which is conceived as having access to specialized knowledge and boasting a prestigious university’s diploma. 12. He has already mentioned it in The Heirs: “There are things which all people believe they own, while only a few dominate them; for example, the fact that they know how to take notes, how to fill an index card, how to use a dictionary, how to use abbreviations, how to use communication rhetoric, how to organize a card index box, how to create and index, how to use a descriptive card index box of a data bank and a library, how to use information instruments, how to read statistical tables and graphs. The technology for intellectual work is not only not taught, but it is underestimated” (Bourdieu, 1998, pp.169–170). 13. This discussion on the relationship between education, interests, and abilities was presented by the Nobel of Literature Gabriel García Márquez in the prologue of the document known as Informe de los Sabios (Report of Wise Men) Cf. Colombia: al filo de la oportunidad (Colombia: at the edge of opportunity) Joint Report. Documents of the Science, Education, and Development Mission. Bogotá, DC: National Ministry of Education (MEN), 1994, 142 pages. It is worth mentioning that some of the pedagogical activities and strategies carried out by compensating policies are according to Sen’s approaches. See Tables 2 and 3 in this text. 14. Secretary of Education of the Capital District. 15. The population in Colombia is classified in six socioeconomic strata, where the first one is the lowest and the sixth one is the highest. Strata 1 and 2 generally report unsatisfied basic needs. 16. This section is based on the evaluative study carried out in 2004, by the Corporación para el Desarrollo de la Educación Básica en Colombia [Corporation for the Development of basic (primary school and junior high school) education in Colombia] (CORPOEDUCACION), which is a nonprofit, civil, private, and mixed sharing association that aims at finding paths and solutions in order to strengthen the quality of basic (primary school and junior high school) education in Colombia. 17. Direct rendering of educational services in public institutions, voucher schools and contracting of private administrators. 18. It was regulated by Decree 1860 of 1994. The PEI of each educational institution must indicate “the way in which it was decided to achieve the goals of education established by the law, taking into account the social, economic and cultural conditions of its environment.” 19. In 2003, there were 23 educational institutions that used this model and which were in 10 localities that were in charge of 23,259 children and young people (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 4). 20. According to this agreement, the project of the Centro para el Desarrollo [Center for Development] (CID) of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia has designed and applied evaluation instruments during approximately four consecutive years and it has also audited the program of Subsidies for the demand. 21. The technical entity in charge of educational management at a local level, through which the Secretary of Education Office of the District decentralizes the administration of the educational service in each of the 20 localities of the Capital District of Bogotá.
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22. This is the agency which finances the majority of research projects in Colombia. It has programs in different areas of knowledge which include social sciences and education. 23. For more details on this topic, see the Levelling for Excellence Program Technical Team (2001). 24. For more details on this topic, see the study carried out by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (2004). 25. The tables included in this document were developed based on the fieldwork carried out in the institutions analyzed in the research on Equity and Educational Policy in the Capital District: experiences in educational institutions from strata 1 and 2 during 1998–2003.
References Bernstein, B. (1985). Clases sociales, lenguaje y socialización. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 15,25–44. [Social Classes, Language and Socialization. Colombian Journal of Education]. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Capital cultural, escuela y espacio social (2 a ed.). Jiménez, I. (Comp.) Bogotá, DC: Siglo XXI editores. [Cultural Capital, School and Social Context]. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). La reproducción: Elementos para una teoría del sistema de enseñanza. Madrid: Laia. [Reproduction: Elements for a theory of theaching]. Calvo, G., Camargo, M., & Gutiérrez, M. (2004). Informe de avance (Proyecto Política educativa, equidad y formación docente). Bogotá, DC: Instituto Colombiano para el desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología “Francisco José de Caldas” [“Francisco José de Caldas” Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology] (COLCIENCIAS), Instituto para la Investigación Educativa y el Desarrollo Pedagógico, Pedagógico [Institute for Educational Research and Pedagogical Development] (IDEP), Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Colombia. [National Pedagogical University of Colombia] [Preliminary Report (Research Project about Educational Policy, Equity and Teacher Training)]. Calvo, G., Mina, A., & Cera, A. (2001). El Aula Reformada. Un análisis de las prácticas pedagógicas en lectura y escritura a la luz de la Reforma Educativa. Bogotá, DC: ARFO. [Improved Classroom. An analysis of reading and writing pedagogical practices with respect to the Educational Reform]. Camargo, M., Calvo, G., & Lache, M. (2004). Tercer informe de avance (Proyecto La equidad y la política educativa en el Distrito Capital: las experiencias en las instituciones educativas de estratos 1 y 2 durante 1998–2003 Contrato 093/03). Bogotá, DC: Instituto para la Investigación Educativa y el Desarrollo Pedagógico [Institute for Educational Research and Pedagogical Development] [Third preliminary report (Research Project on Equity and Educational Policy in the Capital District: Experiences in educational institutions from strata 1 and 2 during 1998–2003 Contract 093/03)]. Colombia, Ministerio de Educación Nacional. [National Ministry of Education]. (1994). Colombia: Al filo de la oportunidad. Bogotá, DC: Misión Ciencia, Educación y Desarrollo. [Science, Education and Development Mission] [Colombia: At the edge of opportunity]. Colombia, Ministerio de Educación Nacional. [National Ministry of Education]. (1994). Decreto 1860 de 1994. El Proyecto Educativo Institucional. Bogotá, DC: Ministerio de Educación Nacional. [Decree 1860 of 1994. The Institutional Educational Project]. Comisión Económica para América Latina. [Economic Commission for Latin America]. (2000). Equidad, desarrollo y ciudadanía. I Visión global (2 a ed.). Bogotá DC: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe CEPAL. [Equity, development and citizenship. I global vision]. Corporación para el desarrollo de la educación básica. [Corporation for the Development of basic (primary school and junior high school) education in Colombia]. (2004). Evaluación integral. Proyecto de concesión educativa. Bogotá, DC: Corporación para el desarrollo de la educación básica CORPOEDUCACIÓN. [Integral evaluation. Project of educational concession]. Entrevista a Fernando Reimers. (2004). Revista La Educación Año XLV 136–137 (I-II). Retrieved on September 9, 2004, from Ministerio de Educación del Perú: http://www.minedu.gob.pe/gestion_institucional/ entrevista_reimers01.htm. [Interview to Fernando Reimers. Journal of Education]. Equipo técnico del Programa Nivelación para la excelencia. [Levelling for the excellence program technical team]. (2001). El modelo del Programa Nivelación para la Excelencia y los aprendizajes de su operación. Bogotá, DC: Secretaría de Educación Distrital [Secretary of Education of the Capital City District], Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá. [The Program of Levelling for the Excellence and what has been learned during its implementation].
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Helg, A. (1987). La educación en Colombia. 1918–1957. Una Historia social, económica y política. Bogotá, DC: Fondo Editorial CEREC [CEREC Publishing Fund] [Education in Colombia. 1918–1957. A social, economic and political history]. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. (2004). Contribución de la educación media al desarrollo decompetencias laborales generales en el Distrito Capital. Informe final. Bogotá, DC: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Instituto para la Investigación Educativa y el Desarrollo Pedagógico. [Institute for Educational Research and Pedagogical Development] [Contribution of secondary education to the development of labor competences in the capital city district. Final report]. Rawls, J. (1971). Teoría de la justicia. México: Fondo de Cultura económica. [A theory of justice] Reimers, F. (Ed.). (2000). Unequeal schools, unequeal chances. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, The David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies. Secretaría de Educación Distrital. [Secretary of education of the capital city district]. (1998). Plan sectorial de educación 1998–2001. Bogotá, DC: Secretaría de Educación del Distrito (SED), Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá. [Educational plan by sectors. 1998–2001]. Secretaría de Educación Distrital. [Secretary of education of the capital city district] (2001). Plan sectorial de educación 2001–2004. Bogotá, DC, Secretaría de Educación del Distrito (SED), Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá. [Educational plan by sectors. 2001–2004]. Sen, A. (1998). Capital humano y capacidad humana. Cuadernos de Economía, 29, 67–72. Extraído el 9 de septiembre, 2004, del sitio web Latin America Database: http://ladb.unm.edu/econ/content/cuadeco/ 1998/july/capital.html. [Human capital and human capacity. Notebooks of Economy]. Tedesco, J. C. (2003). Educación y hegemonía en el nuevo capitalismo: algunas notas e hipótesis de trabajo. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 45, 9–19. [Education and hegemony in the new Capitalism: Some working notes and hypotheses. Colombian Journal of Education]. Tenti, E. (2003). La escuela y los modos de producción de la hegemonía. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 45, 20–40. [School and ways of hegemony production. Colombian Journal of Education].
36 PRIMARY EDUCATION: CHANGING MAINSTAY OF URUGUAY Juan A. Bogliaccini Catholic University of Uruguay, Uruguay
Traditionally one of the countries with highest levels of social and human development in Latin America, Uruguay is a small and eminently urban country, with an extended welfare state and universal education. From the beginnings of the twentieth century, education has been one of its main tools for promoting nationality and citizenship. The region and Uruguay experimented with different economic development models, switching development models from an Import Substitution Model (ISM) to an exportoriented model. As a result, the second half of the twentieth century entailed a series of changes in the social structures of the country. Poverty and inequality indicators grew and the architecture of the welfare state gradually lost its capacity to respond to a changing structure of social risks (Filgueira et al., 2005). Education was not insulated from these changes. In 1995, there is a revolution in the educational public system caused by the reform initiated by the national government. This reform has concentrated most of its strategies on equity in resources (with compensatory emphasis) and has resulted in centralized models that combine focused and universal resources assignment. In primary educational level, Full-Time School model has been its main and more successful tool.1 Eleven years after the beginning of the reform, the educational system faces, in terms of its organization, a set of tensions between the traditional structure and the emerging model. The challenges are four: Teachers’ stability in schools, degree of autonomy between the school and the central administration, cultural impoverishment of the underprivileged social sectors, and the necessity of basing the expansion of the new model on additional resources. This chapter provides an analysis of the educational system characteristics associated with these four tensions, and a discussion of the most important risks in terms of universalizing the emerging transformation.
685 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 685–704. © 2007 Springer.
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The Public Primary Education and the Twentieth Century The Principles of Public Education in Uruguay The principle of equal opportunity in education has been an ideal of Uruguayans since Varela’s Reform at the end of the twentieth century.2 This reform planned education by taking into account three principles that sought to guarantee equality: compulsory, secular and free of charge education. This was in the context of a modernized Uruguay that was characterized by a steady flow of immigrants mostly from Western Europe. As the twentieth century continued, these principles have become dogmas, becoming a constituent aspect of the national culture (Table 1). The principle of compulsory education became a major element in the constitution of Uruguayan nationality since it gave rise to a common language and symbolic universe among immigrants of different nations. Varela’s thought was greatly influenced by the thought of the Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento,3 whose civilizing ideal is summarized on his famous dialectical distinction between “civilización y barbarie” (civilization and barbarity). The principle of free of charge education sought, along with the compulsoriness, to universalize registration in schools. The State assumes the cost of public education at every level, including university education. Finally, the principle of secular education sought to guarantee the hegemonic role of the State in said construction of the national identity. This was the result of repeated and severe confrontations between Catholic Church, State and Masonry.
Early Achievement in Coverage and Arrival of System Crisis Since Varela’s reform, Uruguay has attained a major achievement in terms of education. The illiteracy rate started to decrease steeply, and in the first decades of the twentieth century, the country appeared among the Latin American countries with highest education development. By the middle of 1960s, the 91.6% of population attended primary education, the 23.2% of youths between 12 and 18 years old attended secondary education, and the 1.9% of people older than 18 attended post secondary education. Historically, registration in primary education has been mainly public.4 In 2004, the 87.8% of primary education was public, compared with a 12.2% registration in private schools (Table 2).5 However, since 1970s, the Uruguayan educational system became threatened by three different factors. These factors attack both the homogenizing goal of the system, Table 1. Year
1860 1908
Population composition of Uruguay by origin Uruguayans
Foreigners
Total population
Population
%
Population
%
147.557 801.464
66 83
74.849 181.222
34 17
Source: Juan Rial. Estadísticas históricas del Uruguay (Historical Statistics of Uruguay).
222.406 1.042.686
Changing Mainstay of Uruguay Table 2.
Number of schools and registered children
Year
1868 1876 1883 1887 1896 1900 1905 1911 1914
687
Public
Private
Schools
Children
Schools
Children
121 196 303 366 533 571 619 793 997
9.201 17.451 26.169 30.572 51.312 52.474 57.638 74.717 94.940
– 225 423 441 379 344 301 300 219
– 6.631 19.244 21.810 22.689 18.066 17.794 20.443 20.006
Source: Morás, L. “De la Tierra Purpúrea al laboratorio social” (From Purple Land to Social Laboratory).
and its centralized administration. The development of preschool education (education of children of four and five years old), mainly of private initiative, was gradual but determined. This education started to replace the first year of public basic education as the primary, post-familial socialization process of children from most privileged socioeconomic sectors.6 When private initiative began in preschool education, private schools also started to retain students for the subsequent grades, undercutting the dominance of the public system. This situation enabled the growth of private education, especially for the upper classes that can afford their own education, rejecting the free of charge but lower quality education offered by the State. Furthermore, even when children who have attended private preschool move to public schools, they arrive to first grade with significant advantages over children who have not attended preschool. Another process unsettling the country and its educational system comes from the double segmentation between schools with favorable contexts and schools with unfavorable contexts.7 Given the primary public education covers 86.1% of school population between six and eleven years old in 2000 (see Table 8), the main process that creates inequality is the segmentation in the public system due to the registration in urban school areas that is structured by residential segregation that has intensified in the last decades. Actually, the State effort to universalize basic school attendance triggered, as stated above, a rapid growth of school enrollment since 1960, spurring private initiative but also permitting mass registrations of students. Sectors with higher socio-economic power initiated the search for solutions to the new problem outside the public system. Both situations contribute to a third threat to public educational system, especially in primary level: increasing territorial segmentation that affects the equity of a registration system based on territory. Public schools start to differentiate from each other in terms of target population and the population starts choosing schools placed in neighborhoods with favorable contexts over those placed in neighborhoods with less favorable contexts. All three, taken together, create a deep segmentation process regarding quality in education, especially in human resources available in the different social contexts. This is
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exacerbated by teachers’ employment strategies whereby they tend to choose schools with higher socio-cultural levels of students instead of those increasingly impoverished.
Centralized Administration that Generates Incoherence The centralized management of Uruguayan educational system is regulated by the State, mainly through inspection system.8 An example of this powerful centralization in public schools is the statutory procedures they must follow. Schools lack their own resources: furniture and materials. Therefore, they have to ask the National Board of Education (ANEP) for the necessary goods. ANEP distributes all materials, be it the needed chalk for the academic year or the books used in different academic subjects.9 Even maintenance and necessary repairs including replacement of broken windows, plumbing, carpentry or paintwork have to be done by an official hired by ANEP and assigned to the case; otherwise, money would have to be contributed by the parents’ commission or other benefactor. In Uruguay, the main sources of inequality in the assignment of school resources are: the political capacity of better schools to obtain more central resources; the possibility of schools to have access to contributions from parent’s and parent organizations; and the distribution and movement of teachers and principals across schools of different socio-educational contexts. (Bogliaccini, 2003, 2004; Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004; Filgueira & Martínez, 2001; García-Huidobro, 2003; Silveira & Queirolo, 1998). There are important differences in terms of educational equipment videos, library, TV, etc. A basic equipment index made by the technical systems of ANEP shows that 24% of schools in a “very unfavorable” context lack equipment, and only 2% of schools in a “favorable” context are in the same position. While this centralizing structure intervenes in every hidden corner of the system, it refuses to directly manage the teachers and principals allocation system. In contrast with the centralizing logic, this allocation is decided, according to statute, by school choice, which establishes teacher autonomy to choose the school of his/her preference and to change at will, within a framework of teaching staff organization that gives priority to those with seniority in the system. The teacher and principal allocation system works as follows: every year teachers choose among available positions. Once the total positions are defined, there is an election of teaching hours in every department of the country. If wanted, teachers can register in two different departments for such election. Standards in force stipulate a complex mechanism governed by a “precedence order by grade in decreasing order.”10 This mechanism establishes that effective teachers choose before provisional teachers and substitutes, teachers of higher grades choose before those of lower grades and, within each grade, the ones with higher inspection score choose before the ones with lower score. Final distribution of teachers in schools depends on the results of this complex mechanism. Center (district) authorities, principals or parents have no jurisdiction in the matter, except in the case of center authorities, who can suppress, transfer or create positions, at best an indirect mechanism. The only limit to the choices of a teacher are the choices of the others, or more precisely, the choices of those teachers placed in a better position in the “precedence order (Table 3).”
Changing Mainstay of Uruguay Table 3.
689
Teacher stability in schools of public educational system (1996–2002) Public-Montevideo
Public-Iinterior
Total
Average
Favorable context
Unfavorable context
Average
Favorable Unfavorable context context
1996 2002
51.5 44.2
40.9 40.4
61.4 53.7
45.8 44.2
37.7 30.8
48.3 47.4
46.9 44.2
Stable teachers 1996 2002
10.5 18.4
15.9 14.9
3.6 14.7
25.6 21.0
34.4 26.2
23.9 19.5
22.6 20.4
New teachers
● Data to public system originate from the information of urban schools that were included in both surveys. Source: National Learning Census 1996 (UMRE) and Survey of Registration, Teachers and Equipment – General Administration of Planning and Educational Management (2002).
The information that arose from the teacher survey in 1996 and 2002, suggests that the allocation of teachers has a negative bias strongly related to socio-cultural contexts of schools. In general terms, in both years, the percentage of young teachers in schools in “favorable” context is significantly lower than in schools in “unfavorable” ones (IIPE-ANEP, 2003a, 2003b/ANEP, 2002). This distortion in allocation is confirmed in all public schools of the country, albeit there is a greater difference in the levels of teachers’ stability depending on the educational center. In this case, the number of teachers working in the center for less than two years (new teachers) is significantly higher in “unfavorable” contexts rather than “favorable” ones. The system of teacher allocation contributes to the weakening of the identity of the school and its center project because given certain inspection score, the teacher acquires the right to choose the school, and the lack of other incentives lead to a constant rotation of human resources. This mainly affects schools not wanted by teachers, generally those that receive students from income quintiles 1 and 2 (the poorer 40% of Uruguayans). An allocation system that leaves the school election to the teacher, with little restriction or corrective measure, in a context of educational segmentation between schools of different socio-educational levels creates this inequity in teacher quality across the public schools.
The 1990s Decade and the Educational Reform When democracy returned in 1985, public education was in a state of crisis. Some of the most prominent symptoms of the crisis were: low wages, inappropriate infrastructure, crowded classes and a great number of parents who have chosen to leave the system and look for private alternatives. There were no attempts at structural reforms during the first Sanguinetti administration (1985–1989). The Lacalle administration (1990–1994) developed a system by which some schools of neighborhoods with unfulfilled basic needs (UBN) were defined as schools of “priority care.” Teachers’ wages of those schools rose as a bonus. In 1995, with the arrival of the second Sanguinetti administration (1995–1999), an ambitious project of reform was launched. It sought to decentralize via class desegregating processes by the improvement of quality in education, through the development of equity
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and a higher administrative efficiency. The Batlle Ibáñez administration (2000–2004) continued with the educational policy started in 1995, though with less determination and leadership than the preceding administration. The current Vázquez administration (2005–2009) has not followed a defined policy in terms of education during its first year. It continued with the main lines of reform in primary school education and promoted a revision – more political and sectorial than technical – in middle school. During the first five years, reform was planned and conducted by Germán Rama, sociologist and professor, who had conducted many studies regarding Uruguayan educational system when working for the CEPAL (Comisión Económica Para América Latina/ Economic Comission for Latin American and the Caribbean) in Montevideo, see in particular: Rama (1993). During the 1995 Educational Reform, the administration and the decision making remained centralized. More recently, a discussion has been initiated within education concerning the autonomy of educational centers that could foster institutional strengthening and have a positive impact on educational quality.11 First, the reform advanced the first three grades of middle education, in an attempt to recover an institutional dimension that had been lost for more than 25 years. The middle grades had languished due to multiple factors including narrowing of timetable for instruction, overcrowding of schools, and high rotation of teachers. In these terms, the reform aimed to enlarge timetable, reduce repetition levels12 and search for collective workspaces for the teachers. Furthermore, curriculum was drastically changed through subject regrouping. Training courses for teachers were created to fulfill the new demand, and finally working hours were increased. Second, the reform projected the ambitious plan of expanding public preschool education, free of charge and compulsory. Preschool education of middle and upper class had grown significantly during the last two decades at private schools, as stated above. Consequently, the State proceeded through a centralist intervention to thwart the logic of preschool expansion headed by private schools, with the purpose of homogenizing the system. The CEPAL’s studies from previous years showed the importance of preschool education as one of the determining factors for children’s performance during subsequent years and, therefore, as one of the key ways to reduce inequality in education. In terms of educational resources, the reform aimed and achieved the goal of guaranteeing that all children of public primary education owned, or had loaned to them, three basic textbooks(math, language and natural sciences), and teachers had their corresponding teachers’ books. This program of common texts replaced a culture of photocopies of old texts and with supplemental new materials that clearly stratified educational materials in schools with different resources. The expansion of higher wages for those who chose schools with a priority need or in a critical context – as previously defined13 – was one of the few initiatives giving direct economic resources to the participants of educational system with the purpose of attenuating the inequitable assignment of human resources. The reform fostered Full Time Schools (ETC)14 as a measure to focus additional resources on schools within a critical context. The goal was to address more than just education. It attempted to keep children out of the street and instruct teachers in these new schools how to face the learning and adaptation difficulties of children in most “unfavorable” social contexts. Reform developed a system of texts for all the students, training courses for teachers in schools with critical context and a bonus program for
Changing Mainstay of Uruguay
691
teachers, material resources and technical support for schools called “Todos los niños pueden aprender” (All children can learn), with particular emphasis on underprivileged social contexts. The model remains centralized and combines focused strategies with a bias toward underprivileged and universal, public sectors of education (where heterogeneity appears increasingly stratified). Educational reform emphasized the search for mechanisms to reduce the high repetition percentages in the first grades of primary education. These percentages worked as a regression in terms of equity – children of schools with poorer contexts repeat in a higher percentage – and had not been responsive to educational improvement strategies: universalization of preschool education and preferential assignment of resources to schools with unfavorable contexts.15 The high repetition rate, likewise, had a direct impact on the over-aged dropout during the first grades of middle education (13–15 years) – once again inhibiting equity. A standardized system of learning evaluation was created with the purpose of evaluating the reform and as a process to search for initiatives that would better promote equity and quality in education. The system is not a “high stakes” system. Each principal receives the results of the school but they are not public and principals cannot compare them with other schools. The management of the system is under the Unit for the Measurement of Educational Results (UMRE), which tries to boost the educational work of schools with an emphasis on those schools with unfavorable contexts. The combination of standardized measures, teacher professional development courses and the return of results to the school was the strategy chosen by the Uruguayan reform to improve learning and close the educational gap between socio-economic sectors.
Public Expenditure in Education Although between 1985 and 2004 expenditures on education have been irregular, it has improved patently and with a strong redistributive effort in comparison with the deterioration of previous years. This is particularly true since 1995, when the educational effort of the country considerably increased and an equity bias became the structural axis of educational interventions. Finally, between 1990 and 2000, educational expenditure as a percentage of the GDP grew from 2.4 to 3.4% (of a GDP that also grew between 1990 and 1998 up to an annual accretion of almost 5%). The expenditure by student in preschool, primary and secondary education increased in real terms between 1990 and 2004. During the Vázquez administration, the national Budget law for 2006–2010 approved by National Parliament establishes the goal of reaching an educational expenditure of 4% of the GDP by 2010. On the other hand, teacher wages have remained practically stagnant. Between 1995 and 1998 teachers wage had a real increase of 5%, but between 1999 and 2000 lost almost the total gain of the previous period (Table 4).
Full Time School: Flagship of the Reform16 The results of the National Learning Census of 1996 confirmed that social segmentation is reproduced in learning, showing clearly different results according to the context. In “very favorable” contexts, 85% of children reached sufficiency levels in Language
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Table 4. Expenditure of primary education board, by large categories. Registration, expenditure by student and expenses by student Rate, 1990100. Period: 1990–2004 Year
Expenditure
1990 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Performance
Investment
Total
113.8 102.4 126.9 139.4 136.2 149.3 143.2 149.1 141.9 132.4 –
1.2 3.9 2.5 2.8 5.8 11.0 7.7 8.0 6.8 9.2 –
115.0 106.3 129.4 142.2 142.0 160.3 150.9 157.1 148.7 141.6 146.4
Registration
Expenditure by student
Rate 1990 100
345.344 343.826 356.030 369.500 376.870 383.799 394.400 400.289 403.738 405.653 411.534
333 309 364 385 377 418 383 392 368 349 356
100.0 92.8 109.2 115.6 113.2 125.4 114.9 117.8 110.6 104.8 106.9
Source: Based on Furtado and Llambí, 2004. Planning and Budget Administration and Educational Planning Administration of ANEP (National Board of Public Education).
Table 5.
Evolution of number of Full Time Schools Period: 1997–2004
Geographic area
1997
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Montevideo Interior Total
12 45 57
18 55 73
21 65 90
22 71 91
22 74 96
24 78 102
Source: ANEP – MECAEP.
and the 66% in Math. In “very unfavorable” contexts, the results of sufficiency were 37 and 17%, respectively. From this point of view, the Educational Reform of 1995 constituted the launching pad of the educational initiative that is manifested in Full Time Schools,17 a response to this increasing segmentation of learning quality. The Reform justifies the Full–Time School model for the unprivileged sectors as a means to achieve a greater equity in the access to knowledge and in the development of competencies and learning (Table 5).18 In 1992, the fist attempts to enlarge the school timetable started in some schools as a pilot plan. In 1996, the first 58 schools, with 9554 attending children, were created or transformed to Full-Time regimen. In 2004, there were 102 schools nationwide working under this regimen, which represents about the 7% of the total school registration in the country (Table 6). The Full-Time proposal does not end in the extension of the timetable, but it offers a change in the educational schedule. Underprivileged children do not form a homogeneous group. Even though poverty, and its determining factors, have an impact on children with similar disadvantages, its manifestation in the educational needs of students is different. Full-Time Schools try to make up for the differences through actions
Changing Mainstay of Uruguay
693
Table 6. Primary school registration, from 1st to 6th grade, by school category, by socio-cultural context, urban and rural. Year 2004 2004 Number of students
%
By category Normal urban Rural Critical socio-cultural context Full Time Practice National Total
174.128 16.955 46.410 20.326 52.101 309.920
56.2 5.5 15.0 6.6 16.8 100.0
Urban according to socio-cultural context Very favorable Favorable Average Unfavorable Very unfavorable Urban Total
15.956 39.676 60.101 76.047 101.185 292.265
5.5 13.6 20.6 26.0 34.6 100.0
Source: ANEP – MECAEP.
based on affirmative action criteria. Therefore, the school day in such schools includes different institutional/educational schedules allowing differentiated educational strategies. (ANEP, 1997). In general, children attend schools 7 hours a day (35 hours a week), working on activities related to the normal program and activities that complement the central curriculum. These activities are collective, complementary and are developed at classroom level. There are three kinds of complementary activities: activities related to the achievement of languages and physical education, workshop activities and activities oriented to connect with the social environment and the culture. Pedagogical Classroom activities are based on two criteria: start from the experience and culture of the student; and create in the classroom an environment of shared knowledge. Complementary Time (3 hours a week) is optional and includes one-onone assistance and activities intended to engender personal hygiene and the afternoon snack. Finally, the Teachers Meeting (2 hours a week) gives the teachers a time for reflection, elaboration and evaluation. These Full-Time schools have systematically obtained better results on UMRE tests in terms of sufficiency percentages than the rest of national public schools with the same socio cultural context. Charts 1 and 2 below show this fact, comparing sufficiency percentages of language and math tests in very unfavorable and unfavorable contexts of three school groups, for the years 1996, 1999, and 2002. Schools that worked as Full-Time Schools before 1999, those that did it since or after 1999 and the rest of public schools of the same context. The groups of Full-Time Schools get better results, keeping or widening the initial gap between the groups in 1996 to the/towards year 1999 and 2002, either in language or in math.
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80 71.6
70
64.6 61
60.7
60
58.9
52.4
55.7
50
48.5
51.4
45.1
46.7
42.6
40
51.4
62.9 59.7 54.8
37.1 30 20 1996
1999
2002
1996
Unfavorable context – Language National
1999
2002
Very Unfavorable context – Language ETC Post 99
ETC 1999
Chart 1. Languages evolution in Uruguayan public schools. Sufficiency percentage in unfavorable and very unfavorable Contexts Source: Study based on ANEP data (2003). National Evaluation of Language and Math Development. 6th grade Primary Education. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Montevideo.
60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10
53.9 49.1
46.6
41.7 40.8
42.5 39.1 35.7 32.6
27.6 27.5 24.1
1996
27.9
27.9 19.2 17.8 16.7
1999
2002
1996
Unfavorable context – Math National
1999
2002
Very unfavorable context – Math ETC Post 99
ETC 1999
Chart 2. Math development in public schools.Sufficiency percentage in unfavorable and very unfavorable contexts Source: Study based on ANEP data (2003). National Evaluation of Language and Math Development. 6th grade Primary Education. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Montevideo.
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Social Segregation and Educational Segmentation During the 1990s19 Population distribution in different schools corresponds to many factors. In primary education, the territorial bias in the recruitment of the population is very clear. In societies with high levels of inequality, there are two big sources that generate risks of educational segregation: the territorial recruitment base and the existence of segmented educational offerings in terms of quality and costs. Educational segmentation should be understood as the situation in which the educational experience of the individual tends to be developed and shared essentially with people of the same socioeconomic origin. This segregation is detrimental not only to the constitution of the civic character of the population but also to the learning and educational achievement (ANEP, 2002; Kaztman, 2001; Kaztman & Filgueira, 2001). The Uruguayan case is a good example of the processes and impacts of the educational segmentation. During the last 20 years, a traditionally equalitarian society with heterogeneous social composition of neighborhoods in Montevideo has presented a growing territorial segregation process. This process has deeply affected the linkage that existed between a hegemonic public educational system and heterogeneous neighborhoods. The result was a socially heterogeneous public school which affected not only early civic experience, but also learning and achievement allowed by the diversity of role models. Nowadays, schools progressively educate homogeneous status groups and the social and human capital is distributed in an increasingly regressive way (Kaztman, 2001) (Table 7). It is important to emphasize, though, that the above segmentation effects are caused in a context of universal coverage for basic education, with rates of over 95% at the beginning of the decade. Since the improvements in the universal availability of education were achieved in 1990, there has been a change in who attends the public school system. The 1990s were renowned for the return of quintiles 2 and 3 to public schools. In turn, quintile 4 remained without great changes during the decade, however, quintile 5, the highest, returned to private schools. The poorest quintile returned almost 100% to public offerings. Definitively, public system is attractive to middle and low social and economic sectors while the high sectors have moved to private schools (Table 8). There are two significant causal factors for this shift. First, the return of middle and low sectors to public education could possibly have been caused by the beginning of Table 7. Population under poverty line (methodology 2002) by age and according to geographical areas of residence. Years 2004 and 2005. Percentages 0–5 years
6–12 years
13–17 years
18–64 years
65 or more
Total
2004
2005
2004
2005
2004
2005
2004
2005 2004 2005 2004 2005
Montevideo 56.6 Urban Interior 58.4 Whole country 57.6
53.1 55.7 54.5
57.9 53.2 55.3
53.5 50.4 51.7
47.8 44.1 45.9
47.3 39.5 43.1
29.4 28.8 29.1
27.1 25.3 26.2
11.6 10.0 10.8
10.6 8.0 9.4
32.4 32.8 32.6
30.2 29.5 29.8
Source: Statistics National Institute (2006): “Press Communication, Homes Constant Poll, Poverty Effect in 2005,” Montevideo, April 5th, http://www.ine.gub.uy/
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Bogliaccini Table 8. Uruguay 1991–2000: Attendance percentage of children from 6 to 11 years old to public educational system, according to income Income quintiles
Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3 Quintile 4 Quintile 5 Total
1991
2000
1991–2000
Public
Public
Balance
93.7 84.1 71.6 60.5 46.0 81.3
98.0 91.1 79.8 61.0 39.2 86.1
4.3 7.0 8.2 0.5 6.8 4.8
Source: Own study based on Household Constant Survey (ECH).
problems that the job market experienced since 1994 and the later recession and economical crisis that started in 1998. Free public education may have been simply more affordable, compared to costs of private education. Another possible cause may be that the educational reform made the public schools more attractive to middle sectors given the additional quality of primary education, especially in critical contexts. Therefore, new Full-Time Schools could have attracted the attention of the population residing in those neighborhoods instead of the private offer. (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004). Quintile 5, the most privileged sector, had moved to private education, probably due to lack of attention to reform the best public schools and possibly the deterioration of these offerings, which attracts the richest sectors of the population. The very emphasis in achieving equity levels focused on those vulnerable sectors may have created, as a secondary effect, this change in preferences for those who can afford a private institution. However, in general terms, public offerings overcame the private ones during the decade resulting in an increasing registration in public schools before this later segmentation process. This is a similar situation to the one experienced for preschool education, although in this case there were trying to achieve a goal of expanding the coverage like in middle education. Thus, Uruguay throughout the 1990s created mechanisms that improved the equity among middle and low sectors but drove high sectors from public education to private offerings (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004).
Development Tensions that Cause Change Alternatives Full-Time School model has fostered the development of alternatives in the ways of organizing and working in a school. The traditionally homogenous system used the same methods and processes for all students regular (but heterogeneous) urban school. Now schools and centers are able to differentiate their educational offerings according to the needs of the student population. All these changes become part of the school’s identity and open the door to more widespread innovation (ANEP, 2003b). All Full-Time Schools (ETCs) form a differentiated universe from the traditionally regular urban schools. Some ETCs have created favorable settings to innovations and
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changes. However, this policy now faces different tensions that will affect its future, determining its integration with the rest of the educational system. It may be that FullTime Schools will become the dominant model or the traditional model may overcome the full-time model in a slow stagnating process. There are four main tensions between this new emerging model and the traditional model of regular urban schools, in order to improve quality and equity in this educational proposal:20 (1) managing teacher stability in schools, (2) the degree of autonomy between central administration and school, (3) dealing with cultural differentiation tied to social segregation process, and (4) the economic costs of universalizing the Full-Time model and of constant training of teachers.
Teacher Stability in Schools Innovation, and its capacity to take advantage of the environment in which operates, depends on the stability of a set of key processes of the school. This stability also depends essentially on the school staff’s stability. This stability is a necessary condition, (but not fully sufficient), to positively impact the quality of education. Stability and innovation have a fragile link in that the change phenomenon operates as both opportunity and risk. (Argyris & Schön, 1978). This stability is a key factor when it comes to improving the relationship between teachers, developing constructive relationships with the neighborhood and with students’ families, elaborating an institutional project with longterm goals, and achieving a complete knowledge of the organization that allows a change from reactive problem-solving to having a medium-term planning capability. Stability of staff establishes a better setting for education, and is an attractive setting to parents. It is necessary to consider this not only as a virtue in its own right, but also as an essential condition to achieve a qualitative change in the performance of the educational system as a whole (Bogliaccini, 2004; Frigerio & Poggi, 1992; García-Huidobro, 2003; Silveira & Queirolo, 1998). However, teacher stability is the least where equity is the most needed outcome, since most teacher rotation to other schools comes schools with students of low socioeconomic status or with an “unfavorable socio-cultural context” (see Table 2). This is allowed by the normal mechanism of teachers’ allocation to schools. In Full-Time Schools, teachers’ mobility is lower than in the rest of the system, due to the inclusion of ad hoc regulations from ANEP and also due to the number of this type of schools. Once the teacher chooses a Full-Time School, (s)he often wishes not to go back to regular schools, and probably would not have the chance to, as there are few available vacancies. However, the allocation method is the same that works for the rest of the public system, which makes a good reason to assume that with a fuller expansion of the Full-Time School model, the same defects that presently affect regular urban schools would be copied permitting considerable teacher mobility and therefore little stability in schools, possibly working against equity once more. Nowadays, in a setting of expansion of the new model, teacher stability in Full-Time Schools is extremely fragile, and depends on two factors that could disappear in such settings, all other things being equal. First, it is unlikely that a procedure of exceptional
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job allocation would survive an expansion of the model unless there is a negotiation with the teachers’ union and a change in the Teachers Statute. On the other hand, the affective and personal acknowledgement caused by working in the “flagship” of the system is softened when the same “renovates the fleet.” Second, the weak point of the current model lies in the fact that individual or corporate interests have replaced collective interests when allocating teachers to schools, without prioritizing affirmative action for the good of the students.21 Moreover, this weak point has an attractive characteristic that should be taken into account when negotiating alternatives, which is to allow teachers to choose his/her workplace.
Degree of Autonomy Between Schools and ANEP The strong centralization of the national educational system has started to manifest signs of inadequacy in the management of the new model and this represents a challenge to its authorities. Hypothetically, greater autonomy to schools opens a door to diversity and allows schools to use their creativity to respond in a better way to their own context. Full-Time Schools model constitutes a better setting to achieve an institutional project than the regular urban school, mainly because of the new structure, there is time available for coordination and a stronger relationship between teachers. A consequence of this is teachers’ expectations regarding roles and attributions of the principal and the inspector. A stronger school claims more autonomy (Bogliaccini, 2004; Lijtenstein & Bogliaccini, 2004). The principal’s role, a key actor in the ANEP, has faced changes in Full-Time Schools with respect to professional practice compared to the previous model (Bogliaccini, 2003). Full-Time Schools and their dynamics have caused stronger relations between teachers and has increased teamwork, all of which implies a different evaluation process and a redefinition of principal leadership. Among teachers, there appears to be a tension between traditional management based on administrative facts and the new management that evidenced a pedagogical leadership (typical of Full-Time Schools). The difficult relation between principals and inspectors appears mainly in schools that have created stable groups of teachers, based on a successful pedagogical center project. (Bogliaccini, 2004). However, in a gradual expansion process of Full-Time Schools model, less successful centers probably still need the inspector figure, but a kind of inspector similar to a pedagogical leader instead of a supervisor. The challenge is then to improve strategies to make the model more flexible in terms of schools’ autonomy, instead of keeping a system of non-differentiated universal rules.
Cultural Impoverishment in Settings of Residential Segregation This tension extends throughout the whole educational system but mainly affects those schools with unfavorable and very unfavorable contexts. Full-Time Schools are specifically located in areas of the country with these kinds of socio-cultural contexts. In general terms, parents of students attending these schools have achieved a low educational level and their relation with job market is unstable, informal and transitory. These neighborhood communities are generally caused by interurban migration as a
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consequence of social segregation processes (Kaztman, 2001) and that is why they progressively become poorer communities. These families constitute the population group with socially vulnerable conditions, affected or threatened by poverty and subject to exclusion processes of social institutions and more high status groups (Kaztman & Filgueira, 2001). Moreover, this group also constitutes the majority of students. In Uruguay, 51.7% of children between 6 and 12 years old are under poverty line. This cultural differentiation22 shows a new geography of an increasingly segmented educational system. Although it would not be reasonable to expect to remedy social segregation only with the educational system, the Full-Time Schools model is proving to be a successful affirmative action instrument for providing better assistance to the poorest social sectors. School buildings located in these neighborhoods are an exception to the impoverished context morphology: new, firm, spacious buildings located on large pieces of land establish the affirmative intention of the State. From teachers’ perspective, violence in human relations is one of the main differentiated aspects in school and neighborhood culture (Bogliaccini, 2005). Schools, in that sense, should not give up the goal of becoming something different: a socializing environment that unifies rules that permit a better integration of the child to society. Nevertheless, the question remains about how to deal with behavior codes that vary from one culture to another. Those opposed to each other clearly present the greatest challenge in terms of integration with the social mainstream (Bogliaccini, 2005; Kaztman, 1999, 2001; Kaztman & Filgueira, 2001; Kessler, 2004) (Figure 1). While a difficult challenge, the educational system should be trying to lessen the tension between the increasingly differentiated universes of schools and neighborhoods in Uruguay, moving forward to formulate new strategies to relate with students’ families. The school’s capability to approach its work from an innovative perspective depends on the proper organization of the human relations between teachers and students’ families.
FENCE
Relation Dialogue
Hitting
Relation with rules Respect
School Democratic
Integrative
Figure 1.
Transgression
Exercise of power
Type of socialization
Neighborhood– home Authoritative
Excluding
Teachers’ symbolic perception of children’s universe of interaction (Bogliaccini, 2005)
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Bogliaccini
Resources and Policies to Universalize the Full-time Schools Model Probably the major lesson of these first years of Full-Time Schools model operation is that affirmative action works out. As Chart 3 shows, the schools that receive children from unfavorable and very unfavorable socio-cultural contexts have attained similar or even higher percentages of sufficiency than the average of the rest of the public educational system, which have children from all social strata. However, this model has worked with an intensive investment not only in furniture and building resources, but also in permanent costs as food, educational and technological resources, wages of special teachers, reduction of number of students by grade and even the wages of regular teachers. In this sense, if the model’s intent is to extend its coverage towards a more significant proportion of the full student registration, a proportionate rise in the expenditure as well as an inclusion of the same in the national educational budget, will be necessary. If the model spreads out without the appropriate economic resources, there is a high probability that what is being implemented will be distorted and possibly not be able to deliver on what the pilot schools have so far produced (Table 9). The success of this model, as a policy of affirmative action, compels the country to generate a progressive policy for its expansion, starting from the creation of a decennial plan of incorporation of schools to the model, while necessary corrective measures are studied to promote those characteristics that make it successful. Along with this issue, there appears another challenge for a successful model in a low proportion 75 71.6 61.3 60
57.1
66.3 62.9
58.9
55.7
53.9 49.1 48.3
51.4 45
41.7
45.1 34.6
40.8 32.6
30 27.5 19.2 15 1996
1999
2002
1996
Language
National Total
ETC Unfavorable
1999 Math
2002
ETC Very unfavorable
Chart 3. Language and Math development in Uruguayan public schools. Compared sufficiency percentage between national average and Full-Time Schools (ETCs) according to context Source: Study based on ANEP data ( 2003a, 2003b ). National Evaluation of Language and Math Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Montevideo.
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Table 9. Funds spent by ANEP on primary education (1995–2002), according to type of expenditure dollars – year 2002 Year
Total expenditure
Performance expenditure
Investment expenditure
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
101,942,307 124,139,618 136,418,354 153,632,516 165,642,748 160,909,460 170,007,147 152,638,518
92,243,338 121,735,380 133,730,827 148,458,302 161,609,629 156,655,574 165,673,381 152,074,362
3,698,918 2,404,239 2,687,527 5,174,214 4,033,119 4,253,886 4,333,767 564,156
Source: Statistics Department of Programming and Budget General Administration of CODICEN. Based on balances of budget execution of ANEP.
of national registration confronted with the growth tensions of a national universalization priority: to design teacher stability and coverage strategies that mimic the patterns of the teachers who started in 1995. Summarizing, the proper resolution of the four identified tensions opens the door to the stabilization of the new model, positioning it as the flagship of institutional change, which should be the template for change in the entire primary education system for decades to come.
Notes 1. To learn more about the Uruguayan Full Time School Model, check Administración Nacional de Educación Pública (National Board of Public Education – ANEP) (1997) “Propuesta pedagógica para las escuelas de Tiempo Completo” [Pedagogical Proposal to Full-Time Schools]. MECAEP – ANEP – BIRF Project. Uruguay. 2. José Pedro Varela, who published his first pedagogical work: “La educación del pueblo” [The Education of the People] in 1874 and “La legislación escolar” [School Legislation] in 1876, was commissioned by the President Gral. Lorenzo Latorre to elaborate the basis of a national educational system in 1876. Varela has become a symbol of Uruguayan culture and education. To learn more about Varela’s work, see: Demarchi, M., and Rodríguez, H. (2000). José Pedro Varela (1845–1879). Perspectives: revue trimestrielle d’éducation comparée. Bureau international d’éducation, Vol. XXIV, no. 3/4, 1994 (91/92) pp. 733–749. Paris: UNESCO. 3. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento had significant influence on Varela’s thought. Varela met him during his travels to the United States and the two established a rich epistolary exchange. “Facundo,” written in 1851 reflects Sarmiento’s thought. Sarmiento, D. (1967). Facundo. Civilización y barbarie [Civilization and Barbarity]. Argentina: Colección Austral. 4. In Uruguay, the State does not take part in the funding of private, primary educational schools. The dominant structure is hegemonically public, with 87.7% of coverage entrusted to the State. See percentages of participation in public and private education by income quintile in Table 8 below. However, the experience of “Care Centers for Children and Family” (CAIF) constitutes a successful national experience of public funding and private management. CAIF offers comprehensive care for children up to four years old, from low economic and cultural contexts (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004). 5. Data from the Educational Statistics Department, ANEP. 6. Concerning the results of the expansion of public preschool education offer since educational reform of 1995, see Filgueira and Bogliaccini, 2004.
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7. The National Learning Census, conducted by UMRE in 1996 for the sixth grade of public and private schools nationwide, had five categories of socio-cultural context defined by two indicators: educational level of the mother and resources in the home. Groups were denoted as “very favorable,” “favorable,” “middle,” “unfavorable,” and “very unfavorable.” 8. The inspectorate is the main formal communication channel between the school and the main office of the system, as well as with other public or private schools. Inspectors are selected through public examination from those school principals who want to run for the post. Inspectors assess teachers and principals of a certain number of schools appointed by territorial areas, and they watch over the proper functioning of the schools in his/her care, on behalf of the educational system. Likewise, the inspector is the channel by which school communicates with the main office and vice versa, however, ANEP uses, as well, the circular letter system to send direct and general messages to schools. 9. This was a part of a program promoted by the 1995 Reform in order to give every student of the public system access to the academically necessary supplies. 10. See the Statute of Teachers, particularly articles 13 and 14. This same mechanism appears in the regulations of Decentralized Boards. 11. The only initiative promoting school autonomy is the so-called Projects of Educational Improvement (PME), designed to promote the elaboration of distinct school identities. Projects of diverse kind compete for funds that ANEP assigns to the execution of winning PMEs. 12. This includes reducing low attendance through administrative methods because low attendance was a major factor in repeating grades in junior high school (12–14 years old, 1st to 3rd grade of middle school). 13. Nowadays these schools are called: Schools with Critical Socio-Cultural Contexts (CSCC). 14. Full-Time Schools (ETCs) were created in Resolution No. 21 of Record 90, December 24, 1998, Central Directive Board This resolution was put in force in 1999. 15. To study the problem of grade repetition in Uruguay read ANEP (2002) La repetición en la escuela pública en cifras [Repetition in Public School in Figures]. Statistics Series No. 3. General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Montevideo. This work, conducted by C. Filgueira, constitutes an excellent analysis of this situation. 16. For more information regarding Full-Time Schools, the National Board of Public Education (ANEP) has the main documents of this educational proposal available at: www.mecaep.com.uy 17. Resolution No 21 of Record 90, December 24, 1998. Central Directive Board (CODICEN) of ANEP. This resolution was put in force in 1999. 18. “The concept of a new primary education universality lies in the fact that it is not enough to guarantee the access and permanency; the actual transformation is related to the democratization of the access to knowledge.” Program – Five-year Budget of ANEP. 1995–1999. 19. To analyze social and residential segregation, see the works of R. Kaztman within the framework of the Program of Research on Exclusion, Poverty and Social Exclusion of the Catholic University of Uruguay. (www.ucu.edu.uy/ipes/publicaciones) 20. The analysis of the author is directly supported by two researches accomplished within the framework of the evaluation of Full-Time model (Bogliaccini, 2005; Lijtenstein & Bogliaccini, 2004). 21. To study the concept of affirmative action, read Reimers, F. (2000). Unequal schools, unequal chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. USA. 22. To study the concept of cultural differentiation and its impact on the education, see Reimers, F. (2000). Unequal schools, Unequal chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. USA.
References ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (1997). [National Board of Public Education] Propuesta pedagógica para las escuelas de Tiempo Completo [Pedagogical Proposal to Full-Time Schools] Uruguay: MECAEP – ANEP – BIRF Project. ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2002). La repetición en la escuela pública en cifras. [Repetition in Public School in Figures] Statistics Series No. 3. Montevideo: General Administration of Planning and Educational Management.
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ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2003a). Evaluación Nacional de Aprendizaje en Lenguaje y Matemática. 6° Año enseñanza Primaria 2002. [National Evaluation of Language and Math Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002.] First report. Montevideo: General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2003b). Evaluación Nacional de Aprendizaje en Lenguaje y Matemática. 6° Año enseñanza Primaria 2002. [National Evaluation of Language and Math Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002.] Second report. Montevideo: General Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. USA: Addison Wesley. Bogliaccini, J. A. (2003). La autonomía del director de escuela [The autonomy of the school Principal] Umbral Magazine, 11. Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Escuelas innovadoras en un marco que favorece la innovación y la diversidad [Innovative Schools Within a Framework that Favors Innovation and Diversity] Unpublished master’s thesis. Santiago: Alberto Hurtado University. Bogliaccini, J. A. (2005). Las claves territoriales de la fractura social urbana: Inseguridad y segregación en Montevideo. Dilemas sociales y alternativas distributivas en el Uruguay. [Territorial Guidelines of Urban Social Breach: Insecurity and segregation in Montevideo. Social Dilemmas and Distributive Alternatives in Uruguay.] PRISMA Magazine. Catholic University of Uruguay. Montevideo. da Silveira, P. da, & Queirolo, R. (1998). Análisis organizacional: Cómo funciona la educación pública en Uruguay [Organizational Analysis: How Does Public Education Work in Uruguay] Research Report 010. CERES. Filgueira, F., & Martínez, E. (2001). La reforma educativa en Uruguay: desafíos y tendencias [The Educational Reform in Uruguay: Challenges and Tendencies]. Outreach Project and results of the educational reforms in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Montevideo: Ministerio de Educación and Inter American Development Bank (IADB). Filgueira, F., & Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Las reformas educativas en Chile y Uruguay: descentralización orientada al mercado versus centralismo estatista. [Educational Reforms in Chile and Uruguay: Market-Oriented Decentralization vs. Statist Centralism]. In Goma y Jordana (Eds.), Descentralización y Políticas Sociales en América Latina (pp. 152–189) [Decentralization and Social Policies in Latin America] Barcelona: CIDOB. Filgueira, F., Rodríguez, F., Rataniello, C., Alegre, P., & Lijtenstein, S. (2005). Estructura de riesgo y arquitectura de protección social en el Uruguay actual: crónica de un divorcio anunciado, in Dilemas sociales y Alternativas distributivas en Uruguay. [Risk Structure and Architecture of Social Protection in Present Uruguay: Chronicle of a Divorce Foretold, in Social Dilemmas and Distributive Alternatives in Uruguay.] PRISMA Magazine no. 21. Catholic Uruguay: University of Uruguay. Frigerio, G., & Poggi, M. (1992). Las instituciones educativas. Cara y Seca. [Educational Institutions. Heads and Tails.] Argentina: FLACSO. García-Huidobro, J. E. (2003). La buena escuela [The Good School]. In J. E. García-Huidobro, & C. Sotomayor (Eds.), La centralidad de la escuela en la política educativa chilena de los ‘90 [Centrality of School in 1990s’ Chilean Educational Policy]. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria. Kaztman, R. (1999). (coord.). Activos y estructura de oportunidades: estudios sobre las raíces de la vulnerabilidad social en Uruguay [Assets and Opportunity Structure: Studies on the roots of social vulnerability in Uruguay]. Montevideo: ECLA, UNDP. Kaztman, R. (2001). Seducidos y abandonados: el aislamiento social de los pobres urbanos [Seduced and Abandoned: Social Isolation of Urban Poor], ECLA Magazine, 75. Santiago de Chile. Kaztman, R., & Filgueira, F. (2001). Panorama de la infancia y la familia en Uruguay [Overview of Childhood and Family in Uruguay]. Montevideo: IPES, Catholic University of Uruguay. Kessler, G. (2004). Sociología del delito amateur [Sociology of Amateur Crime]. Piados. Tramas sociales. Argentina. Lijtenstein, S., & Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Lecciones aprendidas y buenas prácticas en escuelas de Tiempo Completo [Lessons Learnt and Good Practices in Full Time Schools]. Research Report. ANEP. Uruguay. Unpublished version. Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas. (2002). Creando autonomía en las escuelas [Creating Autonomy in Schools]. Ed. Lom. Chile. Rama, G. (1993). ¿Qué aprenden y quienes aprenden en las escuelas públicas de Uruguay? [Who Learn and What Do They Learn in Uruguayan Public School?]. Montevideo: ECLAC. Reimers, F. (Ed.). (2000). Unequal schools, unequal chances. USA: Harvard University.
37 EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND REALITIES: TEACHERS’ INITIAL EDUCATION IN MEXICO Etelvina Sandoval National Pedagogical University, México
To speak of quality education is to refer to teachers, a point of agreement in all the nations, and it is therefore necessary to face the challenge of their education, both in their initial formation and while they are in service. In Latin America there is also agreement that, despite the policies for the reform of the formation of teachers that have been developed in recent decades, teacher education programs are not adequately preparing teachers for the new demands presented in education, nor instilling them with the minimal knowledge and skills needed in order to participate in an increasingly complex, heterogeneous society with enormous inequalities.1 The quality of education is a recurring theme in all the nations of the region presenting challenges different than those of universal coverage that was the backbone of educational discussion up until the 1980s. In Mexico, the current orientation of basic education policy refers to the need to achieve quality and egalitarian education, as all children having access to a school is not sufficient. It is necessary that the education provided in that school is of a high quality and allows inequalities to be overcome. This represents a challenge in itself, in which teacher education occupies an important place, as it implies breaking traditional frameworks that define schools, students and the role of the teacher role. This chapter deals with teachers’ initial training for the basic k-12 education level2 in an urban context. It will analyze some aspects of teacher education from the perspective of the reality teachers experience in schools. I will examine the current governmental educational policies for the teacher education, and the challenges that future teachers and the institutions that train them have to overcome to effectively respond to the old and new educational demands of a heterogeneous population. Teachers now work in the context of great socio-cultural and economic diversity, and within the new visions and values derived from globalization, both of which affect children and young people that attend school. It is important to point out that in Mexico the administrative classification that divides education into rural and urban based on the number of inhabitants of the locality where 705 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 705–726. © 2007 Springer.
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the school is located, has been completely surpassed, particularly in the institutions that prepare teachers. They are all now located in urban zones. Even those that were founded in rural areas have been devoured by the growth of the localities. Added to this is the fact that the initial formation of teachers in Mexico is ruled by plans and study programs that do not take into account the type of population with which the teachers will work. It can be argued that at present the real division is between education in impoverished areas versus education in better economic conditions. The former is encountered in rural and indigenous zones, but also in poverty-stricken urban areas, which are abundant in Mexico. Another division, profoundly permeated by the economic conditions, is found between public education and private education. While public education attends to the majority of the population (80%), it has gradually been discredited in regards to the quality of its work, which has strengthened private education in recent years. An empirical reference in this paper for these divisions will be the Normal Schools from Mexico City (also known as the Federal District), that prepare teachers who will teach in urban public schools in a metropolis characterized by marked social, cultural and, economic contrasts.3
The Context of the Mexican Education The work of a teacher is carried out within specific contexts. It is important to point out that although this would appear obvious it is not generally taken into consideration when talking about teachers and their educational responsibility. Although the classroom and the school are the immediate context in which their work and real education is undertaken, it is necessary to point out that in the school space there are expressions of the education policy at a macro level, as well as socio-cultural education and the culture of the surroundings. Regarding the former, we can mention study programs, textbooks, institutional hierarchies, multiple projects, and activities required by the authorities and those to which it must respond, and trade union actions, among others. For second part, the social, economic, and cultural environment are manifest in the practices, relations, conceptions, etc. of the school community and, in particular, that of the students. In the case of future teachers, the educational policy regarding teacher education is concretely expressed in the Normal Schools and in the organization of the education practices. Another important context is that of the primary or secondary school classroom, where the future teachers carries out their professional practice. There professional teachers come into contact with students, presenting teachers with various social dimensions, which transcend the classroom and the school. I will demonstrate in this paper that some of the conditions outside the school have influences within it.
Equality and Diversity Educational inequality Mexico has a wide and diversified education system, with huge inequalities. A few figures demonstrate this fact: The national education system has a little over 31 million
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students, of which 24 million are in basic education, and of those, almost 15 million in primary education. It is important to emphasize that 54% of the total population lives in poverty and 30% in extreme poverty. This reality has generated a gradual and constant migration to urban areas, which now are home to 75% of the entire population. In these conditions, I agree with Enrique Pieck (1995) who affirms that “The low levels of wellbeing and educational marginalization have become, in absolute terms, fundamentally urban phenomena, although the rural population is that which is most excluded” (p. 24). The inequalities in the educational system are profound and are expressed in diverse dimensions that have an affect on education services and quality: infrastructure, prestige, the size of schools and the teachers that work in them. We therefore find, on the one hand, multi-grade schools (unitary or incomplete)4 vs. schools with a complete grade organization. We can also find a lack of teachers with both constant mobility and isolation vs. a stable and sufficient teaching staff with the possibility of remaining up-to-date. It is evident that in these conditions of inequality, similar schooling processes cannot be carried out. Some researchers affirm that national education, by being linked to the conditions of social inequality, produces differing qualities of work. With respect to this, Pieck (1995) argues that we can no longer talk about exclusion from the school system, but that “there operates a socio-educational segmentation by inclusion to a differentiated school system, where the more vulnerable groups have less opportunities to remain and obtain adequate levels of benefits from schooling” (p. 28). This situation is also reflected in international evaluations that place Mexico at a low level and therefore contributing to a social discrediting of public schools, which are labeled as being of low quality. The recently created National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE) acknowledges that in order to analyze the results of the evaluation of schools, their context must be taken into account: There are great differences between the results from diverse sectors of the system. The weight of the factors of context that influence in learning mean that the greatest differences are found between the results of students from more favorable social contexts, which are private schools, and those that belong to contexts of less favorable conditions, in the schools in urban and highly marginalized rural zones and, above all, of indigenous students. (2004, p. 229)5 Inequality leads to leaving school or educational setbacks that continue to be a problem in Mexico. If we take as an example secondary schools in Mexico City (that obtain better educational levels than those in other states), we find that of the total population of the age of 15, 11% did not attend school in the year 2000. A lack of interest in studying and economic motives are among the reasons given for leaving school. At a national level, we found that of the obligatory nine years of schooling that includes primary and secondary level, only 41 children out of every 100 completed and 59 failed to complete the term due to failing exams or leaving school. These problems occur across the country, but with differing intensity in each state, more negatively affecting those with a greater index of poverty or marginalization.6
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The coming of diversity Social, cultural, political, demographic, economic, and technological changes have also had an impact on schools and demand new educational responses from administrators and teachers. As has already been stated, the urban population is now the majority population in Mexico, migration to other states or to the United States has increased, significantly modifying rural communities, the indigenous Zapatista movement in the South of the country called attention to the “always forgotten” and it could be seen that indigenous people are not just in the majority in reserve zones, but in other areas as well. To summarize, education as a whole, but mainly that provided in zones of highdensity population, faces a fundamental challenge: that of “crossing cultural borders” (Rosaldo, 1991) due to the diversity of the students. Even in the Federal District, the country’s capital and urban center, the main educational challenge is the growing social diversity and its manifestations. It is the city that receives the highest number of migrating indigenous people, whose stay in the city can be temporary or permanent. According to the most recent census of population and housing (2000), the city has an indigenous population of 68,246, distributed mainly in three districts, among which is Iztapalapa.7 In schools, indigenous children are often overlooked by teachers as they are confused with other poor children and are characteristically quieter (perhaps because they do not speak Spanish). A situation that has a great social impact is that of street children, a term referring to minors that live or work on the streets of the cities. “Kids in street situation,” due to violence, family disintegration, addictions, extreme poverty, and marginalization, have been forced to work in the street at an early age to the detriment of their quality of life. According to the report Study of Children and Young Workers in the Federal District, carried out by the Government of the Federal District and UNICEF (2004), there are more than 14,320 minors that use the streets and public spaces of Mexico City as places of work or as a dwelling. Two out of three of the children studied are in primary or secondary public school, but they are irregular students normally. Of those who do not go to school, the majority did study but left school, and among the causes for that are poverty (50%), not liking school, expulsion or failing exams (33%), family problems (7%) and lack of documents such as birth certificates and documents proving educational history, etc. (3%). Another aspect to consider is the population of adolescents at risk. It is important to remember that, while Mexico is registering a drop in mortality rates, the birth rate, and the number of children per mother, the structure of the population has shifted, and the adolescent population has practically doubled, from 11.4 to 21.1 million, from 1970 to 2000. Close to 25% of the country’s population is adolescent. Besides, the population with some kind of handicap represents 1.9% (163,499) of the total population of the capital city. The majority of these adolescents study in secondary school, a level that requires profound changes in their conceptions and practices. These schools have not significantly changed since the creation of this educational institution in 1924. The secondary school and many of its teachers continue to maintain the “manual” concept of adolescents, whose changes are fundamentally physical and psychological, without taking into consideration the social and cultural contexts that surround them. In schools, firm and authoritarian discipline is practiced with varied forms of control over students.
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These controls often lead to academic failure and and/or desertion. The emphasis on control is supposed to keep the effects of social context from which the students come out of the school. This has not been successful, as social context is interjected despite the attempts to ignore it (Sandoval, 2000). Educational authorities acknowledge that there are changes in students, although little is done to attend to them: Young people today have a higher level of schooling than their predecessors, they are more familiar with new technology; they must attend to a larger amount of information on different aspects of life and on the reality in which they live. But, at the same time, they face new problems associated with the processes of globalization and the growing differentiation between modern societies and others – older now – that refer to the marked socio-economic inequality that characterizes the country, and that leads to greater marginalization and violence. Panorama de la Educación Secundaria en el DF. [Panorama of Secondary Education in Mexico City]. 2005: 72 The presence and/or consumption of drugs or alcohol, domestic violence, poverty and migration are also modern problems that present new challenges to schools and their teachers. Nevertheless, future teachers are little prepared to face these realities. Furlán (2005) expresses concern over the fact that phenomena previously referred to as “youngsters” conduct or indiscipline at school … is now referred to under the general term of school violence,” and for him this “expresses a crisis of trust in schools on their capacity to deal with this range of problems” (p. 635). Social diversity emerges in schools and the old codes of schools do not appear to be pertinent in the face of their multiple manifestations.
Educational Policies for Teacher Education In the face of these diverse challenges, it is amazing that the teachers’ initial education in Mexico City is characterized by uniformity. It has been in this way since its creation as a task of the State. The General Education Law (1993) is today the normative framework that organizes the National Educational System. It empowers the Federal Executive, through the Public Education Ministry, to elaborate, coordinate, and supervise the study programs and plans to be used across the country in basic education and in Normal Schools, as well in the educational policy as a whole.
A little history to understand the present In Mexico, the formation of teachers of basic education is largely the responsibility of the Normal Schools. These institutions were formally created during the rule of Porfirio Díaz in the last third of the nineteenth century as the complementary part of an educational project that sought to unify the systems and methods of teaching in primary schools.8 This implied the existence of a singular preparation program for teachers across the country, one that would cover all the schools and form the components the system would need in order to create an educational project. It would also replace
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the teachers without professional training that were working in municipalities. As a result, teacher education in the Normal Schools is linked to the conversion of teaching from a liberal profession to a state profession.9 In its beginnings, teacher education formed an elite of primary school teachers that enjoyed better salaries and positions held for longer periods than teachers with no professional formation. Perhaps as a result, the Normal Schools were concentrated mainly in urban areas, although it must be pointed out that teachers always had a lower status than other professionals. The post-revolution governments saw education as a means to benefit the integration of the emerging Nation–State. Their educational project was to extend primary education to the whole country. A large number of rural schools were established that, due to the scarcity of trained teachers and/or their refusal to work in them, were largely attended to by untrained teachers without knowledge of the region and leadership. During the 1920s and 1930s, the rural Normal Schools were created with the aim of “forming teachers exclusively to attend to primary schools in rural areas in order to achieve a cultural, social and economic improvement of agricultural workers” (Secretaría de Educación PúblicaConsejo Nacional Técnico de la Educación, 1984: 36).10 Over time, Normal Schools diversified and, in 1960, the Normal urban and rural schools for primary school teachers’ education were joined by the CREN – Centros Regionales de Educación Normal (Regional Teacher Education Centers), which would institute the rural intern system with cash scholarships, and the Experimental Normal Schools. During the first half of the twentieth century, other kind of Normal Schools (the majority of them in the large cities) were created in order to train teachers for different educational levels and specialties: pre-school, secondary, physical education, and special education. In the 1960s, basic education expanded and with it a demand for teachers, which brought a growth in the number of Normal Schools and exponential growth of the private teacher preparation schools across the country, leading to a time of excess of teachers. The career of a primary school and preschool teacher required a middle educational level (three or four years after having completed secondary school).11 In 1984, its level as a university degree course was decreed, with four years of study, which resulted in a drastic drop in the demand for places in the Normal Schools. This move helped establish more control of the enrollment by the educational authorities to remedy the excess of supply. Although there has gradually been a slight recovery of the Normal School population, it never reached expanding level, above all because of the control of the enrollment, especially in public Normal Schools. Arnaut (2004) points out that the Normal Schools are urbanized institutions: the majority of the old ones are located in large cities and its students are mostly from urban areas. This also applies to private schools. “Paradoxically, it is in the cities where there is increasingly less demand for basic education teachers, and the education system lacks teachers with a rural origin, education and roots available to work and remain in those zones” (p: 17).12 In Mexico however, as in many other countries, the urban context has expanded as a result of migration to the large cities, the increase in the number of inhabitants, and the absorption by the cities of the rural zones surrounding them. The 2000 population
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census showed that 74.64% of the country’s population was located in urban or semiurban zones.13 This has led to social changes and new educational demands that must be faced by teachers who were trained with an urban focus but who work in schools that, as we will see later on, suffer huge deficits. In these conditions, the Normal Schools currently exist as the institutions that train the teachers that will work in basic education schools (generally in cities) and offer degrees in pre-school education, primary education, secondary education (specializing in one of the subjects at that level), special education (also with specialization), and physical education. All of these programs at a tertiary educational level, the student body representing 6.7 of the total number of higher education students. They are a total of 575 Normal Schools, and of those only 16 are rural. They are located across the country and are divided into public and private, the latter being those that have grown both in number of pupils and number of schools. Education at a National Level: Normal Schools, Students and Teachers 14
Schools Students Teachers
Total
Public
Private
525 155,548 17,368
270 95,690 10,916
255 59,858 6,452
Teaching degrees: Teacher-researcher or teacher-teaching? As has already been stated, teaching is a State profession and the federal government is in charge of defining “the study plans and programs for normal education and the formation of teachers across the country” (Education Law, 1993, p. 15). As a result, depending on the dominant tendencies of the government, and the response from teachers and other social sectors to the government’s proposals, the general orientation is defined. The definition of the higher education course was placed in this context after 1984, when a series of political and ideological factors coincided in the conception, design, and instrumentation of a corresponding studies plan. Under the idea of “making teaching professional” had been promoted some time before by the powerful National Education Workers’Trade Union (SNTE).15 This consisted of adding years to the teachers’ studies in order to bring it in line with “other professions” and a degreelevel study plan was drawn up intending: to form a new kind of educator: more cultured, more apt for teaching and research, with an ample aptitude for technical teaching and educational psychology, with a better conception of the universe, society and humankind that would strengthen our social rule of law. (1984 Study Plan: 17) Into this plan were abruptly incorporated various codes that were popular during that period in different educational, pedagogical, anthropological and sociological disciplines. This, referred to by the teacher trainers as “forming a teacher-researcher.” has experienced serious difficulties as it did not take into account that for many years the Normal Schools operated as middle education institutions16 without modifying their
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structure or carrying out deep-rooted changes. Moreover, the same personnel were then assigned a new charge – an emphasis on research. Unfortunately, this important change in the conception of teaching and teacher education had no additional institutional support other than the decree and the study plan. Every Normal School and faculty member were free in that with their own resources and projects, they could strengthen the new professional status and profile proposed for the formation of their students. This situation was not new. The Normal Schools had gone through six different study plans in the last 20 years and institutional neglect that contributed to academic deterioration and consequently to a questioning of their continued existence. In 1996 a new project for teacher education emerged: the Program for the Academic Transformation and Strengthening of Teacher Education (PTFAEN – Programa para la Transformatión y el Fortalecimiento Académico de las Escuelas Normales) conceived as an integral proposal that would favor deep-rooted transformation. For that, they assured, not only changes to the curriculum would take place, but also up-dating of the teacher trainers, a new work rule and an investment in infrastructure for those schools. These would be developed through four lines of priority attention: ● ●
●
●
Curricular transformation and study plans and programs. The bringing up to date and professional improvement of the teaching personnel in the Normal Schools. Drawing up of norms and orientation for the institutional management and the regulation of academic work. Improvement of the facilities and equipment in Normal Schools.
Against the international trend that for years has proposed transferring teachers to the universities, the PTFAEN expressed the governmental political position to maintain the Normal Schools as the institutions responsible for teachers’ formation for basic education.17 The goal was to strengthen and transform them in order to consolidate and substantially improve academic life. The line of curricular transformation of the program created new study plans and programs for each one of the existing degree courses, and which have been designed and applied successively in all Normal Schools.18 In contrast with the plan of 1984, the new study plans sought to form basic competencies for teachers: “specific intellectual skills, the mastering of teaching contents, didactic competence, professional identity and ethics, and a capacity for perception and response to the conditions of the students and the school environment.”19 The concept of teacher- teaching thus replaced that of teacher-researcher. A characteristic trait of these plans was the emphasis they put on linking initial formation with the basic education school, so that the development of professional practices of observation and work in the classroom becomes a learning space for the task of teaching. The so-called “practice in real conditions” gradually increases throughout the course until in the last year the student remains in school for three weeks each month. In this process, the student is joined with an advisor from the normal schools and the teacher from the practice school called the tutor. The focus of training for teaching with practice “in real conditions” is the orientation that characterizes this present curricular proposal, independently from the degree
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being studied (primary, secondary, etc.). The plans for all degrees follow the same model that is only modified in the specification of some of the content that is specific to level or mode. For example, a subject called child development that appears in the pre-school and primary degree, in the secondary-school level is called development of adolescents. A uniform system of teacher education for the basic level is, then, another feature of this educational policy. The professors of Normal Schools have, in the majority, accepted the current proposal for teacher education, in large part because it has similarities with their own education process. This is despite the reduction of disciplinary and theoretical content in the plans and programs – as well as the many aspects Normal Schools considered essential to teacher education (such as songs and games in pre-school education, music and dance in primary schools and the deepening of knowledge in disciplines in secondary-school). The downside of the new plan can be seen in the opinion of a teacher educator: “From my point of view, rather than technical or theoretical training, it is necessary for students to have a practical formation, because we can be very good in a particular discipline but not know how to teach it.”20 On another note, the institutional neglect that normal schools suffered for many years, linked to a strong control of them by trade unions, contributed to their academic decline. The PTFAEN has proposed improving the academic performance of these schools, although at the same time it has gradually reinforced the control the federal authorities have over normal schools. To sum up, we can see via this brief overview of teacher education that there has always existed a policy defined by the State that orients it and has had – and still has – a homogeneous view of the teacher education. Study plans reflect what the government has required in different historic periods: to attend to the urban areas or to farm workers; to form a teacher-researcher or a teacher that knows how to teach, have alternatively been the state’s interest. Normal Schools are institutions with a long history and an urban orientation, and have passed through different phases. They have gone from being important for contributing to the consolidation of the State, to a gradual neglect for years, up to current times. Now attempts are being made to strengthen them and at the same time strengthen the control of the state.
Initial Teacher Education: Pending Issues Assuming that educational problems are due to multiple factors, then they are not the exclusive task of teachers or the schools that train the teachers. In the same way, we cannot deny the influence of teachers in the school environment. It is therefore important to think about how future teachers are being trained – those who will work in basic education institutions for 30 years, the twenty-first Century teacher. We must ask ourselves about the future of the Normal Schools, the substantive content necessary for the profession, and the theoretical and pedagogical tools that need to be used in order to effectively develop the education of the nation’s children and young people. To this end, some of the challenges in teacher education are described below.
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Future Teachers: Attracting the Best The schools for teacher education in Mexico City are in great demand and have a controlled curriculum, to the extent that two out of ten aspiring students get to enter. Studies on the number of students entering those schools show that almost 50% of student teachers live in the State of Mexico, which borders Mexico City. Their socio-economic level is low middle class to working class and a large proportion enter Normal Schools as a second option, after failing to enter other institutions of higher education. The results of a socio-economic study of the students that recently entered the preschool education degree at the National School for Kindergarden Teachers (Escuela Nacional para Maestros de Jardines de Niños), are very representative: The strength of the data leads to an immediate questioning of the traditional image of the student teacher: it is no longer a student from a privileged social sector, that takes a degree course as a prolongation of maternity. For these students, their condition as young and poor women is a condition of marginalization. They are clearly women with unsatisfied economic and cultural needs that see the school for kindergarten teachers as an option for their economic and social development. (Bárcena, García, & Farfán, 2006, p. 146) In effect, the prospect of obtaining a job at the end of a degree course is now a powerful reason for the high demand in Normal Schools, above all in the face of the unemployment that many young people face, even with degrees. It also offers an opportunity to study higher education for those with economic difficulties and, in the mind of many, the opportunity to earn an “easy” degree. As in other nations of the Americas, the society’s aspiration is to bring the best to a career in teaching, but between the aspiration and its achievement there is still a wide gap. The way in which teachers are perceived socially and the reality of their professional life are not attractive: “teachers’ salaries and their working conditions also strongly affect the definition of an individual that decides to become a teacher, that stays in the profession and the way in which they exercise that profession” (OAS, 2003, p. 3). But it is also true that despite the difficulties mentioned, many young people develop their fondness for being a teacher during their degree course and in contact with the school reality and the children. The Normal Schools and instructors play an important part in this.
Uniforming the Diversity: “This is no good to the students because in the city there are no Indians.” The normal schools, formed under the premise of creating “a uniformity of basic education,” by the education of teachers under a single study plan, to work in schools across the country also under uniform plans. Nevertheless, for some time teacher education included aspects relating to the particular environment in which the teacher would work, such as the case of the Normal rural schools.
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The most recent reform includes two courses called regional that incorporate educational elements “corresponding to the state” and which are selected by the Normal School and the state authorities, with the strict requisite that they “not be used to widen the general students education but in order to consolidate their competence in a specific environment.”21 Added to this restriction is the lack of curricular space devoted to regional, cultural and social diversity that the teachers will face in their work. The characteristics of the students in urban, marginal or migrant zones, working with multi-grade groups, youth diversity, among others, are realities that are not seriously taken into consideration in initial education programs. This leads to paradoxes such as the fact that in a Normal rural school located in the State of Mexico with a 47.81% indigenous population, 15.35% monolingual population, and a school population of 50%, the indigenous question is not even touched upon: There is no understanding or differentiation. I am very concerned that languages are spoken here in all regions, and children do not practice their language because it has been prohibited … . The education they therefore bring with them is a desire to urbanize. They don’t like the idea that they are rural and they must promote activities in the rural environment, and in the Indian environment … If they are not trained for the rural environment then they are even less prepared to attend to the Indian one.22 In an urban normal school in Mexico City, the teachers that took the study program called “Regional Culture” and confused culture with folklore, focusing on aspects such as visits to museums or making regional candies. For their part, the private normal schools in the same city were opposed to teaching that subject, arguing, “this doesn’t serve the students because in the city there are no Indians.” Teacher education is a long way from a discourse of diversity, and further still from multicultural education. It is the inheritor of a policy of national unification, and of national language and culture, (bases of the constitution of the Nation–State). As a result, teachers have difficulty in seeing diversity in their classrooms or including it as a necessary aspect in training. A student studying teaching in Canada, speaking to student teachers in Mexico, points out: When we visited the Higher Teacher Education College of Mexico we asked about diversity and the students told us of their experiences when they went to teach in schools isolated from the city. They do not realize that the Indian children are in the same schools in the city where they are teaching. Perhaps the teachers in preparation lack visits to schools and more tools in order to be able to acknowledge diversity. When I asked them how they supposed they would respond to diversity in their classrooms, a heated discussion ensued. The students discussed the appropriate reaction. The dialogue and reflection on how to respond to diversity made me recall my country, Canada, faced with these same questions. The children in Canada who speak English as a second language are referred to as those in “Special Education.” The subtle meaning there is that those children are lacking something … (Branch, 2005)23
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On this same visit to a school of teacher education in the Federal District, a teachertrainer from the U.S. writes: Asking the future pedagogues of the Higher Teacher Education College of Mexico about their experiences with diversity, we learned that they drew a parallel with the diversity in their experiences with children in special education or in issues relating to counselors. Leaving there, I thought that for that group (and for the teacher who agreed with them) diversity is something “extra” that does not require further study and that can be resolved with a good heart, and by seeing everybody as the same (color-blind theory) we are opening the doors to the same opportunity for education. (Flores, 2005)24 Although within the desirable aptitudes of a graduate teacher are the capacity for perception of and response to the social conditions surrounding the school, focused on the student teacher accepting and respecting the regional, social, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the country. It also requires acknowledging that such diversity is omnipresent in their work. The trainers of teachers lack clarity regarding what it means to approach it, and more often than not, they focus on it from the point of view of affection, assistance, or the country’s historic past. In the education of future teachers, diversity is uniformly subsumed under the word “children” or “students,” a denomination that could include all those in the school, those of a group or all students. Yet the context in which children live determines their performance in school. In this way, differences are denied and this contributes to marginalization via inclusion being not the responsibility of the teacher and something in which the teacher cannot have an influence. There surely does not exist one teacher that consciously proposes to marginalize and exclude a pupil. It is even less likely that a teacher in education would do so. Yet there is a series of shared ideas among teacher trainers that are transmitted to teachers in training regarding children-pupils, on the weight of the family and social context on school performance, and on what corresponds to the school and to the teacher that effectively downplay the existence of diverse qualities of education. A third-semester group was analyzing its recent practices in primary schools with a teacher. Those who worked in a school considered to be a “model” complain about the children’s attitude: Student 1: They are very disrespectful, very rude and mocking … they began to jump on the tables and others joined in the game, others began singing a song and, I don’t know, I started shouting at them. Student 1: The children are very restless, both the girls and the boys … the girls hit the boys in the classroom … When I called to them they didn’t like it … I couldn’t give the class. After listening to several complaints of this kind, the professor tells them: “It’s important to know that many of the problems the pupils have come from their families … and
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if you have noticed, in this school there are many children with problems.” “Yes, yes,” the students comment, as if sure that the professor is supporting them, “if the child has problems at home they will be reflected on the teacher.” The professor continues, “there are children who suffer violence, the children of divorced parents … they say this is a model school because there are children from rich parents, but it’s not true, there are all kinds … They are not given attention and that’s why they behave badly.” The professor then recommends that more activities be planned for the children so that they remain occupied. In this way, the former teacher and her students assume that all the children in the group, and those in the school, are rude because there parents don’t pay attention to them and that they hit them. Further, the student teachers learn that the teacher and the school cannot do anything about it due to the crushing weight of the context – all that is left is to seek strategies to maintain the control of the group, independently of whether the teaching will be affected. But other ways of thinking and actions on behalf of future teachers are also detected. They criticize the teachers that punish the children, and those that use repetition as a means of teaching. They say these are more traditional forms of work in schools and suggest listening to the children: “from their writings they realize their own spelling mistakes and that they can work to the rules without repetition,” and “working with them in teams, giving them rules and forms so that they don’t think it’s going to be a game.” The student teachers also affirm that the same rules cannot be applied to all, as “each child needs different things.” In this way, teachers in education gradually discover that all children are not necessarily the same and that the school, as it is currently organized, does not take this into account. Although this stems generally from the reflection on their work in the classroom, it is very common that in the Normal School no deep analysis is made of this, as concern is focused on teaching “for all children.”
Teachers Education in an Intercultural Perspective The concepts of diversity, multiculturalism, and above all inter-cultural education, are relatively new in basic education and in the formation of teachers in Mexico. For many years, the Public Education Ministry (SEP) promoted national education that implied the integration (or assimilation) of other cultures, mainly those of the indigenous peoples. It later designed bilingual indigenous education programs, and more recently inter-cultural bilingual indigenous education. A system of education for indigenous teachers was also created outside the normal schools, recruiting young people from the region with college courses or secondary education to work in exchange for a scholarship. The inequality was once again manifest in indigenous education: lesser-trained teachers with lower salaries and poor working conditions compared to those of other teachers were allocated to those schools.25 The presence of different cultures in the school environment was solely a theme of debate and analysis solely for indigenous education and its experts. Acknowledging multicultural contexts in the classrooms, the cultural dynamic in schools due to those circumstances, including the acknowledgement of the other, feedback
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and mutual respect that characterize inter-culturalism have not been a concern for the initial education of future teachers in Normal Schools. It is supposed that they will attend to a national population that is more or less homogeneous, with some differences but not substantial ones. Nevertheless, classrooms are spaces where the multiplicity of diverse cultures and identities meet, where “the crossing of borders emerges not only in the internationally recognized cultural units but also in less formal sections, such as gender, age and unique status and experience” (Rosaldo, 1991, p. 38). The homogeneous knowledge in the plans and programs by which basic education teachers are trained are questioned by the social and cultural diversity that they find in the classrooms. In 2001, efforts on behalf of the SEP led to the creation of the Office of Intercultural Bilingual Education, which, among its other aims, is designed to “develop intercultural education for all Mexicans” and among its projects is the review – together with the areas responsible for its design – of the study plans and programs of preschool and primary education degrees in accordance with the concept that interculturalism must have a widespread presence in the entire curriculum. This appears to be more of a long-term matter, as the office responsible for teachers’ study plans points out that: The intercultural focus will be incorporated into the 1997 Plan of the Degree in Primary Education and gradually into the study programs to the extent that, gradually the prospect of intercultural education will be included into all the programs of that degree course. (web page. Red Normalista) This highlights the exclusion of the other degree courses that train teachers. Instead of reorienting all the study plans, the Primary Education Degree with Intercultural Bilingual Focus was formed, with the intention that future teachers develop and acquire the profile and aptitudes of the graduate teacher foreseen in the 1997 study plan of the Primary School as well as specific education to attend to the challenges of working with Indian communities. The tendency to train teachers with specific programs according to the educational needs that the government considers pertinent appears to persist; now extending modules that will all work under a strict homogeneous model. But as is common knowledge, real education is constructed in schools and classrooms, where the study plan is only a reference. Each Normal School, depending on its conditions, incorporates aspects that are not outlined in their programs, above all those that refer to the social context in which their students will work. For example, a Normal urban school in Mexico City takes its students for teaching practice in indigenous schools located in the same city26 or, in a Normal rural school, the unitary or multi-grade primary schools are described for the students as they are likely to face those educational realities in their professional work. Although the complexity of education needed by teachers in the twenty-first century make persistent general teaching skills indispensable, which are already contemplated in the SEP’s curricular plan, these cannot be separated from the existing socio-cultural context. In order to understand context and so that the teachers act on it professionally,
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theoretical elements regarding the complexity of the diversity and the handling of a multicultural focus that goes beyond good faith and assistance is necessary. To propose that this knowledge should only be provided to the teachers that will work with indigenous populations is a limited view of diversity, multiculturalism, and the role of the school and of their teachers. The challenge therefore is how to combine the homogeneity of study plans for a State profession with the different socio-cultural realities to which those professionals will attend. Or, in other words, it is necessary to acknowledge that cultural diversity is everywhere and that the school space is, in its essence, multicultural.
A Teacher Who is in Charge of the Reality of the Profession Teaching is evidently a singular profession, made up of people who have heterogeneous education,27 with external regulations regarding the content of their work and with decision-making in schools and/or classrooms, a profession that must respond to social expectations of education interpreted and defined by others, exercised within a bureaucratic and hierarchical institution and with an overwhelming trade union presence. Two other characteristics distinguish it from other professions across the country, its constant brushing with social problems and the commitment – at least in discourse – to the more disadvantaged sectors. In contrast to its social influence, the curricular content for teacher education has almost always been academically limited and with an instrumental tendency, placing emphasis on teaching techniques to the detriment of disciplines. The practice of the current study plan as a space for education that offers elements to theoretically analyze the reality in education and that seeks to train a “reflexive teacher” more often than not becomes a space for methodological and procedure recipes that value the didactic material, work planning, and the immediate “know-how.” In an evaluation of a practice period the following interaction takes place in an urban normal school: Student: The time allocated for the class was far too long, it was ten o’clock in the morning and the children began to ask “teacher, how long until the break? Will we get a break soon, teacher?” And they stopped working. It got too much for them, they wanted to go and have a break and have something to eat.” (The student carried out her practice in a rural school) Teacher: “You have to modify your planning” (Observation in a class in an urban normal school) As can be seen, the teacher educator does not take the context in which the situation took place into account, or leads the student teacher to reflect on the causes. On the contrary, she offers an immediate and practical answer: it is planning. The orientation toward solving immediate problems that the student teachers receive from their professors generates attention to immediate educational issues. A study that analyzes the education of teachers points out that: “When an inquiry was made into their level of problems as an indispensable element for the reflection on their work, student teachers pointed to conflict
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situations at a descriptive level but do not carry out an analysis of the situation or offer possible explanations” (SEP-OEA-DGENAMDF, 2005, p. 27). Although the teaching profession is one of “know-how,” as work in front of a group that demands immediate responses, the big challenge is to link that to a premise that surpasses common sense. Taking elements in practice to a level of reflection and articulate that with the theoretical aspects of other subjects is difficult and one that is less frequently accomplished in teacher education programs. It must be a result of a particular education process and of teachers with up-to-date methods that allow them to make teaching practice a space for real professional instruction. Another pending task is to deepen the necessary disciplinary content for the job of a teacher at a basic level, which was seriously reduced in the current study plan This proposes that the future teacher should have a sufficient command of the content of basic education of the level in which the teacher will work and that content should always be linked to teaching, to the methods and skills that favor students’ learning. As a result, the content always appears accompanied by the words “and their teaching.” We thus find Spanish and its teaching, math and its teaching, etc., and often the efforts are precisely centered on teaching. An example may illustrate the point: A day before going out to teaching practice, the student teachers presented their professor and their colleagues the class that they would give in a primary school. One student’s theme is the circulatory system: Student: To begin with, I will ask them some questions, and depending on the answers they give me I will explain the heart, the arteries … I’ll explain all that to them, and then talk about the organs (using very illustrative teaching material) Professor: Which is the aorta? Show me it. Student: I don’t know. I haven’t studied it. Professor: So get studying! (Observation in a rural Normal School) This is very common in the practice teaching of student teachers: illustrative material, excellent planning, and a superficial knowledge of the content. The Normal Schools seek to offer alternatives to complement the plan, such as science courses, English reading, computing, all optional and within the framework of the institutional restrictions. The challenge is how in this profession can the specific initial education form a teacher that dominates, in a general sense, both the disciplinary content and the realities inherent in the profession?
Truly Strengthening the Teacher Education Schools The Normal Schools correspond to the “specific training model,” the idea of which is “to create centers exclusively dedicated to teacher education, with a joint plan that includes both education in basic subjects of teaching and pedagogical training” (Garrido, 1998, p. 27). While Garrido points out that this model has the advantage of “reinforcing the educational vocation and professionalism,” its disadvantages are the omission or lack of openness to external factors, the lack of flexibility of these
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institutions and the segregation of future teachers from the sciences and humanities they are supposed to teach. Furthermore, the knowledge and values of the profession are transmitted by people whose professional profiles were formed in institutions that have barely changed over the years. The specific training model, the Normal School, has now disappeared in many countries, while in Mexico it was reinforced with the most recent reform. The challenge therefore is how to overcome the disadvantages that this education model implies and seek ways to effectively strengthen the institution. Nevertheless, really strengthening Normal Schools requires liberating them from a series of negative traditions, political influences, and institutional controls. It is generally understood that the Normal Schools are not adequately complying with their task. Researchers tend to compare them with universities and point to the distance between them, always in detriment to the Normal Schools. However, it is important to remember that normal schools have a specific task that makes comparisons of this kind impossible, due to the type of professionals they train, their traditions, and a series of structural and political conditions that limit their academic autonomy. In effect, the tutelage that the State exercises over them limits the possibility of Normal Schools developing different academic views from the educational authority or forming proposals that are not authorized by it. Exemplary cases are the proposals that many teacher-education schools have drawn up in recent years in order to offer master’s degrees and that were rejected by the corresponding authority for not being in accordance with the orientation imposed by the authority for the teachers’ education. Another limiting factor for the academic development of these institutions is the political influence of a trade union bureaucracy that is permanently lobbying to increase the power of Normal Schools and the bodies in charge of Normal education issues. As well, the union seeks to control the entrance into and the promotion of personnel within the schools, based on political and not academic criteria. The Normal Schools have adopted a concept of education that plays the role of a unifying collective identity, in which the past has an important role of providing cohesion (Sandoval, 1997), and which is also a means of defense against the social devaluation that the schools have suffered. Yet, at the same time, this has functioned as a way of avoiding a self-critical look at the function of these schools, the teachers they form, and the formers of them. It is therefore necessary to redefine the kind of schools appropriate for teacher education and to open the existing schools to other ideas and foci, reviewing with a critical eye the past and present, breaking the endogamy, and recovering the positive traditions. Yet at the same time, it is necessary that the authorities allow for academic freedom and creativity so that the normal schools are strengthened as higher education institutes, a level that was granted to them more than 20 years ago. In any case, it is possible to affirm that Normal Schools have undergone substantial improvement in recent years and have developed their own important projects, even within the limitations mentioned and with the slim budget they are assigned. Strengthening these schools, in order to train the teachers that society needs, also implies having good teacher trainers. As a legacy of history of Normal Schools,
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there are heterogeneous teachers. Elderly teachers graduated from schools who were hired when the profession of teacher was mid-level co-exist with teachers who were incorporated when Normal Schools became a higher education degree course, many of whom were trained in other institutions. These older teachers have had to adapt to the diverse curricular changes, attending to subjects that are foreign to their professional profile. Many of them have sought to elevate their professional level by their own means, studying for the master’s degree or through specialized courses, especially when the course was elevated to degree level. Nevertheless, there are also those who never elevated their own level beyond that granted them by their training. In the same way, the teaching staff varies depending on the school; the schools known as beneméritas and centenarias (worthies and centenaries) employ full-time teachers, while others work with commissioned but not full-time teachers (primary, secondary or pre-school, according to the degree course). The discrepancies in the education system are also present in the education system. The modernization of teacher education is fundamental important and unfortunately is scarcely attended to by the authorities.
Final Comments The myriad of educational needs and the reality of education require a real improvement in the quality of education. This in turn requires teachers with both a solid academic background and a deep social commitment to public education. It is clear that urban education, but also rural schools and those with indigenous students, offer new challenges that demand that teacher education prepare teachers to attend to them, independent of the environment where they are to teach. The policies for the initial training for basic education teachers must respond to the current reality of education. Although the Normal Schools, due to their historical origin and the functions they perform are constricted by the orientation of the State’s education policy, in practice they seek spaces to develop projects that strengthen the education of their student teachers. These must also be taken into account by the education authorities. But the schools also must seek ways to strengthen academically, overcoming practices and traditions that tie them down. While the teacher must study technique in order to teach, at the same time they must have the sufficient general knowledge and knowledge of disciplines in order to be a good teacher. The teacher must also have solid education in order to recognize, respect, and recover the cultural diversity present in the classroom, with a vision that goes beyond simply recognizing difference. To sum up, the schools for teacher education created to train teachers with an urban concept need to broaden their horizons, as the forms of knowledge has multiplied. Schools are no longer the only way to encounter knowledge and cultural frontiers, as inequality is encountered in all environments. All this has significant repercussions in schools, teaching, and in the possibilities of learning.
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Notes 1. See the recommendations made at the UNESCO 45th International Conference on Education (1996), Diagnoses, challenges and lessons learned in teacher training, OAS (2004) and the Third Meeting of Education Ministers, OAS (2003). 2. Basic education in Mexico consists of three levels: preschool, primary, and secondary school. Although the education of teachers for each has different characteristics, there are many points in common which are referred to in this article. 3. The author uses diverse references for this work: a diagnosis of the teacher initial education in Mexico City (SSEDF-DGENAMDF, 2004) and the results of a study on initial education carried out in the framework of a tri-national project (Mexico, the United States, and Canada) under the auspices of the OAS, both coordinated by the author when she was the General Director of Normal Education and Teaching Modernization in the Federal District (2001–2005). Added to these works, data from a study she coordinated between 1998 and 2000, on the same theme, in two Normal schools, one from rural area, other than the urban one are used. 4. Multi-grade refers to those teachers that attend to students of different grades. Multi-grade schools are called “incomplete” when they do not offer the six grades of primary school, or unitary when they are attended to by one teacher. Around a quarter of primary schools in Mexico are multi-grade and are located in greater proportion in smaller and isolated localities, and in the states with the largest indigenous population and/or highest levels of poverty. 5. The INEE states that in order to evaluate learning in schools it is necessary to generate indices that allow quantitative and qualitative aspects to be assessed. 6. We are referring to 18 of the nation’s 32 states, among which the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz are prominent. 7. The Iztapalapa borough contains 21%, followed by the boroughs of Gustavo A. Madero (11%), and Cuauhtémoc (10.5%). 8. Primary schooling was declared obligatory in 1888, with the culmination of a project begun in the era of Benito Juárez in 1873 (Meneses, 1983), which meant that the state was responsible for its orientation. 9. This idea is dealt with and expanded upon by Arnaut (1996) in his excellent book Historia de una profesión. 10. Over time, and with the changes in political perspectives, rural teacher-education schools ceased to be useful for such ends and became institutions that were bothersome to the authorities, due to their polarization and demands. This led to more than half of those that existed to close by the end of the 1960s. Two more are currently about to close amid conflicts, which would reduce the total number of schools in all of Mexico to 14. 11. On the other hand, schools that trained secondary-school and special education teachers were in the higher education category from their outset, as it was necessary to be a primary-school, pre-school, or college teacher in order to gain admission. 12. In order to attend to education in small, rural and/or indigenous regions, a parallel and not very public teacher-education system has been developed, in which young people who have completed secondary school or college are trained as teachers and provided with a small scholarship. 13. “An area is urban if the population is of more than 15,000 inhabitants. Areas with less than 2,500 inhabitants are deemed rural, while those of between 2,500 and 14,999 are considered low-intensity urban areas” (The Education Panorama in Mexico, 2003, p. 38) 14. Data taken from the Mexican Education System. Main figures. 2003–2004 school year. 15. Since 1973 and due to pressure from trade unions, the Federal Education Law had defined teacher education as higher education, despite the fact that it functioned as a secondary education system. 16. As already stated, this does not include the Higher Teacher Education Colleges (that train secondaryschool teachers) and the Specialization Teacher-Education Colleges, as since their emergence they have taken on the character of higher education. 17. The SNTE played an important role in this decision, as the PTFAEN discussed with the leadership with the aim of procuring its support. 18. The application of the new study plans began in 1997 in the Primary Education degree. In 1999 the degrees of pre-school education and secondary education were added. In 2002 of physical education and in 2004 Special Education followed.
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19. These are the fields that constitute the profile of desirable graduation and they are the same for all the degree courses. 20. Interview with a professor from a normal school. In: La formación inicial de docentes para la educación básica. El caso de las normales del Distrito Federal [The Initial Training of Teachers for Basic Education. The Case of Teacher-Training Schools in Mexico City], 2005, p. 35. 21. Plan de estudios de la Licenciatura en Educación Primaria SEP 1997, p. 88. (Primary Education Degree Course Study Plan, 1997, p. 88) 22. Extract from an interview taken from the archives of La formación inicial de maestros de primaria en México. Un estudio comparativo, 1998–2000. (The initial teacher education in Mexico: A comparative study, Sandoval, 1998–2000). 23. Within the framework of the project Responses to the Challenge of Improving the Quality of Education and Teachers’ Professional Development in North American Countries, in February 2005 a tutorship was carried out with the participation of teachers and students from Canada, the United States and Mexico. This fragment is taken from the final report of that activity, drawn up by a student from the School of Education, Simón Freaser University, Vancouver, Canada. 24. Member of Faculty of the School of Education, University of New Mexico, from the final report of the tutorship. 25. The Universidad Pedagógica Nacional was a pioneer in the systematic and professional attention to those teachers by designing a degree in indigenous education and later the Indigenous Primary and Preschool Education Degree. 26. In this case, the Office for Norms was opposed, arguing that the students should practice in schools in order to get to know the “educational reality.” 27. As well as the differences in educational level or specialization, current teachers in service represent a mosaic of the constant curricular changes and their approaches.
References Arnaut, A. (1996). Historia de una profesión: Los maestros de educación primaria en México 1887–1994. [The History of a Profession. Primary Education Teachers in Mexico, 1887–1994], México: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica. Arnaut, A. (2004). El sistema de formación de maestros en México: Continuidad, reforma y cambio [The Teacher-EducationSystem in Mexico: Continuity, Reform and Change], Cuadernos de discusión 17. México: Secretaría de Educación Pública-Subsecretaría de Educación Básica y Normal. Bárcena, R., García, M., & Farfán E., (2006). ¿Qué tanto conocemos a nuestras estudiantes? Alcances y limitaciones del seguimiento y evaluación a las docentes en formación de la Escuela Nacional para Maestras de Jardines de Niños [How Well do We Know Our Students? Reaches and Limitations of the Follow-Up and Evaluation of Teachers in Educationat the National School for Kindergarten Teachers]. In Sandoval, E. (coord) Fortalecer las escuelas normales. Caminos de una gestión en el Distrito Federal. [Empower Normal Schools. Ways of a Management in the Federal District]. México: Secretaría de Educación Pública-organización de Estados Iberoamericanos-AFSEDF. Branch, C. (2005). El Docente: Creando la Diversidad. [The Teacher: Creating Diversity]. In Secretaría de Educación Pública-Organización de Estados Americanos- Dirección General de Educación Normal y Actualización del Magisterio en el Distrito Federal. (2005). La formación inicial de docentes para la educación básica. El caso de las normales del Distrito Federal. Reporte final de la pasantía La formación inicial de maestros en México: Proyecto Trinacional Hemisférico Respuestas al desafío de mejorar la calidad de la formación inicial y el desarrollo profesional decente en los países de América del Norte. [The Initial Preparation of Teachers for Basic Education. The Case of Teacher Schools in Mexico City.] México, pp. 6–45. Flores, L. (2005). Reflexiones de la Pasantía Mexicana [Reflections of Mexican tutorship]. In Secretaría de Educación Pública. Organización de Estados Americanos. Dirección General de Educación Normal y Actualización del Magisterio en el Ditrito Federal. La formación inicial de docentes para la educación básica. El caso de las normales del Distrito Federal. Reporte final de la pasantía La formación inicial
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de maestros en México. Proyecto Trinacional Hemisférico. Respuestas al desafío de mejorar la calidad de la formación inicial y el desarrollo profesional decente en los países de América del Norte. [The Initial Preparation of Teachers for Basic Education. The Case of Teacher Schools in Mexico City.] México, pp. 6–45. Furlán, A. (2005). Problemas de indisciplina y violencia en la escuela [Indiscipline Problems and Violence in Schools]. En: Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa X (26), 631–639. México: Consejo Mexicano de Investigación Educativa. Garrido, J. L. (1998). Formación de maestros en Europa [Teacher Educationin Europe]. En: La formación de los maestros en los países de la Unión Europea. Madrid: Narcea, S.A. de Ediciones, 21–37. Gobierno del Distrito Federal-Desarrollo Integral de la Familia- UNICEF Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia. (2004). Niños, Niñas y Jóvenes Trabajadores en el Distrito Federal [Working Children in Mexico City]. Recuperado el 13 de julio de 2004. de http://www.unicef.org/mexico/programas/ resumenniñostrabajadoresdf.pdf Instituto Nacional de Evaluación de la Educación. (2003). Panorama educativo de México. Indicadores del Sistema Educativo Nacional [The Education Panorama in Mexico: Indices of the National Education System]. México: INEE. Instituto Nacional de Evaluación de la Educación. (2004). La calidad de la educación básica en México 2004 [The Quality of Basic Education in Mexico, 2004]. México: INEE. Meneses, E. et al. (1983). Tendencias educativas oficiales en México 1881–1911 [The Quality of Basic Education in Mexico, 2004]. México: Centro de estudios Educativos. Organización de Estados Americanos. (2003, agosto). Declaración desde México [Mexico Declaration]. México, DF: Tercera Reunión de Ministros de Educación. Organización de Estados Americanos-Unidad de Desarrollo Social y Educación. (2004, septiembre). Diagnósticos, desafíos y Lecciones Aprendidas en Formación Docente [Diagnosis, challenges and Lessons Learned in Teacher Training]. Documento base para la discusión de las prioridades educativas de los proyectos hemisféricos, Washington, DC. Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura. (1996). Recomendaciones de la 45 Conferencia Internacional de Educación de la UNESCO [Recommendations for the 45th International Conference on Education, UNESCO]. En: Fortalecimiento del papel del maestro. Cuadernos biblioteca para la actualización del maestro. México: SEP, 11–33. Pieck, E. (1995). Introducción [Introduction]. En: Pieck y Aguado (coordinadores) Educación y pobreza. De la desigualdad a la equidad. México: UNICEF-El Colegio Mexiquense, 21–41. Rosaldo, R. (1991). Cultura y verdad. Nueva propuesta de análisis social [Culture and Truth: New Proposals for Social Analysis]. México: Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes-Grjalbo. Serie Los Noventa. Sandoval, E. (1997). Vigencia del normalismo [The Validity of Teacher Training]. En: Revista Básica no. 1, 26–32. México: Fundación del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación para la Cultura del Maestro Mexicano. Sandoval, E. (responsible). (1998). La formación inicial de maestros de primaria en México. Un estudio comparativo [The Initial Education of Primary-School Teachers in Mexico. A Comparative Study]. Proyecto de investigación no publicado, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología- Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, México. Sandoval, E. (2000). La trama de la escuela secundaria: Institución, relaciones y saberes [The Secondary School Scheme: Institution, Relations and Knowledge]. México: Plaza y Valdés-Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Secretaría de Educación Pública. (1984). Plan de estudios. Licenciatura en Educación Primaria [Primary Education Degree Course Study Plan 1984]. México: SEP. Secretaría de Educación Pública. (1993). Ley General de Educación [General Education Law]. México: SEP. Secretaría de Educación Pública-Administración Federal de Servicios Educativos en el Distrito Federal. (2005). Panorama de la educación secundaria en el Distrito Federal. Bases para la acción [Panorama of Secondary Education in Mexico City: Bases for Action]. México: AFSEDF. Secretaría de Educación Pública-Consejo Nacional Técnico de la Educación. (1984). Ciento cincuenta años en la formación de maestros mexicanos [150 Years in Education Mexican Teachers]. Cuadernos (8). México: SEP.
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Secretaría de Educación Pública. (1997). Plan de Estudios de la Licenciatura en Educación Primaria [Primary Education Degree Course Study Plan 1997]. México: SEP. Subsecretaría de Servicios Educativos para el Distrito Federal-Dirección General de Educación Normal y Actualización del Magisterio en el Distrito Federal. (2004). Situación actual de los servicios de formación y desarrollo profesional de los maestros de educación básica en el Distrito Federal [The Current Situation of Education and Professional Development Services for Basic Education Teachers in Mexico City]. México: DGENAMDF.
38 LEARNING TO WORK IN AN INDUSTRIAL MEXICAN CITY IN TRANSITION (1990–2000) María de Ibarrola Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, CINVESTAV, Mexico
In contemporary Mexican cities, as in many other Latin American cities, unequal working conditions are visible everywhere. In what might be labeled a “street corner economy,” the coexistence of formal and informal economic sectors and labor markets can be observed any day of the week, during business hours and beyond, on most main streets or at any given intersection. Modern international banks or luxurious commercial centers are accompanied by street venders who sell breakfast juice, coffee, and traditional Mexican food to business people minutes before opening hours, or at lunch time. Flowers, magazines, toys imported from China, cutlery, soft drinks, candies, chewing gum, or whatever else comes to one’s imagination are offered to passers-by walking down the streets or drivers stuck in traffic. In larger cities these convenience workers have completely taken control of the some areas of the urban space. Formal unemployment rates are very low according to national statistics (2.6% in 2004) as compared to those of developed countries. But it has taken many years for the informal labor market to be officially recognized, and it continues to be measured only in terms of some of its differences with the formal sector: differences based mainly on the size of the enterprise, its’ income, the presence or lack of social security, and fringe benefits. Official accounts still ignore the nature and origin of the many precarious conditions that are characteristic of this informal sector. Originally conceptualized as an explanation of the under employment and precarious productivity of many occupations in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) report on Kenya (1972), many Latin American authors have thoroughly developed the concept as one of the major explanations of the countries inequality and poverty. Micro economic establishments have an important place in the growth of the informal sector and the interactions between formal and informal sectors (Gallart, 2004; Labarca, 1999; Tokman, 2004).1 In Mexico, only 3% of the businesses, factories and services, accounting for 48% of the industrial and services labor force, formally comply with the basic legal requirements for employment. Some of them have undergone important modernization processes and have even been awarded international standards certifications,2 but the 727 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 727–746. © 2007 Springer.
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number of informal workers continues to increase. This explains why most Mexicans can account for earning some income when asked about it in the census: 56.8% of the labor force is working in small establishments with five workers or less; 63.5% of the labor force does not have the minimum social security benefits guaranteed by law, and 28.7% have been identified as working in the informal sector (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, 2003). Schooling, on the other hand, has been steadily growing in the country.3 As of 1993, 9 years of formal education are compulsory, both for the state, which must guarantee all children a place in a classroom, and for the children and their parents who must make sure they comply. Nevertheless, the school attendance average remains only a little over 7 years for the population over 15 years old, while universal schooling for the population under 15 years has not yet been achieved for some 8% of this age group. It has been reported that 48.5% of the labor force did not complete the nine grades of compulsory basic education, while 14.2% have at least one grade of higher education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, 2004). In both the national and local political discourse, schooling is considered the main factor for improving income and working conditions. National statistics confirm the idea that those who complete high school, obtain vocational training or go on to higher education are the ones who, one the average, have better job positions and income throughout the country.4 Nevertheless, academic research over the last 40 years has shown how this relationship changes according to different situations: years of schooling, the segment of the labor market analyzed, economic development during precise periods or in specific regions, and even the kind of educational institutions young people attend (Carnoy, 1977; De Ibarrola & Reynaga Obregón, 1983; Gordon, Reich, & Edward, 1973; Hallack & Caillouds, 1980; Singer, 1976). Thus, an important question raised by studies opposed to the Human Capital theory concerns the centrality of schooling as the primary causal factor in the general development of countries or regions: the question of what comes first, they argue, is still a matter as difficult to resolve as the ancient riddle about the chicken and the egg. Just as difficult is the issue regarding just what is the nature of the many complex relations between these two autonomous systems, and to what degree each is mediated by different logics, rationales, and objectives (De Ibarrola, 1988). These well known studies have also questioned the causal role of schooling in the automatic improvement of income and job positions: consider, for example, references to “the great training robbery” and the “diploma disease.” Clearly, “illustrated unemployment or under employment” successfully explain, at times, the dysfunctional data for unemployment in spite of increasing schooling in the country. A central project for those using Marxist theory to study of education, has been the effort to analyze how schooling was distributed according to previous social conditions and to argue that schooling is a way of contributing to the reproduction of the stratification of society. Economists studying the rate of return from schooling also question again and again how it is that school growth is seen to answer the supposed demands of the labor market, when in fact it is answering to social demands and political projects (Béduwé & Planas, 2002). Researchers periodically register the inefficiency of investing in different school levels or academic sectors that, at a given time, do not lead to the kind of jobs or income expected. It is clear that the overall positive effect of greater schooling on the general living conditions of the population and the
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economic development of poor countries is not consistent in all aspects. While Latin American countries have reached higher rates of schooling, they have also experienced rising levels of economic crisis and income inequality. (De Ibarrola, 2004b). In summary, it seems fit to propose that once schooling ceases to be a scarce resource, when its’ impact on how income and job positions vary is, at least partially, nullified, then other factors such as age, gender, labor sector, and the economic sector may play a more important role. Specifically, in countries like Mexico, basic education has become universal for the younger generation, but the same is not true for more advanced schooling. Consequently, differences in income and job position relate mainly to attaining a middle or a higher education, a phenomena that embeds a more subtle degree of social selection with labor qualification (De Ibarrola, 2004a).
Relationships Between Education and Work Three major studies on this topic have been developed since 1978. These started from the idea that the relationship between education and work would vary depending on the differences in the amount and type of schooling analyzed and the kind of labor markets for which schooling was supposed to prepare young people (Ibarrola, 1994, 2002; Ibarrola & Reynaga, 1983).5 All three confirmed the general conclusion that the relationships between schooling and work are: (1) interactive: it is not possible to reduce one to being the effect or the cause of the other, they influence each other in different ways, according to the nature of each domain6; (2) changeable: the relationship differ according to social sectors and specific actors, time, space, type of schooling, and the nature of the labor market. Sometimes the relationships may be consistent (functional) as to the effects expected, sometimes they are contradictory (dysfunctional), sometimes they are even perverse, leading to results different or even contrary to those expected.
An Approach for the Study of These Relationships in a Specific City Following these three studies, it became clear that a completely different approach was required. The new idea was to reorient the central focus, to move away from the correlation of specific educational achievements to specific job positions and income brackets, towards an understanding of the different opportunities and pathways available to young people as they prepare themselves for work. Previously, research tended to be linear in its approach, correlating specific degrees of schooling (higher education in one case, “middle” technical agricultural education in the other) to job positions and income in different sectors of the labor market. In one case this was modern businesses in a Mexico city, in another is was agricultural production in the rural communities. The new focus, by contrast, aimed to study all the opportunities young people find for learning to work in their specific and immediate environment in a Mexican city. The goal was to assess the impact of these different ways of learning on their job positions
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and income in the main industry of the city. Conceptually, the integral vision proposed by the Lynds in “Middletown” and “Middletown in Transition” was used as a backdrop for this project.7 Due to the ambitiousness of this research agenda, however, some limits were defined. First, a specific space was chosen namely, the administrative and geographic borders of a specific city. Second, a specific time span was determined: although data were recovered in 2000, we would limit the historic interest to the main events of the last decade (1990–2000). Finally, a specific population was chosen namely, the 15–24 age group. The proposal was designed to study urban school opportunities, both public and private, together with intentional on-the-job training opportunities that were offered in the city during the last decade. The project was approved and financed by Conacyt, and was carried out from the middle of 1999 to the end of 2002, when the final report was submitted. Four graduate students from one of the main local universities accepted the challenge of elaborating their master’s thesis using data from this project: each took responsibility for one aspect of the larger study essential for piecing together the complex jigsaw puzzle proposed in our research agenda. In addition, one Latin-American student asked to be part of the team in order to develop her doctoral dissertation on the role of NGOs in the city. In this approach, the city is seen both as a unit of research and as a unit of local political decision-making regarding education and economic development. Indeed it is a very complex unity, where different labor markets and educational opportunities coexist, and different sectors of the population circulate among different types of education or different sectors of the job market. The city is also a space where young people are subject to the interaction between schooling and other types of learning and to the conjunction of all types of learning in the specific fulfillment of the jobs. Finally, the city is a space where interactions among all types of urban actors: such as government officials, school authorities, entrepreneurial elites, workers, and non-government institutions, are fostered. The trends of the international economy are visible in the urban space. Both in schools and in working sites, the constant references to the need to face new international competitiveness, supports an argument in favor of more schooling and/or radical changes in the labor organization. The aim of the research, as explained to different local actors, was captured by the following three questions: How has the challenge of preparing young people for work been identified and solved in the city? To what traditions is it linked? and How is its’ future envisioned? In order to accomplish the various objectives of the study, several kinds of data were collected and different research methodologies were applied. The idea was to reconstruct at least the key pieces of what was seen as a huge local and urban puzzle, involving social, political, economic and educational pieces. In particular, we examined schooling at all levels, both public and private institution, on-the-job training opportunities, the labor structure in the city, the education and economic policies of institutions such as government, education, entrepreneurial organizations, and labor unions, and finally a variety of actors in both the public and private sectors. A major focus of this work was on the examination of the new and emerging kinds of interactions among them. After a few initial explorations on the different learning opportunities and their
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effects on the local labor market, it became clear that the concept of knowledge as related to learning to work and knowledge as applied to productive work would be major factors. The most useful theoretical approach was the difference between tacit and codified knowledge. The first refers to practical knowledge, know-how learned by experience and through face-to-face interactions. The second refers to knowledge that is explained, described, stored, and transferred through systems of languages and codes that function to diffuse and convey them (Villavicencio, 2002). The local demographic, economic and educational statistics were thoroughly analyzed. In depth interviews were conducted with some 80 key local actors, some of whom agreed to review our research several times. The research topics of the participating students each focused on a specific research methodology. Their work covered aspects such as: ●
●
● ●
A follow-up of students who had graduated in1998 from upper middle education (Grades 10–12) and high level technicians (Grade 13–14), according to the Mexican school system in the target city (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002); Identification and analysis of public and private institutions offering on-the-job training in the city (Rojas-Mata, 2002); Life histories of 12 young workers (Mijares-Ruiz, 2002); An exploration of the nature of NGOs offering vocational training (Girardo Pierdominici, 2003; Pantoja-Palacios, 2001).
Another part of this research study focused on how these learning opportunities were to be found in the labor market. To achieve this a survey of 2,200 workers, 80% of the total labor force of 36 enterprises with different degrees of formality, was carried out. The study was designed as a representative sample of the shoe industry organized around the National Chamber of Shoe and Leather Industry located in the city of Leon.8
The City of Leon The city selected was Leon, located in the state of Guanajuato: this state is in the geographical center of Mexico. At the time of the study, Leon had a population of 1,134,842 inhabitants: 42.8% of the labor force was engaged in industrial activity and 54% in services and commerce. The main industry of Leon is the production of shoes: fully 62.7% of the industrial labor force is involved in this activity. Leon was selected for a number of reasons: we had a previous personal history of periodic visits to the city over the last 30 years and familiarity with key actors in the industrial, government, and schooling sectors; the proximity of the site to Mexico City, which reduced research costs; the importance of the city due to its size and industrial significance in the country: together with the fact that the city is regularly analyzed as part of national surveys. Leon is now more than 400 years old. It was established during the Mexican colonial period at the same site where the Chichimecas (the indigenous “barbarian” group that inhabited the northern borders of the great Mesoamerican cultures) once lived. Building cities on the same location where previous indigenous ones existed was part of a general policy for the colonization and pacification of those territories. The economy
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of the new city was based on agriculture and cattle, and it was not different from other nearby cities. Such cities were strategically established as part of the chain of cities at a horseback ride’s distance from each other. Those industries that developed were only those necessary for solving the populations’ immediate needs. Nevertheless, by the end of the nineteenth century, the city was already well-known for the industrious attitude of its population. An anonymous traveler remarked, “There are not many businesses, but each family is an industrious group of workers and each house is an established workshop.” As of the beginning of the nineteenth century a now well-known national shoe industry developed, highly protected by the Mexican State. Shoes were considered to be necessary for satisfying a basic demand of the Mexican population: moreover, wearing shoes was for some time used in the national census as an indicator of better living conditions, as opposed to walking bare-footed or even wearing the ancestral huaraches (sandals). World War II also fostered the economy of the city’s main industry, because of its production of footwear for soldiers overseas.
The City’s Heterogeneous Shoe Industry To date, the Leon shoe industry accounts for 50% of the national shoe market, which provides for 95% of the national shoe demand. The industry is the fifth largest exporter to the United States. Shoe manufacturing is not only the main industrial activity in the city, but it is also a good example of the coexistence of formal and informal economies and labor markets. Highly sophisticated modern factories, with more than 2,000 employees producing some 18,000 pairs of shoes per week, often export all of their production items. The industry has been awarded an international certification and has acquired state of the art production technologies. It has also established formal and legal, long-standing labor relations agreements with their employees. These same modern establishments coexist, sometimes side-by-side on the same street, with very small family shops, with between five and ten workers. In these smaller workshops, some 50 pairs of shoes per week, or even less, are still produced mainly by hand, using old sewing machines or old tools crafted by the workers themselves. The local census identifies some 4,100 production units, while the Chamber of the Shoe and Leather Industry in the city has only an enrollment of about 1,000 businesses: these are classified in four different sizes: Large factories (more than 250 workers) which account for 2.3% of the registered businesses and 30% of the labor force; Medium size factories (100–250 workers), which account for 6.2% of the factories and 24.3% of the workers; Small factories (16–99 workers), which account for 35% of the factories and 36% of the workers; and Micro factories (up to 15 workers) which account for 55.1% of the factories and 8% of the workers. The size of the factories is the only explicit trait indicating their degree of formality or modernization, but other factors were registered during the research to ratify the heterogeneity of the shoe industry in the city: both the type of technology used and the rate of exportation of the production were addressed. The main indicator, however, was the proportion of workers employed as middle or upper administrative and technical operatives. The type of leadership and management employed is one of the most relevant factors for determining the possibilities for introducing new
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technologies and new ways of organizing labor (Labarca, 1999). We found that the current proportion of administrators and technical opperativesin the selected establishments varied from 5 to almost 30% of the economic unit’s total labor force. The heterogeneity of the economic activities in the city covers not only the production of shoes, but also the supply of all the necessary implements and materials, which run through both international and local distributors. On the one hand, there are some extremely sophisticated, modern, and luxurious factories with ties to the international market, while on the other there are very traditional shops whose business and clientele are locally-based. The variety of commercial and market activities are readily apparent within a five block radius. Street venders sell a pair or two of shoes recently produced in their family’s cottage industry, a local dealer offers a passerby a way to contact a clandestine manufacturer and an established informal street vender with a fixed position on the street lays out an old carpet and arranges some 50 pairs of shoes. In this same area a produce salesman is trading his fruits and vegetables from his old rural wagon for an assortment of 400 pairs of shoes that he will then take to rural communities to sell. Each and every one of these businessmen is using the streets as their work place. In the buildings on these same streets are modern commercial shoe centers, where all the formal factories are located. Here we find the businesses that legally hire sales personnel and offer their most recent production at fixed prices that include sales tax. All these complex and heterogeneous activities account, nevertheless, for the high rate of employment in the city (only 1.3% unemployment in 2000), and the relatively high income of the population: only 2.3% of the local active population did not receive any income, as opposed to 8.3% of the population at the national level. Furthermore, 14% of this same active population in the city was classified in the higher income category as defined by the 2000 census (as opposed to the national average of 11.8%). However, it also accounts for the higher rate of workers without any formal contractual relations or social security (50%). Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, all of the more than 4,000 modern firms, small factories, or family workshops face the new challenges of an open and global economy: this includes new technologies, new labor organizations and open global markets. In particular, they have to deal with what is known in the city as “the Chinese menace”: the invasion of very cheap, illegal, Chinese shoes that have caused many businesses to go bankrupt.
Visions of Urban Future Government officials and organized producers have agreed to face the future with two main strategies. These strategies are the recycling the shoe industry in order to consolidate an “industrial district,” primarily by fulfilling the complex criteria these kind of regions now require (Girardo Pierdominici, 2003), and by diversifying the economic activities of the city. Plans include enlarging the city as regional shopping, financial, medical, business, education and cultural center. A range of changes are currently visible in the city: modern buildings, a large number of new international hotels, hospitals, shopping centers, international food chains,
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recently designed thoroughfares, and so forth. Educating young people, training and “recycling” the labor force, are considered the main strategies for achieving these new forms of economic development. Those who propose consolidating an industrial district propose mainly on-the-job training, starting with the upper cadres, and fostering new middle and higher education opportunities for specific activities required for the modernization of the shoe industry. These activities have focused on specific designs for tailor-made demands, international marketing, quality control processes, international certification, and new materials. Those who propose diversifying the economic base of the city also recognize the importance of a more relevant basic education of higher quality.
Research Approaches The interest to discover all of the learning to work opportunities for young people in Leon lead to three projects. The first project set out to identify, describe, and analyze formal schooling opportunities, both private and public, particularly the way they had grown and diversified in the last decade. Two main educational policies were enforced in the country: (1) the decentralization of basic education, formerly conducted by the federal government that, as of 1993, was to be operated by state governments; and (2) the increase of basic compulsory education from 6 to 9 years including also, as of 1993, the 3 years of secondary education, Grades 7–9 (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002; Ibarrola & Mijares, 2003; Ibarrola & Bernal, 2003). The second project was to identify, describe, and analyze institutions, both private and public, offering formal on-the-job training, with special attention to the way shoe factories were taking advantage of the offer (Rojas Mata, 2002). Again, the idea was to analyze the way the institutions had grown and diversified in the last decade when various deep economic transformations took place in the country: the most important changes were the ratification of NAFTA, and the liberation of a formerly closed internal shoe market, which until then had been highly protected by the Mexican State. Export policies were fostered and shoe entrepreneurs were offered different sorts of facilities. To enhance international quality, on-the-job training policies were accorded elevated status as one of the main tools for the transformation of all economic activities, the shoe and leather labor market among them. A major national program was launched in the country in order to both define and standardize the labor competencies in all economic sectors, according to international standards and to design educational and training programs according to those competencies. The shoe industry, represented by some of the organized entrepreneurs of the city of Leon, was one of the first sectors to have the National labor competencies standardized. This project of identifying the range of educational opportunities in the city, surfaced the important role played by non-formal learning opportunities taking place on the shop floor, during the workday. These opportunities were studied using the theoretical approach currently known as “situated learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and following the work of (Mijares Ruiz, 2002) a numbers of life stories were collected from workers.
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A third project was to identify NGOs, or third sector associations, that offer training services for young people excluded from both the school system or the local labor market (Girardo-Pierdominici, 2003; Pantoja-Palacios, 2001). Data from all three projects that focused on the educational opportunities offered in Leon were integrated into the analysis of the type and range of learning that the 2,200 shoe workers reported as their ways of learning their profession (Ibarrola, 2004a). In spite of the complexity and challenges presented by the research project, and in spite of the certainty that many pieces of the big puzzle are yet to be reconstructed, some very interesting results were found regarding the different ways young people are learning to work. The project also surfaced how the city is actually envisioning and beginning to solve the needs derived from the new economic challenges. I will outline below nine important factors that emerged from these investigations.
Poor Results in Training Young People to Work (1) Training young people to work is recognized as one of the priorities of local development, nevertheless it is not a generalized reality. On the contrary, one of the main findings of this study is the poor results achieved in this respect, even when all types of educational opportunities were examined.
The Increment in School Opportunities (2) School opportunities have been strongly promoted within the city and have been the object of very important decentralization policies: these came first from the federal government to the state government, and somewhat later from the state government to the city (municipal) government. The city of Leon was established as one of the eight administrative regions of the state school system. (a) Basic education, covering nine grades of compulsory and free public education as of 1993 (six grades of elementary school, plus Grades 7–9 of basic secondary education), had significant growth in the city during the 1990–2000 decade. This change was promoted mainly by the state government. One preschool grade, not compulsory at the time, but an obligation for the state to provide, also showed significant growth. Nevertheless, the city has not been able to achieve the new compulsory basic education for all children and youngsters.9 At the time of this research, 73% of the demand for preschool education, 94% of the demand for elementary education, and 79% of the demand for secondary education was covered both by the public and private school system. This means that nearly 30,000 children and young adolescents in the city were not in school: thus they will not achieve the basic education to which they are entitled and which is required for their full incorporation as citizen and workers in the near future (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002; De Ibarrola & Bernal, 2003). (b) Basic education is still not a requirement for the workers of the shoe industry: one employer reports that, “we are happy if they know how to work.”
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But around 80% of the younger generation, workers up to 30 years of age, have attained at least the six grades of elementary education (the level that was compulsory prior to 1993), while only 36.8% of the older workers, 50 and up, have completed a sixth grade education. Nevertheless, in the shoe industry in the city of Leon, having attained this level of education is a direct effect of the way the schooling increased both in the city and in the country. Interestingly, there are no differences as to job position or income between those workers that report having no schooling at all, an incomplete elementary school education, a complete elementary school education, an incomplete secondary education, or a complete nine grade basic education. Differences as to job position and income are determined by other criteria, mainly gender and age. Women, independent of the number of years spent in school, have a lower income than men with the same years of schooling, while the youngest workers are the ones who have the lowest income. Workers who acquired a secondary education or less do not believe the school or their teachers to be an important factor in their learning to work. Workers in other labor sectors that have been growing as part of the new economic development of the city, mostly tourism, hotel, and commercial services, state that they require at least a ninth grade certificate for lower level positions. Employers, however, report that they have had to diminish the requirements for the time being because the labor force does not have the required schooling. (c) One of the most important questions not answered by recent studies is the effect this recent growth in the number of workers completing basic education has had on the technical and organizational conditions of the production processes, or on the working and living conditions of the shoe industry workers. This, however, is an important line of inquiry for future research. (d) While both the upper middle and higher education sectors have had a relatively high growth rate compared with basic education in Leon, the rates of coverage of the age group demand are still inferior to the National rates. Upper middle education covered 32.8% of the local demand in 2000, as compared with 36.6% of the demand on the national scale (age group 15–19). Higher education covers a very small portion of the age group (20–24) at the National scale (20.3%) and the city is not an exception (19.5%). This growth has been promoted by private actors in the city who now offer educational programs to 59.7% of students in upper middle education (Grades 10, 11, and 12) and to 70.3% of higher education students. The private coverage of higher education demands in the city is superior both to the state average (46.6%) and to the national average (32.1%). Most of the national private university systems in the country now have a campus in the city and some local universities have recently attained a prestigious position within the state of Guanajuato, where Leon is located. The state government has in some ways fostered the growth of private school opportunities at the middle and upper level in the city, by subsidizing youngsters with low socio-economic status and offering them full scholarships in private
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schools. Their argument has been that it is easier and cheaper to offer these scholarships than to create new public school establishments. Problematic, however, the fact is that the national public education system has different priorities with respect to the development of higher education in the country. Together, the state and the federal government created a new public technological university, answering the demand of organized employers. This new University offers what is now known as a “fifth” level of professional training and a new degree known as a “university technician”: this initiative covers new professions that require only two years of higher education, supposedly required by the local labor market and “relevant” for the development of the city. The Technological University of Leon, for example, has been steadily increasing the number of youngsters from the city and other nearby areas. The graduates do show high employment rates and better incomes to date (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002). The state government also created two distance education systems at the middle and higher education level that should be of benefit to the lower income population. Nevertheless, the actual availability of professional education in the city, both at the middle and higher levels, is not fully integrated into the new visions of economic development to which Leon aspires. However, the programs offered do answer to the evident demand for creating a more highly qualified work force in data processing, computer science, administration and accounting, all of which are seen as important for securing higher level jobs. (e) Having a 12th grade school certificate in the city determines a clear difference in favor of a better job position and higher income, both in the shoe industry and in other labor sectors. Workers with this kind of certificate typically have administrative and technical positions and receive higher incomes than the general mean. Higher and postgraduate education certificates, requiring more than 17 grades of schooling, are very restricted in the city. Clearly they are important with respect to securing employment: workers with these school certificates may triple their income and certainly occupy high status jobs. At least a third of these workers recognize their schooling as a major factor in their learning to work: they note that they read books and manuals, and have made innovations in the production process. This is fully consistent with the type of knowledge applied in those job positions. At the same time, however, Leon is already showing higher levels of unemployment among those who have higher school certificates.
The Role of on-the-Job Training (3) On-the-job training has also been recognized as a major factor for facing the new challenges of economic globalization. The employers’ organizations, local Chambers of Industry and Commerce, have incorporated training departments into their internal structure and are actively trying to establish relations with the middle and higher school institutions. This see this as a way of fostering a new “work culture” and a “knowledge economy”: these are the words used by both
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members and their employees. They are establishing innovative and interesting training strategies, mostly financed by the state or the federal government, but also by the employers themselves. Private training firms have had an important rate of growth in the city and the Federal government continues to foster national training institutions, some of them created decades before and others as the current Federal response to demands resulting from NAFTA. In both cases, a new decentralization policy imposes at least half of the financing schema on the state government and in some cases, even on the employers themselves. (a) On-the-job training in the city answers only to a part of the vision. Actual innovative technical contents necessary for the shoe industry are offered mainly by the public institutions. Private firms, by contrast, are oriented towards “human and personal development.” Intentional on-the-job training is given almost exclusively to higher and middle labor positions and to workers or employers with higher education. It is common entrepreneurial sense, that workers must have a high school diploma if they are to benefit from training. This argument is built on the assumption that there are “codes” workers must master in order to access the technical knowledge that makes up an important part of the contents offered by these institutions. (b) To date, very few enterprises have acknowledged the role of on-the-job training as fully embedded in a new management style: such training should specifically search to establish a new working organization, together with better working conditions for all the workers. This new management style suggests that on-the-job training should benefit from the actual knowledge all of the workers possess. This, for example, is the basis for both learning communities and quality circles that are emerging in the literature. In too many cases, however, where a new labor organization was implemented with help from a training processes, problems surfaced when reducing the number of workers became a major threat to employees “who did not want to learn the new ways.” (c) Most employers refuse to engage in intentional on-the-job training for a variety of reasons: Some have accused the workers of not having any interest in the training, or argue that on the job training is a useless expense because once the workers are better trained, their competitors will lure away the newly trained workers by offering them a “few more bucks per week.” Workers, on the other hand, do express an interest in such training. They are interested mainly so that they can learn how to operate new machines, but they are also interested in the area of personal human development. It is clear that they are not interested in formal and intentional on-the-job training, especially if it is offered after work hours or follows school type programs. Rather, they prefer informal strategies that are consistent with the tacit knowledge they possess and the ways they acquired it. Only 12% of the 2,200 workers in the sample stated having had intentional training in the last year. Those with higher school certificates and higher job positions clearly had better odds at participating in those few training opportunities offered: Fully
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55% of the workers with post-graduate education engaged in such training, as compared with only 7% of workers who did not complete their elementary education.
Situated Learning: The Most Important Learning (4) In the shoe industry the most intense way of learning the job is the situated nonformal learning resulting from face-to-face relations among workers, where one worker demonstrates knowledge and know-how to the other. Fifty-two percent of the workers declared that this type of learning started for them during childhood. As reported by the workers interviewed during this research, child labor and apprenticeship are still functioning in the city: The majority of workers, working in the shoe industry might have started as early as 7 years of age. Eight of the twelve workers who shared with us the labor learning dimensions of their life history, were working before they were 14 years old. The discussion of child labor and its relationship to learning to work in the shoe industry has been analyzed elsewhere (Ibarrola & Mijares, 2003). (a) It is evident that the most important actors in this on-the-job learning are the workers’ peers: Different members of the family, supervisors, employers, and even factory owners also participate in important ways. In this “silent agreement to teach and learn”(Mijares Ruiz, 2002) no differences were found among the different types of factories. On the contrary, the employers, having accepted as the main criterion for hiring a worker the recommendation of family members or friends, recognize the efficacy of this type of labor learning. (b) We must acknowledge that tacit knowledge and situated learning among the shoe industry workers offer the necessary qualification for performing the range of activities and tasks that shoe production requires. According to the workers who were interviewed, it allows them a comprehensive approach to the complete production process. It is here that they learn about the different production areas, enjoy the opportunity to perform different functions, ask questions and hear about the existing mobility of the workers among labor positions and different factories. While workers’ turnover and child labor are very frequent, they contribute in important ways to the social distribution of tacit knowledge about work. (c) In some cases, this kind of learning develops the capacity to take full charge of the production process and in some cases even to creating new factories: analysis revealed that one-third of the owners and almost 75% of the supervisors had only this kind of learning, with very little formal schooling. (d) It should also be noted that this kind of learning also reproduces what researchers of the shoe industry and many employers and government officials in the city label the most negative work culture in the city. Several problems have been noted: employers who attempt to avoid their legal obligations towards employees (e.g., violations involving social security, fringe benefits and respecting the maximum of working hours permitted by law; employers who fail to improve working conditions and who resort to “tricks”
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to avoid their obligations to the State and suppliers; and employers who ignore the important aspects of modern administration, quality control, safety and hygiene, and respect for the environment among others. This negative work culture has been declared the main obstacle in the structural change the city has to undertake. (5) Working conditions in the shoe industry tend to be very precarious. Disorder, noise, filth, lack of safety measures, use of contaminants and addicting substances without any precautions, excessive work hours or overtime and no social benefits are long-standing and widespread practices. Neither the workers, nor the employers seem to have learned how to change them: the single exception is a small proportion of the formal and modern factories. Despite the formal opposition to child labor and the elimination of the apprentice category in the labor law (under the principle of equal salary for equal work), fully 52% of the workers of our sample reported having experienced this kind of learning. This is a common denominator to all workers, no matter the nature of their schooling, what position they hold, or what type of business for which they work. Interestingly, the experience with childhood work is higher among older workers those who did not reach secondary education: this is also true for those who are now in supervising positions. It is important to note that the apprenticeship system, which still continues to exist in spite of all legal restrictions, is the one system that sustains the tacit and complete knowledge of shoe production in the city. Moreover, this system constitutes one of the few real possibilities for most young people in the city to secure and retain a paying job. (6) It appears that neither schooling, nor intentional on-the-job training was seen to be necessary at this time of serious crisis the shoe industry during the last decade. The explanation surely lies in the existence of the informal tacit knowledge widespread among the shoe industry workers. Only a small number of businesses have generated important job positions for modern administrators, designers, and marketers, or have paid special attention to recruiting workers with credentials from higher education and subjected them to more intense intentional on-the-job training. In these positions, the workers do identify the important role played by school and note that formal schooling is also a hiring requirement. Recognizing the need of school certificates to enter these positions goes beyond the social selection resulting from middle and higher education. It is also due to the technical requirements and new qualifications implicit in modern production processes, together with the need to access new codified knowledge that is available mainly through formal education. (7) Statistics for the city show that 15,445 young people age 15–19 do not go to school and also do not work. Statistics also show that 4,834 did not attain the now compulsory secondary education. It is not coincidental that most of them are women, but we also found nearly 1,000 marginalized and impoverished young men who are in a “no man’s land” when it comes to receiving institutional support for job training and/or placement. The most vulnerable group in the city is the significant number of the women aged 15–19, who are not in the school system or the labor force.
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(8) Very few social organizations take responsibility for the lack of school opportunities or on-the-job training opportunities that affect this significant proportion of the city’s young population. It must be stated that most NGOs now existing are not interested in young people or their labor training problems. Moreover, many of these organizations also face serious institutional weakness and financial problems of their own. (9) In spite of the great value given to job training for young people by the political and economic actors in the city, there is in fact an important deficit and a great inequality in the way the issue is being handled. In short, universal basic schooling has not been attained in the city. There is a significant percentage of children and young people who will grow up without ever completing a basic education. In addition, intentional on-the-job training is offered to very few workers, mainly those who already have a higher education and perform middle or upper job positions. As a consequence of these two patterns of involvement, tacit informal learning in a job situation is, for many, the only universal means of learning to work. However, learning to work under those circumstances is a very restricted opportunity. Its efficacy is limited to reproducing old traditional shoe production practices, coupled with repeating the negative working and living conditions. It is clearly not a sufficient strategy for meeting the many challenges the city’s economic development is now facing.
What Does this Study Suggest about Urban Settings for Education? Education in urban settings illustrates the complexity of the different types of education opportunities open to young people, due mainly to the richness of large cities. Most education and work research considers only school certificates, but clearly there are other opportunities for learning that are efficient for the established labor market. These include a wide range of intentional courses aimed at improving workers abilities and capacities, together with the rich pedagogical interactions among a large number of workers, within legal industrial labor settings. It is evident, however, that this complexity of opportunities in an urban setting where young people learn to work, has not prevented inequality. On the contrary, the research shows that not all young people access compulsory education, that very few reach middle education and that only a small minority attain a higher education degree. Intentional on-the-job training seems to be aimed only at those with better schooling due, in great part, to the idea that it is necessary to have at least a secondary education in order to benefit from intentional training. This, of course, eliminates the large number of students who never complete their secondary education. Sadly, the situated on-the-job learning, which proved to be the most important learning opportunity for the majority of the workers, is efficient only in reproducing the long-standing precarious working conditions. The main suggestion derived from the study is the possibility of enhancing the different educational opportunities in the city and the interaction among them, in order to improve workers capacities, working conditions and in general, the future of the city.
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Recommendations Based on the central findings of this research eight recommendations can be offered to economic actors and government officials involved in the process of developing the city of Leon. First, it is essential to ensure that all children achieve the basic compulsory education: preschool, primary and secondary education must be available to all school-aged students. While it is true that school opportunities have grown in an impressive way in the city in the last decade, too man children never go to school. A sizeable proportion of young people between the ages of 12 and 16 years do not complete a 9th grade education, while almost two thirds of this group abandon school once they turn 15. Second, the fact that young people easily find a job in the shoe industry, many of them during childhood, opens the possibility of developing an intense learning system located at the workplace. Such a learning system is worthy of serious analysis. This situated learning system must be developed within the framework of local opportunities. Historically, the system has focused on offering the minimum training needed for getting a job in the shoe industry. In addition to being illegal, however, and affecting children’s rights to a more complete education, it has usually been restricted to learning the manual tasks that are no longer efficient in the new economy. Moreover, as detailed above, this informal learning system has also served to propagate the precarious working conditions in the factories. Third, a global evaluation should be undertaken to discover what children and young people who do finish a 9th grade basic compulsory education are actually learning. Subsequently, specific innovative programs should be carefully planned and implemented in order to assure both educational quality and relevance, taking advantage of decentralization policies that offer greater educational decisions to local actors. In contrast to an exclusive shoe production economy, that could be sustained with a practical specific on-the-job training, the new economic activities fostered in the search for a new and broader economic vocation for the city, requires a general basic education for all. Fourth, it is important to note that middle and higher education is currently in the hands of private interests in the city. This has had two consequences: (1) private education is too frequently driven by a market orientation, where it offers cheap services in the traditional professions to needy students who are often under-qualified to properly weigh their options, or they turn out poorly prepared graduates in professions that are no longer in demand and, (2) they continue to contribute to widening the ever expanding socioeconomic gap in the city. Thus, I would argue the the public scholarships that the government distributes to ensure school attendance could and should be used to ensure public interest in quality, relevance and equity, even when the schools are privately administered. Fifth, among the hidden treasure discovered by the research is the range of intense educational relations actually taking place in all work places, together with the existence of a wealth of tacit knowledge generously socialized among the workers. This way to learn how to work in an industry still shapes the economic activities of the city. We must acknowledge, however, that this tacit knowledge and the informal means of transferring it, are no longer sufficient for responding to the challenges presented by new technology, the demands of labor organizations, and open markets. In noting that they are insufficient, we must also note that they remain at the deep base where all proposals for change should be rooted.
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Sixth, a new apprenticeship system should be designed, one that can be legally implemented without resorting to child abuse. Such an apprenticeship must be recognized by the school system and become part of the learning-to-work curricula. This would facilitate the school-to-work transition for all students. Seventh, most urgent challenge is to enhance the transmission of the powerful tacit knowledge between young and old and to use it to produce an industry-wide, integrated and positive work culture. Such a new culture can integrate production knowledge with citizenship and environmental respect, bringing a focus on city development, decent work and better living conditions. In the new production paradigm, for example, knowledge and learning occupy a central place, not only at the factory level, but in those levels where social, political, and economic institutions intersect as well. It is this articulation of knowledge and consensus, the interest in everybody’s success, that constitutes the basis of a truly integrated industrial district. Many in the city are suggesting that a new effort to develop this kind of training is desperately needed. Finally, It has to be understood that simply providing training is neither an efficient nor effective activity if it is only considered an “independent variable” for transforming businesses, if it is seen as a stand-alone activity independent of efforts to improve the working conditions and salary for workers. Evidence suggests that an increase in productivity or quality simply cannot be achieved by simply conducting training courses. Rather, to be successful, such intentional training must be embedded into a whole transformation program, which must be rooted in the tacit knowledge and skills the workers possess. Such a step, of course, requires an investment in both time and money, together with a commitment to foster and sustain change in many current attitudes and work habits. The key is getting to know the work place where the training will be offered. Currently, however, too many organizations specializing in training programs offer the same pre-packaged solutions that focus on mechanical solutions for raising efficiency. They are not designed with the specific site in mind. Local development, then, requires an integrated and well-articulated vision that includes all the different educational and working institutions. The different roles these institutions play and the relative participation each must undertake must be articulated within a clear vision of the future. An important requirement is a precise definition of the role young people will play in the future of the city. In this vision, of course, public and private school systems, public and private training institutions, non-governmental organizations, firms and enterprises must also come together as potential learning spaces. Currently, each of them affects the training of young people, but they do not have the same objectives. In this new vision we can expect them to deliver equitable, relevant and quality learning opportunities for all of the city’s younger citizens.
Notes 1. For reasons of space, the general conceptions on these two sectors are not described in this text. 2. Most of them make publicity about having received the corresponding International Organization for Standardization certificate (ISO 9000, or ISO 9001, according to the type of certification). 3. In Mexico, the school system’s structure is as follows: as of 2003, compulsory three grades of preschool (age 3–5); six grades of elementary education (age 6–12) and as of 1993, the former “escuela secundaria” (secondary education, grades 7–9, age 13–15, refers to the higher end of a new compulsory
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5. 6. 7.
8. 9.
Ibarrola basic education of 9 grades; “media superior” (upper middle education) refers to grades 10–12 and is roughly equivalent to the high school years, although the Mexican school system offers essentially two options: an academically oriented curriculum for those students going on to university and technical curriculum for those looking for job training. Grades 7–12 are traditionally known as “middle” education Only recently (as of 1993) have “Universidades Tecnologicas” (grades 13 and 14) been established. These schools offer high school graduates two more years of technical training and are close in concept with community colleges in the United States. Higher education (after grade 13) requires an upper middle education academic certificate: the bachillerato degree. Mean income per month according to schooling in Mexican pesos (2000): without instruction: 1,664; elementary education: 2,199; secondary education: 2,746; middle upper education: 3,717; complete higher education and postgraduate studies: 8,320. Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (2003). Mercado laboral de profesionistas en México. México, ANUIES. These three studies were designed and directed by the author of this chapter. Other authors like (Béduwé & Planas, 2002) also analyze the nature of each domain. In 1999 I submitted a proposal to the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (Conacyt) for financing a new project on the different ways non-university youths are prepared for work in relation to the economic development of a specific region. Maria de Ibarrola and Luis Enrique Bernal carried out these research activities. In México, there is not an established age for being compulsorily in school, but the nine grades of basic education are now a constitutional obligation even for adults.
References Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior. (2003). Mercado laboral de profesionistas en México. México: ANUIES. (Professional Labor market in Mexico). Béduwé, C., & Planas, J. (2002). Expansión educativa y mercado de trabajo. Estudio comparativo realizado en cinco países europeos: Alemania, España, Francia, Italia, Reino Unido, con referencia a los Estados Unidos. Informe final de un proyecto financiado por el Programa Marco de Investigaciones y Desarrollos de la Unión Europea: Ministerio de trabajos y asuntos sociales. Instituto Nacional de las Cualificaciones de Madrid. (Educational Expantion and labor market. A comparative study made in five european countries: Germany, Spain, France, Italy, UK, in reference to the United States). Carnoy, M. (1977). Education and economic development. The first generation. Unpublished manuscript. Paris: IIPE/UNESCO. Cuevas de la Garza, J. F. (2002). Puentes sobre aguas turbulentas. Seguimiento interinstitucional de egresados de bachillerato y técnico superior universitario en León. Tesis de Maestría en Educación no publicada, Universidad Iberoamericana, México. (Bridges over turbulent waters. Interinstitutional networking of high school and specialized technitian graduates in Leon). Gallart, M. A. (2004). Habilidades y competencias para el sector informal de la economía. Formación en la economía informal. Boletín Cinterfor (155), 33–75. (Abilities and capabilities for the informal sector of the economy. Education in the informal economy). Girardo-Pierdominici, M. C. (2003). La formación para el trabajo de los jóvenes (desafíos y estrategias) desde las organizaciones de la sociedad civil. No publicado. Doctorado en Estudios Latinoamericanos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México. (Education on labor for the young (challenges and strategies) from the civil society organizations). Gordon, D. M., Reich, E., & Edward, R. (1973). “A theory of labor market segmentation.” American Economic Review, 63(2), 359–365. Hallack, J., & Caillouds, F. (1980). Education, sork and employment. In UNESCO (Ed.), Education, training and access to labor markets. Paris: IIPE/UNESCO. Ibarrola, M. (1988). Hacia una reconceptualización de las relaciones entre el mundo de la educación y el mundo del trabajo en América Latina. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos, 18(2), 9–64. (To a reconceptualization of the relations between educational and laboral world in Latin America)
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Ibarrola, M. de. (1994). Escuela y trabajo en el sector agropecuario en México. México: Miguel Ángel/ Cinvestav/Instituto Mora/ Flacso. (School and Work in the agropecuary sector in Mexico). Ibarrola, M. de. (2002). Hacia una mirada integral de la formación de los jóvenes para el trabajo. En M. De Ibarrola (Ed.), Desarrollo local y formación (pp. 15–38). México: DIE-Cinvestav/Cinterfor-OIT/ Universidad Iberoamericana-León/Red Latinoamericana de Educación y Trabajo. (Towards an integrated point of view of the youth education for work). Ibarrola, M. de. (2004a). Escuela, capacitación y aprendizaje. La formación de los jóvenes para el trabajo en una ciudad en transición (1st ed.). Montevideo: Cinterfor-OIT. (School, training and learning. Preparing for work in a city in transition). Ibarrola, M. de. (2004b). Paradojas recientes de la educación frente al trabajo y la inserción social (1st ed. Vol. 1). Buenos Aires: RedEtis. (Recent paradox in education before labor and social insertion). Ibarrola, M. de. & Bernal, E. (2003). Descentralización ¿quién ocupa los espacios educativos? Transformaciones de la oferta escolar en una ciudad mexicana. Revista Mexicana de Investigaciones Educativas, 8(18), 379–420. (Descentralization: Who occupies educational opportunities? Transformations of the educational supply in a mexican city). Ibarrola, M. de. & Mijares, A. (2003). Formación de jóvenes para el trabajo: Escolaridad, capacitación y trabajo infantil. Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundacao Carlos Chagas) (118), 119–155. (Youth education for work: Schooling, training and child labor). Ibarrola, M. de. & Reynaga-Obregón, S. (1983). Estructura de producción, mercado de trabajo y escolaridad en México. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos, 13(3), 11–83. (Production structure, labor market and schooling in Mexico). Labarca, G. (1999). Formación y empresa. El entrenamiento y la capacitación en el proceso de reestructuración productiva. Montevideo: GTZ, Cinterfor OIT, CEPAL. (Education and enterprise. Training and induction in the productive reestructuring process). Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mijares-Ruiz, A. (2002). Aprendizaje silencioso de los jóvenes trabajadores en la ciudad de León. Tesis de Maestría en Educación no publicada, Universidad Iberoamericana, México. (Silent learning of young workers in the City of Leon). Pantoja-Palacios, J. (2001). Los programas de educación no formal para mujeres de escasos recursos en la ciudad de León. Sus características y debilidades. Tesis de Maestría en Educación no publicada, Universidad Iberoamericana, México. (Informal education programs for low underprivileged women in the city of Leon. Its characteristics and vulnerabilities). Rojas-Mata, M. R. (2002). Formación intencional: Oferta y oportunidades de capacitación en la industria del calzado. Tesis de Maestría en Educación no publicada, Universidad Iberoamericana, México. (Directed education: Supply and training opportunities in the shoe industry). Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social. (2003). Encuesta Nacional de Empleo. México: STPS. (National Labour Survey). Secretaría de Educación Pública. (2004). Estadística básica del sistema educativo nacional. México: SEP. (Basic Statistics of the national educational system). Singer, P. (1976). Elementos para una teoría del empleo aplicable a países subdesarrollados. In A. Souza (Ed.), El empleo en América Latina. México: Siglo XXI. (Elements for an employment theory applicable for developing countries. Jobs in the latin America). Tokman, V. (2004). De la informalidad a la modernidad. Formación en la economía informal. Boletín Cinterfor (155), 9–31. (From informality to modernity. Education in the informal economy) Villavicencio, D. (2002). La economía del conocimiento. Revista Mexicana de Comercio Exterior, 52(6), 468–470 (The economy of knowledge).
39 THE FRAGMENTED COMPOSITION OF THE ARGENTINEAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Guillermina Tiramonti FLACSO-Latin American College of Social Sciences, Argentina
Introduction Crises act as salutary lessons by the social imaginary regarding their own identity. Habermas (1991) argues that crisis occurs only when the members of a society experience changes as threats to their identity. Undoubtedly, this was the result of the events in 2001, the failure of the argentine economy, which broke the thread of days, quoting Oscar Terán (2002) expression. From that moment on, many national intellectual texts were published, which focused their discussions on the identity issue. Punto de Vista magazine published, among others, a work by its Director, Beatriz Sarlo (2001), called “Ya nada sera igual” (“Nothing will Ever be the Same”), in which the author matches the crisis with a turning point separating “the Argentinean being” developed over the first 60 years of the twentieth century, characterized by being literate, a citizen and included in the formal labor market from the new situation of extreme need leaving no room for citizenship nor for any claims on the right to work, and where even the public school is broken. In the same magazine, a year later, Oscar Terán (2002) reflects on the imaginary that governed the composition process in modern Argentina. The author refers to a negative pluralism and populist egalitarianism society. By means of the first feature he defines a polyphonic scenario, which inhibits communicative action. This communicative impossibility may have been prematurely countered by a populist egalitarianism that gave rise to an old belief of empowerment: equality in positions hierarchy, knowledge, and skills. In more recent texts these subjects are being reexamined. Romero (2003) reviews national history and refers to the composition, at the beginning of the twentieth century, of a mobile and opportunities-full society led by a strong and active State. Such composition is lost by the seventies. Cristian Ferrer (2003) talks about a country dominated by plebeian imagination that made us grow up in the belief that being Argentinean entitled us to a set of rights, among which we could find free schooling and university, work, paid vacations later, social security and health borne by the State. 747 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 747–762. © 2007 Springer.
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All this and more constitutes the breaking point created by the crisis on the images we had of the society of which we are a part. At the same time, it shows that all authors saw some similar elements making up said imaginary of Argentine identity. One of the elements is the value attributed to equality and acknowledgment of the importance such assessment has in defining not just the image we create of ourselves but the dynamics in our collective life. A corollary of this value is the public school and the role it plays in the realization of the social mobility dream. The tension in the concept equality (or the socially created myth around this egalitarian principle) is an element that plays an important role in the composition of our culture. Its blatant dismissal challenges the set of values upon which society rests, as well as risking our oft-held belief in individual rights equal to that of any other citizen. No matter if that which made us more sensitive to equality is the misfortune of all being equally helpless, and ultimately being always at risk in the wider social sphere, as Dussel (2003) points out by resorting to Halperin Donghi’s image, or the fact that the mere existence of inequality hurts our cultural narcissism or, ultimately, whether it is a value we are ready to replace, this is an issue demanding reflection in our national crisis. It is also the key building block in clarifying the Argentina to come. The creation of the National Education System (in Argentina and others Latin American countries) was clearly linked to the consolidation of the National State and to a domination project based on the outreach of citizenship to the population as a whole. Therefore, public education was operationally to regulate the behavior of free men. The institutional power behind the government’s proposal neutralized all efforts made at the creation of alternate conceptions. Dora Barranco’s works (1990) and, recently, those of Juan Suriano (2001) describe precisely every failed attempt made by socialism and anarchism at creating and later keeping their own educational institutions. In turn, Morduchowicz (1999), in a comprehensive work on private education in Argentina features the 1894–1930 period as one of retraction in terms of private enrollment in primary education as a consequence of the boom of state-owned supply. However, regarding secondary school, private enrollment grew at the time at a rate higher than state enrollment. From the data above, it can be concluded that the core for the State was to keep under its field the training of people, and it engaged in a shared involvement in the task of training middle-level elites. Private education was to define the elite who would govern. Ana Bertoni (1996) has shown the tensions resulting from the installation of foreign schools in the country at late twentieth century. In this, it is important to stress that schools as a citizen preparation environment or, in other words, as a device for incorporating the population into a specific system of beliefs and for the construction of the nationalistic representation and the sense of belonging thereto. In a recent work, Susana Torrado (1998) shows that the school setting enabled the first integration of the various nationalities of the emigrants into an Argentine identity. The system arising between the end of the nineteenth century and the 30s of the following century had a centralized organizational structure. The National State controlled both material assets – for administration, management, and financing of school institutions – and symbolic representations, providing a false universalistic meaning which expressed, at the national level, the “civilized culture.” The development of the
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educational system clearly addresses this State-centric sociopolitical matrix and accounts for the State infrastructural1 power for defining socialization standards and the cultural incorporation of a varied population. There was some tension between the tendency towards inclusion and the selection function generating differentiations and exclusions. Such tension is inherent in every modern system – making legitimation of the system problematic. However, unlike European systems characterized by institutionalization of differentiated systems regulating student promotion, Latin American countries played out this tension in an open competition mechanism in which there are no deteremined paths but only individuals confronting resources and capital (material, symbolic and social capital). In this promotion system there was a wide uniform education supplied for the whole population. Likewise there were pedagogical and curriculum mechanisms that rewarded only those likely to be assimilated. The demand of the homogenization process of the school what that the students also mobilize the material and symbolic resources required by this homogenization – a self-fulfilling prophesy at best. The egalitarian matrix in Argentina is the result of a specific tension between inclusion and exclusion at the different layers of social life and, specifically, in the educational system. Social mobility aspirations were processed through the expansion of schooling offered by the State, which implied an economic and social promotion promise. The vast Argentinean middle class improved their social an d economic status in this dispute as a result of an education that gave them a quantum leap, enabling them to leave their original condition well behind. Obviously, not everything can be explained by the availability of an educational offering. For example, there was also an extraordinary economic climate which fostered social expectations and created an employment market which turned educational credentials into a valuable resource for inclusion in the labor market. Throughout the twentieth century, as new social sectors were introduced into the education system, the processing and sorting methodology got more complex without leaving aside the deregulated struggle feature in which individual decisions define action. The creation of differentiated sectors within the system, as in the case of the technical schools segment which emerged during the first Peron’s term, or in the late 60s the gradual growth of a private sector which started to accommodate medium to high class groups who were leaving public education because it became socially more inclusive, added to the traditional differentiation, resulting in added and overlapping mechanisms for social selection and differentiation. Through this motley network of institutions having different social and pedagogic prestige and student having more or less individual capital, the system worked the tension between equality and inequality, keeping social and individual expectations alive in terms of the school’s potential to alter life chances. The National State played a core role in maintaining the myth of equality and mobility. Braslavsky’s (1985) research supports the idea of favorable expectations regarding equalizing potential of education. In this conception, the existence of a field symbolically made up by the State is emphasized in which differences among groups of institutions are acknowledged (called segments), which can be located within a graded scale of a higher or lesser educational quality. At the same time, the State is the provider of
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universal meanings and the one having at hand the possibility of homogenizing the system through an educational policy breaking the social closure created by dominant sectors on socially relevant knowledge. With the restructuring of Argentine society over the last 30 years, the dissolution of the state-centric matrix of society (Cavarozzi, 1999) and the crisis experience in 2001, has made it necessary to reposition discussion around inequality. Conceptualizing the new educational inequality calls for recovering a comprehensive outlook on the system as a whole. This is because any inequality has a relational nature and is the result of specific social links and relations compromising the whole of society and not just those belonging to a specific class. Over the 90s, the treatment of inequality devolved to the study of poor people and the detection of their needs. Poverty was conceived as an attribute of certain individuals or groups and inequality as absolute. At best, it was seen as the comparative shortage of access to goods and services. Compensatory policies were and are developed as social replacement tools for said deficits. From our standpoint, the unequal configuration of educational opportunities calls for analyzing asymmetries in processes comprising the social system and the breaching and differentiation lines recorded both in institutional characteristics and in the creation of subjectivities.
The System Fragmented Composition There is a wide literature in social science referring to society’s fragmented composition. Unlike the segment, created as a differentiated space within an integrated field, fragmentation refers to a burst field characterized by breaks, discontinuances and the impossibility of passing from one fragment to another. Fragmentation denotes loss of unity, lack of common references, and a fragmented multiple dynamics removing every possibility of recovery. … we no longer believe in the myth of the existence of fragments which, as part of an ancient statue, are waiting for the last missing part to be discovered and thus glued together creating a unit exactly like the original unity. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1998) Our societies are fully complicit in the fragmentation and permanent segregation process. The construction homogeneous groups that separate and distinguish themselves from other homogenous bodies end up creating a heterogeneous aggregate of separate institutions, agents, groups, and individuals. Social fragmentation clearly exists in the educational field and this is the concept we believe best accounts for the current composition of the educational system as a whole. The fragment is a self-referent space in the inside of which similarities and differences may be distinguished. The former providing the boundaries or limits of the fragment, the latter accounting for the heterogeneity of said spaces. In this way, the fragment acts as a reference boundary, but does not make an integrated and coordinated whole, not even in a field in which actors’ and institutions’ positionings might be acknowledged. Rather it refers to institutional additions having common statutory and cultural references.
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According to our research, this fragmentation concept better accounts for the current composition in the school as a social field. In order to illustrate and ground this fragmented condition,2 we provide the results of our research in the following.
The Dimensions in Fragmentation What is fragmented? Which is the fragmentation subject? Research clearly accounts for a break in a field of shared meaning by the group of school institutions and agents flowing through them. These institutional cultures shape meanings and derive from the convergence of social mandates, family aspirations and expectations, community demands, and institutional resources. There is a means for creating the institution of schooling, which gives rise to the fragmented condition. This means of creation lacks universal references and is anchored in the assessment of the specificity in the group being served. There are no universally defined evaluative references; values acquire definitions and meanings according to the specific group the institution serves. For example, the “solidarity” value acquires various meanings for the different groups according to school enrollment. To some, it is linked to explicit training activities aimed at incorporating into young people from middle or high sectors the “poor people” and to create a link among them. In other cases, solidarity refers to helping family and friends, not neglecting relationships after one has been “saved,” or saving oneself in order to help people close to you. The meaning of being “supportive” is different fro each school and social group, and none of these meanings refers to common, collective projects and inclusive of society as a whole. In this case, the fragmentation of the rules framework and of the set of values and beliefs makes up the cultural-ideological layer with which a certain society integrates and socializes the new generations. This is particularly meaningful if we regard the school, both public and private, as an order-creating institution, a device focused on generating “a shared understanding” of reality upon which a new ethical consensus may be reached by regulating relations among subjects to create reciprocal expectations (Wirth, 1964). Building school meanings in a dialogue with the community, and the loss of the universal reference due to the crisis, both for public and private schools, has changed educational institutions into a space where specific meanings of order are created. There is a form of institutional colonization by regulatory frameworks supported by the community, which contradicts the original “civilizing” mandate the school was to embody. At the same time, and being part of the same movement, institutions build a socializing guideline expressing aspirations, expectations, values and strategies for the social placement of the group they serve. Each school has a different meaning for each group and these cleavages do not necessarily match strict divisions among social and cultural layers. For elite groups, the school is a space that ensures a certain order of succession (Bourdieu, 2000), a history, a genealogy and a specific conception that is conveyed about the world and places “acquired” by past generations. However, even in this common claim of “privilege reproduction,” a varied range of institutional proposals is noted, the differentiation of which is connected to the order
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of the privilege attempted or the space in which distinctions are supposed to be legitimized. So, for some institutions, this is about the preservation of religious traditional values and symbols associated with class distinction and family descent. These institutions are characterized by character discipline through a permanent control of school spaces and subjection to authority as a form of acceptance of asymmetries in power relationships and, as a result, command legitimacy. There are other institutions focused on the “elite” that recreate the symbols associated to those of the successful, cosmopolitan and victorious businessman in a markedly competitive world. In these cases, the value of the institution is linked to the renewal of a cultural and social capital providing that provides resources for successfully “competing.” Another group of public schools organizes its pedagogical proposal based on a wide combination of knowledge from the humanist tradition, motivation of individual creativity and strengthening of intellectual self-government. For the sectors attending these schools, the future is an individual and unforeseeable creation calling for wide intellectual and cultural resources, and the capacity to mobilize them according to timely requirements. In a previous work, we identified a group of public and religious private schools subsidized by the State, which we call “anchorage schools in a disorganized world” (Tiramonti, 2003). These exist in an ambiguous social space where descending restructuring victims converge with other people frozen in their positions and being threatened with expulsion. They are embedded in a uniform range of activities in which liberal professionals, dealers, and employees are included. These institutions make their proposal with the wrecks: Part of instruction understood as the incorporation of useful knowledge for labor insertion or for higher education, a little bit of the traditional citizen ethics, and quite a lot of “continence,” understood as catering to problems and emotional care. Even inside this fragment there are distinct differences between public schools that inherited a tradition of training citizens, which account for the endurance of collective projects in the imaginary of young people and religious schools having a strong pastoral mark. There are other public schools that are creating a space for living with the crisis and the collapse as they understand it. These are about providing material and pedagogical help and delimiting an “understanding” of the scenarios and “coexistence of pairs” for those actively engaged in the marginal culture. Said institutions do not have a “civilizing” will, they do not aim to change the lives of their students, but their goal is to help endure the present. They are aware of their border institution status (Duschatzky, 1999), they comfort, help, listen, but they know the predefining force of social, economic, and cultural conditions in their students lives. This fragmentation in the institutional arena results into a reconfiguration of those teaching at these institutions. In each institutional group, the features required of teachers are so specific that it is hard to imagine a teacher actually crossing the fragment barrier to teach at other institutions. As Poliak points out (2004, p. 182): … diversity of characteristics includes a very wide range of criteria: the commitment towards and “submission” to the most underprivileged schools; bilingualism, updating abroad and a track record in schools of similar prestige, in privileged and
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elite sector schools; broaching very different nuances in schools where middle class students attend: an active link with knowledge in progressive schools; sharing (and acting pursuant to) the same religion in denominational schools, personal qualities and others. Fragmentation is a configuration type repeating and multiplying itself in each dimension in the school setting and making each institutional group a single and distinct area closing in on itself and creating hard to cross borders. These are fragments immersed in a social closure of permanent dynamics, where exclusions and expulsions occur to close again on itself, generating new and multiple fragments. Recently, the Secretariat of Education of the City of Buenos Aires has announced a project for the struggle against leaving school in the middle level, consisting in the creation of special institutions for the relocation of those who leave school before the legal age and who attended schools serving the most underprivileged sectors in society. The proposal is an example of the trend towards the permanent system fragmentation.
Asymmetry in Individualization and Deinstitutionalization Processes There is agreement among social scientists pointing out that structural changes besetting contemporary society are reshaping the individual-society relationships. Characteristically, this link has been a core aspect in sociology. According to the traditional scheme, there is a dramatic gap between the individual and the society. The latter, which exists outside and above individuals, shapes the behavior of individuals through a socialization process via which subjectivities are created. Therefore, subjectivity is nothing but the incorporation of the social aspect, which defines traditions, aspirations, values, and interests. From this perspective, individuals are the creation of society. The most modern theories on socialization suggest that it is not just internationalization of values, but also socialization process includes a social creation of the body. Consequently, gestures, movements, and positions are not natural but they are marks expressing certain paths and social positions. Bourdieu coined the idea of habitus in order to account for this learning process of the body. Likewise, Foucault (1981) refers to government technologies based on specific knowledge with a view to creating individuals satisfied with the dominant project. Elias (1990) breaks this scheme and replaces the idea of separation between individuals and society with that of reciprocal conception, according to which society shapes individuality of its members and individuals shape society through the acts in their lives in which they apply possible and viable strategies within the social network of their interdependencies. According to this belief, modern society is defined by an incessant individualizing action permanently changing through negotiation and which assumes a constant redefinition of links between individuals and society. According to several authors, the current stage we are going through is characterized by a deep change in the relationship between individuals and society in favor of
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the supremacy of individuals over society’s determinations. According to Beck (2000), industrial society as a system, that is, the economics, politics and science dynamics has resulted in the disintegration of industrial society as a network of experiences, removing the anchorage of people to the security of standard forms of living. In turn, Bauman (2000) argues that early modernity “uprooted” people in order to “reroot” them. After the break of the rigid social classes, the task for individuals was to acculturate themselves to new regulatory action frameworks. In such manner, classes as inherited, and thus permanent, places were replaced by classes of artificial memberships. Unlike this process, in the current capitalism stage Bauman (2003) calls liquid, there are no flowerbeds for us to “reroot” ourselves, but there are “several musical chairs” of varying in sizes and styles, number and location. These construct men and women as always on the move with no promise for “completion” whatsoever. There is no “rerooting” perspective at the end of the road taken by permanently uprooted individuals. This point in modern age is marked by a deinstitutionalization process evidenced in the inefficiency of institutions (it would be very positive if it could always refer to the school) originated during the industrial age to regulate and determine individual behavior and which is the commensuate, to position themselves in the existential framework containing and marking individual movements. As the other side of the coin, the individualization process has become, quoting Sennett (2000), “the compulsion to be oneself.” To what extent and in what manner do these processes translate into school institutions and the agents involved in them? Field research found several indicators of these processes and strong expressions of asymmetries. Some social sectors seem to feel more threatened than others by the evolution of these processes. The so-called elite groups, on the one hand, seem to fear a strong “unshaping” of regulatory and institutional frameworks their children go through. A feature in everyday lives of young people belonging to this social sector is the regulation of their activities in strong institutional frameworks. The school, in this case either public or private, mainly fills their days and is the main supplier of friends for their ring. Out-of-school time is filled with extra-curricular activities and the excess free time is also spent in institutionalized frameworks (the club, the closed villa). These areas, while regulating and controlling behavior and bodies marking them with class belonging, ensure socialization among pairs and reinforce the sense of belonging to a privileged group. The school is, then, a universe equivalent to the family and class one, complementing the actions by the latter in the preservation of privileges (Ziegler, 2004). Parents in these sectors build a strong fences around schools, in order to support its regulatory efficiency. At the same time, they make systematic efforts to uproot every indication of individualization in their children’s behavior. Beyond controls for efficiency, these youngsters seem to have a limited room for action geared to changing their paths and defining new choices to family imposed ones. At the other end of the social scale, the everyday life of poor youth is less little institutionalized public or private spaces outside of school (the neighborhood, the street, friends’ homes, the bailanta (tropical music dance club). The school, public in this case, has not enough power to provide sufficient support or to impose a different regulatory framework than that prevailing in this circle. Both in this case and in the first one, the school is an environment equivalent to the social circle, the only difference
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being that in this case it is marked by anomia. The reinstatement of institutions and regulatory frameworks serve to channel children’s lives. It is a frantic search for rooting places, which soften the anguish resulting from the compulsive, individualization process that lacks resources and social continuity.3 This is a “civilizing” claim for the school, a demand for incorporation into the codes of the ones included, and guidelines for action are requested to build an inclusion path. It requires a questioning procedure to neutralize the school as a disqualifying agent. Castel (1997) refers to the exclusion of individuals from becoming involved in sociability networks and protection systems as “covering” an individual from existence risks. The school becomes the integration border but does not permit removing students from their vulnerable situations (Duschatzky, 1999). Individualization or individuation, as one chooses, does not mean the expansion of personal choice. It does not translate into an increase in subjective freedom above social mandates and compulsions. It is not an emancipation movement but, on the contrary, it is a compulsive way of life for which people lack the necessary resources to make selfassertion effective. The individualization process is thus an individual freedom redistribution scheme. There is a divide between the right to self-assertion and the capacity to control social mechanisms making such assertions viable or not viable (Bauman, 2003). There is another group of children for whom individualization seems to actually have extended to the right to self-assertion with the availability of economic and symbolic resources allowing for their realization. These are youths equally subject to choices, risks, assumed anguish entailed by an option outside traditional paths. These are youths from families with a good spending power, high education levels and, in general, are associated with the most modern niches in the economy. These youths, who may belong to the most learned sectors in middle classes, but also to establishment groups, have a strong mandate of being free, successful and getting personal rewards in the future. Such sectors are permeated by market and consumption logic, for which the imperative is becoming themselves. Individualization, for these groups, is an ongoing task of personal realization. To this effort, the schools they attend – private in general – contribute a number of resources seen to be suitable for successfully arriving at individual self-government. These resources can be “skills for the competition – studies in classical subjects,” “a wide knowledge of contemporary culture,” “individual creativity” and/or flexibility and adaptation in the face of a changing world. Unlike other groups of youths, individualization, and its deinsitutionalization counterface, seems to be the requirement for expanding their freedom.
New Fragmentation Lines Research has identified new stratification factors fragmenting the universe of students in secondary schools. In our opinion, there are two significant differentiation lines marking the borders among the various fragments. One of them is the type of job people aspire to, and the other is the way in which students articulate with the globalized space. As regards the type of work, there is a moment that distinguishes those who consider it to be a means of personal growth and satisfaction, and those who consider it to be the
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only possible way to live a “worthy life.” The first ones organize their work relations from consumption aesthetics, the second ones organize their work from the principles of the traditional work ethics, which, to be sure, was the moral grounds for industrial society organization. Bauman (2000) argues that the aesthetics of consumption today rules what was previously governed by work ethics. To consumers, the world is a huge matrix of possibilities, of increasingly stronger feelings and deeper and deeper experiences. From this place, the world is assessed by the feelings it arouses, “the most used compass for moving through it is always aesthetic, neither cognitive nor moral.” The status granted to working is deeply affected by aesthetic criteria; it is evaluated by its capacity to produce pleasant experiences. The aesthetic value of work has become a powerful stratification factor. Work as “one’s calling” or personal realization. Work giving meaning to life, as a source for fame and self-esteem, can be found in the aspirations of a well defined sector of the students universe. Included there are some fractions of the elite, and clearly the most dynamic fraction of middle classes is conceiving, as we already pointed out in the paragraph above, innovative paths. There they combine reward with a rational assessment of opportunities. In general, this is about options and flexibly combining different jobs in which knowledge or subject knowledge are articulated with hobbies, so that there are no clear borders between leisure and work. I’m going to study arts because that’s what I like and it’s not true that you cannot live on it. On the contrary, there are many interesting possibilities, such as writing TV screenplays, teaching, working as a journalist, etc. (17-year-old private school student) Based on this paradigm, both for parents and students, “working on something monotonous,” “not rewarding enough,” which prevents developing their “potential” or not awakening their “interest” becomes the most feared choice. Work as a “calling” is the aspiration of this group of middle sectors, which is testing differentiating structures that allow it to remain within the higher escelon of the social structure. For youths belonging to the elite associated with the most modern sectors in the economy, work is linked to a specific ethics identifying a successful and cosmopolitan life style, providing wide consumption options. These youths conceive future from their own consumption perspective, where desire and pleasant experiences are the axis making life meaningful. Work is part of this idea grounded on the combination of objects seen as symbols of pleasant and exciting life. Across the border are those for whom work is linked to a certain hierarchy within society or to a worthy life. These are the very references of a society in which individuals are integrated via their work, and where such incorporation marks the watershed between decent workers and indecent “slackers.” At the same time, work integration is conceived as an allocation method for social places of varying prestige. To the most traditional elite sectors, the profession and future work performance are not connected with personal reward, let alone with personal wishes. These are not regarded as reasonable grounds for choice making. The aspiration is to have a job according to the
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family social status, which is achieved through the convergence of a university professional degree and the relevant performance in the social setting of the reference. At this end, we find youths who wish to have a worthy living by means of their jobs. This claim to “worthiness” is clearly a referent to of work ethics from industrial society and which associates production efforts with worthiness. At the dawn of the industrial society, the role of work ethics was twofold: solving the emerging industry labor demand, and at the same time providing an alternative compatible with said demand for those who could not adapt themselves to the changes and were incapable of earning their livings under the new conditions. The work precept, the only decent and morally acceptable way to earn the right to live, was the basic principle for public morality and for policies developed for addressing mendicancy. Ethics upheld the moral superiority of any lifestyle as long as it was supported by the wages from their own work. This rule justified the principle of the weaker right of those who required help to survive. Moreover, both today and in the past, this work ethics precept builds upon the association between marginality and criminality. The latter is pathetically present in the speech of agents interacting in the so-called border or margin. To them, work and family are the anchors for a “worthy” and “respectable” life, and, to the contrary, the lack of the same bodes for a criminal future. The way in which youths operate in the globalized setting is another stratification factor in the findings of the research. This perspective divides those who feel at liberty to move and choose the most interesting scenarios for the development of their lives from those who are anchored in national borders or forced to migrate faced with the harshness of life in the country. The first ones consider the world as a space where you can freely wander taking opportunities. The second ones see it as an exile arena, migration as a consequence of failure or the impossibility of realization at the domestic level. Experiencing life abroad, taking postgraduate education abroad, making tourism, conceiving a cosmopolitan life combining travel with stays in the country are a part of the imaginary of youths in middle to high and high class population sectors. Teachers and directors at the institutions they attend consider them to be active travelers and never tie their students’ future projections to the country situation. To this sector, the national environment does not determine the lives of young people; horizons are globalized and this is the context in which the lives of these youths develop. The world is like a big supermarket offering courses, postgraduate degrees, tourist adventures, friends, and work opportunities. There is no room for leaving or staying; no room for exile. There is only a coming and going subject to personal interests and wishes. For those who are globally mobile, space has lost its restrictive qualities and it can be easily crossed in its two versions: the “real” and the “virtual” one. Youths conceiving cosmopolitan lives have a 99% access to information technology and use it on a daily basis. In turn, TV consumption by those youths follows a cosmopolitan cultural pattern clearly influenced by the American lifestyle. In their TV menus, international series (“Friends,” “That ‘70 show” o “Sex and the City”) or adult cartoons, such as “The Simpsons” or “South Park,” have a strong presence. Besides this spatial reduction, there is a future time perception as “snowed under with activities.” They picture themselves to be constantly busy, with diaries filled up to the
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margins according to Bauman’s expressive accounting of the situation of those living in the first world, where the passing of time and spatial restrictions have been abolished. Inside this group, cleavages and differences can be noted. There is not just a single way of inhabiting in the cosmopolitan condition. There are hardly “pure” cosmopolitanism cases where local anchorage is not present. Such individuals belong to that globalized space where national identities have faded away. They move along in the world of business, finance, diplomacy, and membership in these “clubs” but not related with the place of residence. There are other youths for whom national space is the necessary framework for realizing their elitist aspirations. These groups have built a strategy focused on intellectual distinction and on a humanist education legitimizing power positions at the domestic level. These youths enjoy the required cultural and symbolic capital to move easily in the world. They may think of studying abroad and living interesting experiences abroad, but their power aspirations tie them to the country’s borders. The institution director’s words fully embody this local leadership natural inclination: I always tell the kids, “when one of you becomes Supreme Court Justice, another Secretary of the Interior, and yet another one the Archbishop of Buenos Aires …” and they kill themselves laughing, but it will fatally be the case and you realize that one you are informally addressing will be the President. On this side of the border, we find those anchored to the local space and time, for whom leaving equals exile and staying means tying their future to ups and downs of the local economy. To them, exile is not a free choice but a compulsion they face as a result the narrowing of the national labor market. Many middle class youths are part of this category. They aim at getting higher education levels and at giving the country a try. Yet if they fail at work placement, they are ready to migrate. “Leaving” means, for this group, starting the journey back to their grandparents roots, journey which is only started when faced with the threat of failure. There are other youths who share the same social and economic environment as the previous ones, for whom “leaving” is not a choice. They bet on collective solutions and on the possibility of changing the local situation. They are like survivors from a time in which the lives of youths were shaped around change projects and being politically active in favor of such changes. All these youths attend public schools. Private schools have no room for collective projects. It can be assumed that there is an ideological component based on the convergence of family principles and school institutions recreating in this group of youths the inclination towards getting involved in the construction of a better world. It could be theorized that underlying the decision to choose a school in the private circuit is a family strategy that bets on individual solutions over collective ones. The poorest youths experience globalization anchored at the local level. To them, the future is closely tied to the country and fate of national policies. They shall be what the country has in store for them. There is no way out. For the ones who are locally tied, for the ones who are prevented from moving, the ones who must bear the “locality” they are tied to, real space becomes a closed frontier. The statement by a director we
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transcribed below accounts for this frontier where students, teachers, and directors horizons converge: If Argentina makes a good administration of resources, I think there will be opportunities for these youths, for others, and for ourselves, for our children. I have children myself, and I’m waiting for our country to change. For these groups, the global space is not virtually available either. Only 40% of them have even occasional access to information technology. Their TV consumption pattern has a Latin feel to it, combining national series with football and Latin American soap operas. Media is then for them to consume, not for them to create a better world. The degree of mobility, freedom to choose life path/s, and the chance to feel rewarded by obtaining actual jobs are components for a full life within the globalized context. They are also new differentiating factors for reproducing the old inequality experience.
Notes 1. Michael Mann defines infrastructural power as the institutional capacity in a central state, whether despotic or not, to penetrate in its territories and carry out decisions in the logistic area. Quoted by Cavarozzi op.cit. 2. We are referring to the research work “La nueva configuración de la discriminación educativa” (The new configuration of the educational descrimination) developing within the framework of the Education Area in FLACSO, funded by SECYT and directed by the author. The research used an intentional sample of 14 public and private schools at the intermediate/polimodal level in the city of Buenos Aires and in the Greater Buenos Aires area. The sample attempts to capture the heterogeneity of institutional profiles serving the different social sectors. It is difficult to establish frontiers among social sectors and to identify institutions receiving students from a specific social extraction. The greatest difficulty lies in identifying institutions serving middle sectors, because this is a moving group and thus evidences strong asymmetries with the attributes package that defines it. In the end, we created a sample with 14 secondary or “polimodal” schools (schools that works with several models) – four of which serve the high sectors, the same number serves low sectors and six serve middle sectors. This over-representation of middle sectors is because of the great significance this sector has regarding attendance to secondary schools and to typical mobility. Inside each of these categories we have included institutions which a priori evidenced a differentiated profile. For the highest sector of the population we included more traditional institutions, the religious or lay schools, and institutions offering a more business-like proposals. As regards schools for middle sectors, we included institutions serving the most educated population in the sector and having resources that allow them to charge a high fee, former national schools which traditionally served this sector and private religious schools which also are and were the choice for this group. Regarding low sectors, we focused on heterogeneity of situations, including institutions with a higher presence of marginal populations or those serving low income sectors but having a lower proportion of marginal populations. In this case, we chose both public and religious private schools. 3. Fernando Robles (1990) coined the idea of individuation in order to differentiate the historically specific form acquired by individuality in risk societies from the peripheral capitalism characterized by spread and overriding exclusion. The big difference between individualization and individuation is the insecurity of those living in the globalized periphery. They are exposed twice–once as determining an individual biography and in creating cognitive structures: self-confrontation of the individual with itself is deregulated and, at the same time, the search for others is compulsory and not elected. For example, family networks for childcare in the case of single mothers (or “closeness” relationships) are to be entitled to, and included in, some social benefit. See Robles (1990).
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References Barranco, D. (1990). Anarquismo, educación y costumbres en la Argentina de principios de siglo. Buenos Aires: Contrapunto. [Anarchism, education and customs in the Argentina in the beginning of the century]. Bauman, Z. (2000). Modernidad liquida. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press]. Bauman, Z. (2003). Trabajo, consumismo y nuevos pobres. Buenos Aires: Editorial Gedisa. [Work, consumerism and the new poor. Buckingham: Open University Press]. Beck, U. (2000). La democracia y sus enemigos. Barcelona: Paidos [Democracy without enemies. Cambridge: Polity Press]. Bertoni, A. (1996). Nacionalidad o cosmopolitismo. La cuestión de las escuelas de las colectividades extranjeras a fines del siglo XIX. Anuario del Instituto de Estudios Histórico Sociales, 11. Tandil. [Nationality or cosmopolitism. The question of schools for foreign collectivities by the end of century XIX]. Bourdieu, P. (2000). Poder, derecho y clases sociales. Bilbao: Desclée. [Power, rights and social classes]. Braslavsky, C. (1985). La discriminación educativa. Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila. [Educaitonal discrimination]. Castel, R. (1997). La metamorfosis de la cuestión social. Buenos Aires: Paidos. [The metamorphosis of the social question]. Cavarozzi, M. (1999). El modelo Latinoamericano: su crisis y la génesis de un espacio continental. [Title translation: The Latin American model: Its crisis and the genesis of a continental space.] In M. Garretón, América Latina: un espacio cultural en el mundo globalizado. (pp. 120–139). Bogotá: Convenio Andrés Bello. [Latin America: a cultural space in the globalized world]. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1998). El anti Edipo. Capitalismo y Esquizofrenia. Barcelona: Paidos. [AntiOedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Athlone]. Quoted in Z. Bauman (2000). Modernidad Liquida. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press]. Duschatzky, S. (1999). La escuela como frontera. Buenos Aires: Paidos. [School as frontier]. Dussel, I. (2003). Desigualdades sociales y desigualdades escolares en la Argentina de hoy. Buenos Aires: FLACSO (unpublished paper). [Social inequalities and scholastic inequalities in the Argentina of today]. Elias, N. (1990). La sociedad de los individuos: ensayos. Barcelona: Península. [The society of individuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell]. Ferrer, C. (2003). Modernización, técnica y política en el Gatica de Leonardo Fabio. [Modernization, technique and policy in Leonardo Fabio’s Gatica] In A. Birgin, & J. Trimboli Imágenes de los 90. (pp. 47–71) Buenos Aires: Cepa / Ed. del Zorzal. [Images from the 90s]. Foucault, M. (1981). Genealogy of power, Paper: “La Gubernamentalidad”. Lecture at the Coll`ege de France in January, 1978. Paris: Ediciones la Piqueta. [The Govern]. Habermas, J. (1991). Problemas de legitimación en el capitalismo tardío. Argentina: Amorrortu. [Legitimation crisis. London: Heinemann]. Morduchowicz, A. (Ed.) (1999). La educación privada en la Argentina Historia, regulaciones y asignación de recursos públicos. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires. (unpublished paper). [Private education in Argentina. History, regulations and allocation of public resources]. Poliak, N. (2004). Reconfiguraciones recientes en la escuela media: escuela y profesores en una geografía fragmentada. [Recent reconfigurations in middle school: school and teachers in a fragmented geography.] In G. Tiramonti (Org.), La trama de la desigualdad educativa. Mutaciones recientes en la escuela media. (pp. 147–192). Buenos Aires: Manantial. [The plot of educational inequality. Recent mutations in middle school]. Robles, F. (1990). Los sujetos y la cotidianeidad. Elementos para una microsociología de lo contemporáneo. Inclusión, exclusión y construcción de identidad. Santiago de Chile: Sociedad hoy. [The subjects and everyday life. Elements for a microsociology of the contemporary. Inclusion, exclusion and construction of identity]. Romero, L. A. (2003). La crisis Argentina. Una mirada al siglo XX. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. [The Argentinean crisis. A look to 20th century]. Sarlo, B. (2001). Ya nada será igual. Revista Punto de Vista, n.70, Buenos Aires, pp. 2–11. [Nothing will ever be the same].
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Sennett, R. (2000). La corrosión del carácter: las consecuencias personales del trabajo en el nuevo capitalismo. Barcelona: Anagrama. [The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York; London: Norton]. Suriano, J. (2001). Anarquistas, cultura y política libertaria en Buenos Aires 1890–1910. Buenos Aires: Manantial. [Anarchists, culture and libertarian politics in Buenos Aires 1890–1910]. Teran, O. (2002). La experiencia de la crisis. Revista Punto de Vista, n. 73, Buenos Aires, pp. 1–9. [The experience of crisis]. Tiramonti, G. (2003). La fragmentación educativa y los cambios en los factores de estratificación. Buenos Aires: FLACSO (unpublished paper). [The educative fragmentation and the changes in the stratification factors]. Torrado, S. (1998). Historia de la familia en la Argentina: 1870–2000. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires. (unpublished paper). [History of family in Argentina: 1870–2000]. Wirth, L. (1964). On cities and social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ziegler, S. (2004). La escolarización de las elites: un acercamiento a la socialización de los jóvenes de sectores favorecidos en la Argentina actual. [Schooling of the elites: An approach to the socialization of young people in high social sectors in present Argentina.]. In G. Tiramonti (Ed.), La trama de la desigualdad educativa. Mutaciones recientes de la escuela media. (pp. 73–99). Buenos Aires: Manantial. [The plot of educative inequality. Recent mutations in middle school].
40 URBAN EDUCATION IN NORTH AMERICA: SECTION EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION Michele Foster Claremont Graduate University, U.S.A.
In this introductory essay, I examine some of the uses and meanings of word urban in order to highlight the many contradictory uses of the term in general and specifically with reference to education. My analysis includes lexical items and phrases from the dictionary and other official sources, along with some disciplinary considerations of the term. This discussion will introduce and frame the seven chapters contained in the North American section of the Handbook on Urban Education. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word urban is an adjective whose definition is “in, relating to, or characteristic of a city or town: the urban population.” Entering the lexicon in the early seventeenth century, the word originated from Latin urbanus, from urbs, urb- “city.” By the middle of the same century, the word “urbane,” an adjective from the French urbain or Latin urbanus, describing a person, especially a man who was suave, courteous, and refined in manner became part of the lexicon. Both the origin and timing of these words’ entry into the lexicon suggests a positive connotation. It isn’t clear at what point the word urban began to take on a negative connotation. What is certain, however, is that by the early twentieth century, negative connotations associated with urban, exemplified in the euphemism inner city were widely accepted. Although defined as an area near the center of a city, especially one associated with social and economic problems, an older deteriorating central part of a city, especially when characterized by crowded, run-down low-income neighborhoods, with inadequate housing, and high levels of crime and unemployment, and inhabited by poor and disadvantaged people, often minority groups predominate, as used in the term inner-city schools (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000; Encarta World English Dictionary [North American Edition], 2006; Oxford American Dictionary, 1998; Random House, 2005; Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus, 2002), the spatial location is not fixed to a particular geographic location, a point to which I will return later in this introduction. Perhaps the negative connotation coincided with the entry of the large numbers of immigrants and African American migrants streaming into the cities of the US from 765 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 765–778. © 2007 Springer.
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the South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the attendant problems these migrations spawned, such as poor housing conditions, unhealthy sanitation problems, bad working conditions, crime, and substandard education (Anderson, 1923). What is beyond question is that by the time urban was linked with the word renewal in the phrase urban renewal, not only did the term mean the redevelopment of areas within a large city, it was associated with clearing out the slums. In some quarters, the term urban renewal was known as “Negro removal.”1 One of the acknowledged major influences on the concept of “urban” stemmed from the Chicago School that was developing its theories of urbanization and inscribing them into the scholarly canon around the same time that Chicago was growing rapidly largely because of migration and immigration. Even though some of its ideas have been challenged or called into question, the Chicago School continues to exert a major influence in contemporary urban sociology and several of its ideas still persist, coloring the public’s conception and understanding of urban life. Among the ideas that continue to influence urban sociology is the extent to which urbanization (Wirth, 1938) causes major social problems. Adopting an ecological approach to studying communities, scholars associated with the Chicago School developed a theory of social disorganization that they defined as the failure of social institutions such as families, schools, churches, political institutions, police and businesses in communities and neighborhoods coupled with deteriorating social relationships that promote cooperation between people. Social disorganization was thus defined as “the inability of a neighborhood to solve its problems together” suggesting a level of social pathology and personal disorganization. Applying these concepts to the African American community and measuring it against middle-class values, social scientists have argued that poverty and social disorganization, in particular marital disruption, destitution, and crime into which African Americans fell when they migrated to urban environments, contributed to the emergence of an underclass (Frazier, 1931, 1939). Although William Julius Wilson (1996, 1978) stresses the role economic conditions play in producing social disorganization more than previous theorists, his theories are ecologically based and fundamentally aligned with those of the Chicago School, where he was once a faculty member. Over the years, other academic disciplines have refashioned this theory. In the mid-60s, Oscar Lewis, an anthropologist, put forth his “culture of poverty” theory that asserted that the poor in modern capitalist societies developed a distinct culture and value system wrought from the social and psychological consequences of poverty and this distinct culture was intractable, and self-perpetuating, miring the poor in an underclass (Lewis, (1995 [1966]; 1959). Taken up by educational psychologists in the 1960s, postulated as the theory of cultural disadvantage or deficit, and circulated in educational circles since then, this theoretical perspective has had considerable staying power and is evident albeit in altered form in the work of many contemporary scholars (Deustch, 1967; Hernstein & Murray, 1994; Hess & Shipman, 1965; Jensen, 1969; Valencia, 1997). Now accepted as conventional wisdom, various permutations of social and personal disorganization are invoked by the press and repeated by ordinary citizens and public officials as well (Brimelow, 1996; Klinker & Smith, 1999, p. 163, 164; Huntington, 1996; Kotkin, 1993). Reminiscent of theories promoted during the period of scientific racism, they have sometimes been used to justify a policy of
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“benign neglect.” Thenhen as now, when analyzing the lack of progress of African Americans and other unassimilable groups of immigrants, some public officials have assigned greater weight to theories of cultural deficit and social pathology than to racism and structural barriers. And depending on the political mood, public officials have invoked these theories to justify cuts in funding for social programs or alternately to develop programs – such as Headstart, Upward Bound, Talent Search. Versions of this theory underpin Ruby Payne’s aha! Process, one of the most extensive and successful professional development programs for teachers, currently marketed to scores of school districts seeking to improve the achievement of African American, Latino and other students from poor and working class backgrounds. Over a million copies of Payne’s book A Framework for Understanding Poverty are in print. And, in the past year, district leaders, undoubtedly feeling the pressure of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and looking for solutions, paid Ms. Payne’s organization to put on slightly more than 1,000 workshops (Keller, 2006). Although Payne’s work has rankled some academics, many practitioners find that the workshops help them understand and work better with poor urban students. “It is the most powerful thing to me that you can give a teacher who has not really worked in an urban setting. It brings into focus the kids they are serving,” says Ms. Elder, a Black principal in Hamilton County, Tennessee who has used it with her teachers. Six years ago, her Chattanooga elementary school was one of the lowest performing in the State, but now her students, the majority Black, have shown the greatest improvement on state tests than any other school in Tennessee. While chronicles of urban sociology typically begin with the Chicago School, this accepted version overlooks the seminal work of W. E. B. DuBois, an African American scholar, whose 1899 book, The Philadelphia Negro, written 20 years earlier, was the first and one of the most comprehensive, rigorous, sophisticated studies of an urban Black community ever produced. The Philadelphia Negro was also among the most balanced works in terms of the emphasis placed on the problems internal to the Black community that would require its response, “the duty of Negroes” to solve and those external to the Black community, “the duty whites,” (pp. 394–395) that would need attention from the white community. DuBois argued that the problems facing Philadelphia’s Blacks were not because of their supposed racial proclivities, but stemmed from what he called “color prejudice,” the way they had been treated in the past and were still treated. In order to make this claim tangible, he provided categories of this treatment with several examples under each category (DuBois, 1899, pp. 385–397)2: … color prejudice in this city is something between these two extreme views: it is not to-day responsible for all, or perhaps the greater part of the Negro problems, or of the disabilities under which the race labors; on the other hand it is a far more powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize. The practical results of the attitude of most of the inhabitants of Philadelphia toward persons of Negro descent are as follows: … 2. As to keeping work: Whim and accident will cause him to lose a hardearned place more quickly than the same things would affect a white man.
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Being few in number compared with the whites the crime or carelessness of a few of his race is easily imputed to all, and the reputations of the good, industrious and reliable suffer thereby. … 4. As to his expenditure: He must pay more house-rent for worse houses than most white people pay … … 5. As to his children: The Negro finds it extremely difficult to rear children in such an atmosphere and not have them either cringing or impudent: if he impresses upon them patience with their lot, they may grow up satisfied with their condition; if he inspires them with ambition to rise, they may grow to despise their own people, hate the whites and become embittered with the world. His children are discriminated against, often in public schools. … 7. The result: Any one of these things happening now and then would not be remarkable or call for especial comment; but when one group of people suffer all these little differences of treatment and discriminations and insults continually, the result is either discouragement, or bitterness, or over-sensitiveness, or recklessness. And a people feeling thus cannot do their best. To be sure a colored man to-day can walk the street of Philadelphia without personal insult; he can go to theaters, parks and some places of amusement without meeting more than stares and discourtesy; he can be accommodated at most hotels and restaurants, although his treatment in some would not be pleasant. All this is a vast advance and augurs much for the future. And yet all that has been said of the remaining discrimination is but too true … . The Philadelphia Negro was written more than 100 years ago, yet many of the related issues are still in play. First, although more scholars of color hold faculty positions than during DuBois’s time, the tendency to ignore research that does not fit into the dominant paradigm and to dismiss and marginalize the scholarly work of faculty of color persists (Bernal & Villalpando, 2005; Foster, 1999, 2005). And, the problems that DuBois examined in 1899 hold sway American contemporary life. Take housing and education, for example. African American and Latinos have much lower levels of home ownership than whites, one in two compared to three out of four. Moreover, even though the percentages of African Americans and Latinos owning homes is higher than it was 38 years ago, the gap between whites and non-whites home ownership has actually increased. African Americans and Latinos are more likely to encounter discrimination in securing housing – renting and purchasing – including being steered away from certain areas and confronting lending practices that create barriers to home ownership. African Americans and Latinos are twice as likely as similarly qualified whites to be offered higher cost loans or rejected for mortgages than whites. And African Americans are far less likely than other persons of color to live in integrated neighborhoods. One result is that the median home equity of whites is 51% higher than that of Latinos and 33% higher than that of African Americans. African Americans and Latinos are still more likely to attend schools that are under-funded, lacking both in material and human resources, are more likely not to be placed in AP classes, assigned to special education and less likely to graduate. Indirectly, the North American section of the Handbook addresses the tendency to devalue and marginalize the work of scholars of color. Not only is the work of scholars
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of color well represented, taken up, considered, and examined,in all of the chapters, but more than half (8) of the 17 authors are scholars of color. The first two chapters of this section of the Handbook take up the issues of definition, and examine how different theoretical perspectives are advanced to explain educational problems in urban areas in North America and the particular solutions these perspectives engender. In “Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling” Leonardo and Hunter explore some of the multiple and contradictory meanings, representations, perceptions of “urban.” Specifically, they examine three meanings of urban: as urbane that is as cosmopolitan, cultured, stylish, and refined spaces3; as authentic spaces where, by developing their own social and symbolic forms, communities of color have forged collective identities and accumulated the capacity required to resist subordination4; and as a “jungle,” a space where pathology, community, social, and personal disorganization are normative. In the second chapter, “Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting: How Causal Explanations Shape Urban Educational Research and Practice,” Flessa and Ketelle, analyze four of the most common explanations for the failure of urban schools and illustrate how these perspectives “generate alternate and often contradictory solutions.” They contend that the explanations and corresponding solutions emphasize remedies that are either external to the school and therefore not ameliorable by the actors themselves or internal to the schools and entirely rectified by the actors. Like the first chapter, this one emphasizes the intricacies, reminding us that complex situations require multi-pronged solutions and that to solve them we must heed Mencken’s warning, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem that is simple, neat, and wrong” (Mencken, 1917, p. 158). As noted earlier, some of the ideas formulated by scholars of the Chicago School have not been as stable. One in particular – the development pattern that all major cities were expected to take – originally advanced by Burgess, has been challenged. Burgess hypothesized zones of concentric circles with the business quarter located in the center, the slums, also known as transition areas, abutting the central area, worker’s homes built further from the center, residential areas established in the next zone and the middle-class sections built furthest away from the business core (Burgess, 1964, 1967; Suttles, 1968; Wirth, 1928; Zorbaugh, 1929). Not only have recent patterns of development in cities and surrounding suburbs revealed flaws in this theory, recent scholarship points out that even when the theory was first proposed, there were numerous cases where the pattern did not align with the theory (Wiese, 2004). Conventional images of suburbs are of communities composed primarily of middle-class inhabitants in which African Americans have made their homes only recently. These stereotypes, notwithstanding, the historical and sociological record indicates that African Americans have lived in suburban communities since the late nineteenth century. Prior to World War II African Americans were living in suburban enclaves in all regions of the country, a phenomenon more prevalent in the south (Wiese, 2004). A segment of African Americans who migrated to northern and western regions of the country after World War II also settled in suburban communities. Waves of gentrification have pushed greater numbers of people of color into outlying neighborhoods or suburbs ringing the city. This situation of people of color living outside of the central zone is similar to the pattern in some European cities, France for example, where the inner city is where the
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most affluent people live and the outlying areas, the “banlieues,” are associated with crime and poverty. In October 2005, young people in a Paris banlieue clashed with police. Lasting approximately three weeks, the unrest spread to other cities throughout France. In four states, Texas (50.2%), California (56%), Hawaii (77%), and New Mexico (57%),together with the District of Columbia (70%), people of color make up the majority of the population. In five other states – Maryland, Georgia, New York, and Arizona – people of color comprise more than 40% of the population. Patterns of diversity, however, vary by region, state, and county. Large populations of Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders are found in western and southwestern states, counties, and cities, whereas African Americans tend to be located in eastern, southern and Midwestern states, counties and cities. In absolute numbers, California has the largest Latino population, the largest numerical increase in population, the largest population and greatest growth in Los Angeles, while New Mexico has the greatest percentage of Latinos.5 California and Los Angeles County also have the largest population, the largest numerical increase of Asian Americans with Hawaii the state where Asians make up the greatest percentage.6 Large numbers of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside in California with the largest increase in Arizona and the largest percentage in Alaska. Hawaii is home to the largest number and percentage of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders with California and Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) showing the greatest growth.7 Of the states, New York had the largest African American population, Florida the greatest numerical increase with the largest percentage of African Americans living in the District of Columbia. At the county level, Cook County, Illinois had the largest population of African Americans with the greatest growth in Broward County, Florida.8 Non-European immigrants gravitate to states that already have large populations of people of color, seven states in particular, California, New York, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois. However, migration patterns are also in flux with the result that more immigrants are settling in communities and states that were not typically the recipient of large numbers of immigrant families and children. Between 1990 and 2000 there was an increase of 54.7% in the percentage of the population born outside of the United States with many of the largest increases occurring in states that had not previously had large numbers of residents born outside of the United States. Southern states and mid-western states have experienced significant increases in the number of residents born in other countries. North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Alabama had increases of between 273.7 and 95.8%, the largest increase in North Carolina where the immigrant population has almost tripled since 1990. With increases of between 121.7 and 97.9%, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Idaho, Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma have also received significantly larger shares of immigrants moving to the region. Because they serve as entry points to the United States for immigrants and also because large numbers of people relocate there from other US regions, some cities, like Miami, not only are comprised primarily by people of color, they are cultural mosaics. Heavily influenced by people from Latin American and the Caribbean, Miami’s racial makeup of the city was 66.6% White, 22% African American, 22.3% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.7% Pacific Islander, 5.4% from other races, and 4.7%
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from two or more races. Almost 69.5% of the population are Latino of any race and 12% of the population are non-Hispanic whites. The ethnic makeup of the city is 34.1% Cuban, 22.3% African American, 5.6% Nicaraguan, 5.0% Haitian, and 3.3% Honduran. Slightly more than 74% (74.6) of the population over five speaks a language other than English at home. Canada has also experienced a change in the ethnic backgrounds of those who have immigrated since 1990 with more people from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America. The proportion of what Canada terms “visible minorities” increased substantially between 1981 and 2001. In 1981, the percentage of visible minorities in Canada overall was 5%, in Toronto 13%. By 2001, the percentage of visible minorities in Canada overall was 12%, the largest at 42.8% in the city of Toronto, with the largest groups being South Asians, Chinese, and Blacks (Canada Year Book, 2001). In 2004, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranked Miami first in terms of percentage of residents born outside of the country where it is located (59.5%), followed by Toronto (43%). The second part of this section of the Handbook examines the experiences of children of color in North American communities and schools. The first chapter by Lisa Konczal presents a comprehensive demographic section describing immigrant settlement patterns in both the United States and Canada and several case studies that deal with Chinese immigrants in Canada, Mexican immigrants in California; and both Haitian and Cuban immigrants in Miami. In the second chapter, James and Saul explore the experiences of students of color who reside in Toronto’s suburbs. Comparing the inner and outer ring suburbs the authors examine the social, cultural, and economic conditions under which students live, their experiences in school, and the contrasting challenges students confront in negotiating these suburban spaces.9 Another approach to getting at the meaning of urban is one that considers the relationship between a geographical area and population density. The US Census Bureau (2005) defines an urban area as: “Core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile (386 per square kilometer) and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile (193 per square kilometer).” Simply put, an urban area is a geographical area that is densely populated in comparison to areas around. The US Census Bureau has created two different categories of urban geographical areas. Urbanized areas, first delineated in the 1950 census, are geographical areas of 50,000 or more. Urban clusters, consisting of geographical areas of under 50,000 were not added until 50 years later. The US Census Bureaus lists 1,371 geographical areas – urbanized area or urban clusters with populations greater than 10,000 people.10 In North America, there are 13 cities with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants; nine located in the United States – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, Dallas, four in Canada – the largest Toronto, in Ontario, followed by Montreal in Quebec, Vancouver in British Columbia, and Ottawa in Ontario.11 In some instances large cities also have large urban school districts, but this is not always the case because in many cases the city and school district are not co-terminus with the result that the city can be large, but composed of several school districts as the case with Phoenix or Atlanta that contains several school districts. Conversely, the city may not be one of the
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largest, but part of a county school district as Charlotte, that is part of the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District. With a population of almost one and half million, Phoenix is the sixth largest US city, but the city contains at least three school districts ranked between 224 and 244 in size that each contains fewer than 30,000 students. With fewer than 500,000 residents, Atlanta ranks 42nd in population, but its two school districts, Fulton County and Atlanta City rank 49th and 67th, respectively. With 758,927 inhabitants in 2000, Charlotte ranks 47th in terms of population, but as part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County School District, it ranks 25th in size, a larger school district than Austin, 16th in terms of population, but 38th in size of its school district. Organizations and governmental units offer other useful ways of defining urban. By way of example, The Council of Great City Schools (CGSC) is an organization of 66 of the largest schools US districts. To be eligible for membership school districts need not be exceptionally large, but must be located in a city with a population of over 250,000 and with student enrollment of over 35,000. According to the CGSC, school districts with general urban characteristics located in the largest city of any state are also eligible for membership regardless of size. Because it is a member organization, not all of the eligible school systems are members. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Richmond, VA, Oklahoma City and Tucson, AZ are members, but Fulton County in Atlanta, GA, Virginia Beach, VA, Tulsa, OK and no school district in Phoenix belong even though they are all eligible. Employing the CGSC definition of urban, however, leaves out several districts that have urban characteristics, but don’t qualify mainly because of size. The West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), 152nd in size, located in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area that includes the City of Richmond and several smaller surrounding incorporated and unincorporated communities is a case in point.12 According to 2002 census data, the City of Richmond has a diverse population of approximately 103,000 residents and 34,000 students in the WCCUSD.13 Although some of the communities served by WCCUSD are mostly middle-class, others are more heterogeneous in terms of social class while others are beset by many problems that are extant in large urban communities. In 2005, Richmond surpassed Compton statistically as the most dangerous city in the California. Approximately 16% of the population and 13% of families were below the poverty line with 23.1% of those under the age of 18 living below the poverty line. Of the approximately 34,000 students enrolled in grades K-12 in WCCUSD, 36% are Latino, 29% African American, 11% Asian, 15% Caucasian, and 10% other. Fifteen percent are enrolled in Special Education, 2% are homeless and 29% English Language Learners. Given this community and school district profile, it isn’t surprising that the overall achievement of WCCUSD students is poor. Another case to consider is Madison, Wisconsin. The state capital and home to one the nation’s most prestigious public universities, Madison with a population of 329,533 it is the 95th largest urban area. With approximately 25,000 students, Madison’s school district ranks 242nd in terms of size. As a progressive university, Madison is not beset by the same problems as Richmond, CA. Indeed, Madison has what is considered to be one of the best school systems in Wisconsin. However, although it is considered among the best in the state, like school districts in many other liberal communities or progressive college towns, as far as academic outcomes are concerned, it fails many of its students of color.
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In a number of politically progressive multiracial communities, some located in college towns that boast of having an excellent school system, compared to other students in the district African American students are underachieving, a problem many believe is found only in urban schools where children are poor and often attend under-resourced schools. The problem is widespread enough that several school districts have organized themselves into a group called the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN) to address this situation and to try to find and share solutions to reverse this pattern.14 This phenomenon, the pattern of underachieving African American students, is more widespread than in communities that belong to the MSAN. A headline of an April 14, 2006 Washington Post article reads, “Fairfax Success Masks Gap for Black Students.” The gist of the article was that Fairfax County School – incidentally one of the most respected school districts in the country, its quality long known to draw families, a community where nearly 90% of public school students go on to college or other postsecondary education, a district with some of the highest SAT score in the United States, 8.7% above the national average – was failing its African American students. Not only was there an achievement gap between Fairfax County’s African American and white students. But African American students in Fairfax County scored lower on state standardized tests than African American students in Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia both majority Black school systems as well as other comparatively poorer Virginia districts.15 Moreover, although the relative poverty of African American students residing in Fairfax is used to justify this pattern of underachievement, the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch in Fairfax County is 43%, doesn’t explain why Fairfax County’s African American students score lower than Richmond’s which have a free and reduced lunch rate of 69%. Another method of classifying school districts as urban emanates from the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in the Abbott Case that found that the education provided to urban school children was inadequate and unconstitutional. The court limited the remedies16 to a class of school districts identified as “poorer urban districts” or “special needs districts,” known as “Abbott districts,” with specific factors used to determine which districts were eligible for this status. These criteria included: (1) Being classified as urban by the Department of Education; (2) Having the lowest socioeconomic status, as measured by the categories on the New Jersey Department of Education’s District Factor Groups (DFG) scale; (3) Showing “evidence of substantive failure of thorough and efficient education”; including “failure to achieve what the DOE considers passing levels of performance on the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA)”; (4) Having a large percentage of disadvantaged students who need “an education beyond the norm”; (5) Having an “excessive tax [for] municipal services” in the locality where the district is located; and (6) Having a large percentage of students of color. Using these criteria, 28 districts were originally classified as Abbott districts, which later, rose to 30.17
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Whether any of these definitions are useful for distinguishing among various kinds of schools, there are some who believe that urban schools have particular characteristics that distinguish them from other schools. In her book, Urban Teaching: The Essentials, Weiner lists some of the characteristics she believes distinguish urban schools from others. She maintains that urban schools are those marked by three factors. First, these schools are part of large school systems, with large impersonal bureaucracies that are removed from the communities they serve. Second, the schools are also poorly funded, overcrowded, and lack the necessary material, human and time resources required to do a competent job. Finally, these schools are responsible for educating a group of very diverse students from many ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Weiner notes that since the extent and configuration of these three factors varies, schools differ in the degree of “urbanness” with which they must contend. It is this variation, according to Weiner, that explains the fact that some public schools in large bureaucratic school systems such as New York function much more like suburban schools. Assuming that Weiner is correct, this might partially explain why the school systems that participate in the Minority Student Achievement Network are not adequately providing African American and Latino students with an education comparable to that provided the majority white student population. Perhaps the problem in Madison, Wisconsin, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Fairfax County and Shaker Heights is not the large bureaucratic system and lack of resources, as much as the school system’s inability to teach students from widely varying backgrounds well, the disconnection of these suburban-like schools from the communities of color they serve, and the lack of trust among the various constituencies that must work together to insure that the practices undertaken in schools actually lead to improved academic achievement. In their recent widely acclaimed book, Trust in Schools: A core resource for improvement, Bryk and Schneider (2002) examine the issue of trust in schools and ask the question how public schools can overcome the lack of confidence, cynicism, and suspicion extant in many poor urban school and manifested in the day-to-day interactions between parents and the schools. In a multi-year study that included periodic surveys of teachers and principals conducted in the 1990s, Bryk and Schneider set out to measure levels of trust at Chicago-area elementary schools. What they learned was that educators working at the schools in the top quartile reported much higher degrees of trust than their colleagues at lower performing schools. Schools with low levels of trust had a one-in-seven chance of improving student achievement in reading and math, while schools with higher levels of trust had a one-in-two chance of improvement. Bryk and Schneider argue that trust is a necessary but insufficient condition to improving schools because it lessens feelings of vulnerability, increases the likelihood of experimenting with new practices, promotes accountability and a shared attachment to the school and its vision. Despite the attention Bryk and Schneider’s work has received, they are not the first or the only scholars to discuss the importance of trusting relationships to improving schools and student achievement. In 1989, 13 years before Bryk and Schneider’s book, the Committee on Policy for Racial Justice at the Joint Center for Political Studies, a Washington DC think tank that conducts research on a broad range of public policy issues of special concern to African Americans and other communities of color, wrote a
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slim volume entitled Visions of a Better Way: A Black Appraisal of Public Schooling. Likewise, several other scholars and many scholars of color have also addressed the critical issue of trust between teacher and student as vital to improved student achievement. The next set of papers engages and expands many of the issues just discussed. In a chapter entitled Urban School Reform: To What End? Lytle reviews 50 years of urban school reform efforts that have culminated in the current No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation that emphasizes standards, high stakes assessment, sanctions for poor performance, competition, required use of research-based strategies and methods. His chapter establishes that these were all part of the urban school reform agenda before the actual passage of NCLB. In the next chapter, Success Stories in Urban Education: A Critical Look at the Ethic of Care in Programs, Projects and Strategies that work from the classroom to community, Peele-Eady and her co-authors argue that the most successful program for urban students are those where learning settings organized to be culturally and personally relevant in which trusting relationships with caring adults are crucial, and a caring ideology that purposefully supports students’ view of themselves as capable, valuable, and contributing members of the learning environment. These programs emphasize teaching and learning and provide students with the material and human resources they need to be successful. In the last chapter, A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation, Hopson and his co-authors build on the theme of respect and argue for an approach to evaluation that is culturally respectful and responsive. Echoing themes in the first two chapters, this vision of evaluation rejects punishing and grading schools instead embracing approaches that will enable schools to become centers of excellence that engender hope, opportunity, and transformation. In reading these chapters, it is critical to be mindful not only of the promise of urban education but of its limitations, unless hard policy decisions are made to insure its viability and success. If anything threatens urban education it is continuing the long-term neglect it has suffered, the danger of forgetting that education is intrinsically a social enterprise. Even when they adopt a pessimistic tone, taken together, these chapters remain cautiously optimistic.
Notes 1. In the 1960s, my grandfather always used to refer to urban removal as “Negro removal.” Although I heard others in the African American community use this term as well, I never saw this term in print until I encountered the book, Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century, by Andrew Wiese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). On page 107, Wiese writes that the abuses or urban removal as “Negro removal” have been well documented in cities, but not as well documented in suburbs even though it also occurred in the suburbs. In support of his claim, he cites 3 authors, 2 who have written about the process in cities and 1 who has documented the process in the suburbs. The 2 authors who have documented this process in cities include Mathew Edel, “Planning, Market or Warfare: Recent Land Use Conflict in American Cities,” in Readings in Urban Economics, ed. Mathew Edel and Jerome Rothenberg (New York, 1972); also Marc A. Weiss, “The Origins and Legacy of Urban Renewal,” in Federal Housing Policy and Programs, Past and Present, ed. J. Paul Mitchell (New Brunswick, NJ, 1985), 253–76. 2. DuBois provided six categories of Black’s experience with “color prejudice” and a seventh category describing the result These included (1) As to getting work; (2) As to keeping work; (3) As to entering new lines of work; (4) As to his expenditure; (5) As to his children; (6) As to social intercourse; (7) The result.
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3. Urban can refer to the greater availability of cultural resources (such as art, theatre, events, etc.) as compared to suburban or rural areas. 4. In North America “urban” is often used to refer to hip hop culture or subsets of black culture. In Black Metropolis Drake and Cayton ([1945], 1993) have described the evolution of the Negro community in Chicago as a growing population that gradually developed a business and professional class and its own community institutions. In the 1880s Negroes had ethnic dualism regarding themselves as part of a larger community and maintaining connection with those in power. After 1900 Negroes lost their sense of interrelatedness between black and white Chicago and put an emphasis on self-reliance and development of power within the Negro community. 5. Hispanics (may be of any race) – California had the largest Hispanic population in July 2004 (12.4 million) and the largest numerical increase (351,000) since July 2003; New Mexico was the state where Hispanics comprised the highest proportion of the total population (43%). Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest Hispanic population (4.6 million) in 2004 and the biggest numerical increase (76,400) since July 2003 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002). 6. Asians – California had both the largest Asian population (4.8 million) in July 2004 and the largest numerical increase (123,000) since July 2003; Hawaii was the state where Asians made up the highest proportion of the total population (58%). Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest Asian population (1.4 million) and the largest numerical increase (25,200) from 2003 to 2004 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002). 7. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (NHPI) – Hawaii had the largest population of NHPI (279,700); California, the largest numerical increase (3,400) since July 2003; Hawaii also was where NHPI made up the largest proportion (22%) of the total population. Honolulu County, Hawaii, had the largest population of NHPI (183,200); and Clark County, Nev., registered the largest numerical increase (1,100) between 2003 and 2004 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002). 8. Blacks – New York had the largest black population in July 2004 (3.5 million); Florida had the largest numerical increase (85,900) since July 2003. The District of Columbia was where blacks comprised the highest proportion of the total population (59%) (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002). Cook County, Ill., had the largest black population (1.4 million); and Broward County, FL, had the largest numerical increase (17,900) between 2003 and 2004. 9. In 1998, Toronto amalgamated and incorporated many former municipalities into the City. Some are inner suburbs – older areas, former street car suburbs that are highly ethnically diverse with housing stock that is made up of pre-war single-family houses and post-war high-rises consisting of low and government subsidized housing. Others are outer ring suburbs, appear much more suburban in character with a preponderance of single-family two-car garage residences comprising the housing stock. 10. Of the 1,371 areas designated either as urban areas or urban clusters, 453 of them are urban areas with the rest classified as urban clusters. 11. The nine US cities with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants in order of size include: New York (8,104,079), Los Angeles (3,845,541), Chicago (2,862,244), Houston (2,012,626), Philadelphia (1,470,151), Phoenix (1,418,041), San Diego (1,263,756), San Antonio (1,236,249) and Dallas (1,210,393). The four Canadian cities with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants include: Toronto (4,263,000), Montréal (3, 327,000) Vancouver (1,832,000) and Ottawa (1,010,000). The remaining 41 largest US cities range in population between approximately 904,000 and 359,000. 12. In addition to the City of Richmond, WCCUSD serves the cities of Hercules, Pinole, El Cerrito, and San Pablo, and the unincorporated areas of El Sobrante, Kensington, Montalvin, North Richmond, and Tara Hills. Eighty languages are represented in the 110 square mile district. 13. The racial makeup of Richmond was 31.36% White, 36.06% African American, 0.64% Native American, 12.29% Asian, 0.50% Pacific Islander, 13.86% from other races, and 5.27% from two or more races. 26.53% of the population were Latinos of any race. 14. Twenty-five school districts comprise the coalition. College towns such as Amherst, MA, Cambridge, MA, Madison, WI Ann Arbor, MI, Evanston, IL Berkeley, CA, Champaign, IL, Eugene, OR, Columbia, MO, Princeton, NJ and Chapel Hill, NC, as well as other towns such as Brookline, MA, Oak Park, IL, Arlington, VA, Montclair, NJ, Cherry Hill, NJ, Windsor, CT and Shaker Heights, OH participate in the MSAN. 15. In Fairfax County, 59% of African American students passed the state reading test compared to 74% in Richmond and 71% in Norfolk. In math Fairfax County’s African American students performed better with a 75% pass rate. However, by comparison 86% of their peers in Richmond and 82% in Norfolk passed.
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16. Under the court decision, the State was to assure that children residing in Abbott districts received an adequate – and constitutional – education. The remedy encompassed a set of programs and reforms that included standards-based education, parity funding; supplemental programs; preschool education; and school facilities improvements. 17. The following school districts are currently identified as Abbott Districts Asbury Park, Bridgeton, Burlington City, Camden, East Orange, Elizabeth, Garfield, Gloucester City, Harrison, Hoboken, Irvington, Jersey City, Keansburg, Long Branch, Millville, Neptune Township, New Brunswick, Newark, Orange, Passaic, Paterson, Pemberton Township, Perth Amboy, Phillipsburg, Plainfield, Pleasantville, Trenton, Union City, Vineland, West New York.
References Anderson, N., & Council of Social Agencies of Chicago. (1923). The Hobo: The sociology of the homeless man. Chicago: Council of Social Agencies of Chicago. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). (2000). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Bernal, D., & Villalpando, O. (2005). An apartheid of knowledge in academia: The struggle over the “legitimate” knowledge of faculty of color. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Critical pedagogy and race (pp. 185–204). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Brimelow, P. (1996). Alien nation: Common sense about America’s immigration disaster. New York: Haper. Bryk, A., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage. Burgess, E., & Bogue, D. J. (Eds.). (1964). Contributions to urban sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Burgess, E., & Bogue, D. J. (Eds.). (1967). Urban sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Canada Year Book. (2001). (Canada e-Book) (catalogue no. 11-404-XIE) Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved on March 13, 2001, from http://142.206.72.67/02/02a/02a_006_e.htm#t01 Committee on Policy for Racial Justice. (1989). Visions of a better way: A black appraisal of public schooling. Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political Studies. Deustch, M. (1967). The disadvantaged child: Selected papers of Martin Deustch and Associates. New York: Basic Books. Drake, St. Clair, & Cayton, H. R. (1993[1945]). Black metropolis: A study of Negro life in a northern city. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. DuBois, W. E. B. (1899). The Philadelphia Negro. (Chapter XVIII, pp. 385–397). New York: Lippincott. Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition]. (2006) Microsoft Corporation. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Foster, M. (1999). Race, class, and gender in educational research: Mapping the political terrain. Educational Policy, 13(1), 77–85. Foster, M. (2005). Race, class, and gender in education research: Surveying the political terrain. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Critical Pedagogy and Race. Australia: Blackwell. Frazier, E. F. (1931). The Negro family in Chicago. Revised and abridged edition, 1967. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Frazier, E. F. (1939). The Negro family in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hernstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve. New York: The Free Press. Hess, R. D., & Shipman, V. C. (1965). Early experience and the socialization of cognitive modes in children. Child Development 36(4), 869–886. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilization and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon and Shuster. Jensen, A. R. (1969). How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement. Harvard Educational Review, 39(1), 1–123. Keller, B. (2006). Payne’s pursuit: A former teacher with a message on educating children from poor backgrounds is influencing school leaders anxious to close the achievement gap. Education Week. May 3. Klinkner, P. A., & Smith, R. M. (1999). The unsteady march toward racial equality. In H. Foreman, Jr. (Ed.), The African American predicament (pp. 154–174). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
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Kotkin, J. (1993). How race, religion, identity determine success in the new global economy. New York: Random House. Lewis, O. (1959). Five families: Mexican case studies in the culture of poverty. New York: Basic Books. Lewis, O. (1995 [1966]). The culture of poverty. In G. Gmelch, & W. Zenner (Eds.), Urban life (pp. 393–403). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Mencken, H. L. (1917). The divine afflatus. New York Evening Mail November 16. Oxford American Dictionary. (1998). Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers. Population by selected ethnic origins (Toronto). Statistics Canada. Census of Population. Available at http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo27k.htm [accessed May 15, 2006]. Random House Unabridged Dictionary. (2005). Random House Reference 2 Revised edition. Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus retrieved on may 15, 2006, from http://www.wordsmyth.net/live/home. php?script=search&matchent=urban&matchtype=exact Suttles, G. D. (1968). The social order of the slum: Ethnicity and territory in the inner city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. U.S. Census Bureau Fact Sheet. (2002). http://factfinder.census.gov/ U.S. Census Bureau News. (2005). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce. August 11. Valencia, R. (Ed.). (1997). The evolution of deficit thinking. London: Falmer. Weiner, L. (1999). Urban teaching: The essentials. New York: Teachers College Press. Wiese, A. (2004). Places of their own: African American suburbanization in the twentieth century. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Wilson, W. J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wilson, W. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Knopf. Wirth, L. (1928). The Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wirth, L. (1938). Urbanism as a way of life: The city and contemporary civilization. American Journal of Sociology, 44, 1–24. Zorbaugh, H. W. (1929). The Gold Coast and the Slum: A sociological study of Chicago’s near north side. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
41 IMAGINING THE URBAN: THE POLITICS OF RACE, CLASS, AND SCHOOLING Zeus Leonardo* and Margaret Hunter† *University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.; † Mills College, U.S.A.
Introduction to the Dialectics of the Urban In the social sciences, there is no paucity of studies about the urban as a “real” place. To take a few examples, in Massey and Denton’s (1993) American Apartheid, the ghetto receives plenty of attention, as a historical process whereby Blacks suffer from Whites’ deliberate construction of housing segregation at the turn of the twentieth Century. In Anyon’s (1997) own analysis of the ghetto, she traces its origins in the political economy and the school systems it produces. Massey and Denton, and Anyon’s sociological accounts have helped scholars and educators understand the “urban” (particularly the ghetto)1 as a concrete place, whose racial and economic formation is material. In this essay, we discuss how “urban reality” is as much an imagined, in addition to a real, place (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). That is, the urban is socially and discursively constructed as a place, which is part of the dialectical creation of the urban as both a real and imagined space. The urban is real insofar as it is demarcated by zones, neighborhoods, and policies. However, it is imagined to the extent that it is replete with meaning, much of which contains contradictions as to exactly what the urban signifies. For instance, there are urban communities that are “positively” urban like the “Upper East Side” of Manhattan, New York, but not Harlem or the South Bronx; Santa Monica and West Hollywood, California but not Compton or Echo Park. In other words, in light of power relations, urban may signify the hallmark of civilization and the advances it offers, or a burden and problem of progress. The urban setting is a dialectical example of the process of modernization. For some people, it represents an outlet for entertainment and a venue for a sophisticated life, whereas for others the urban seems like an inescapable cul-de-sac of poverty and daily degradation. By examining the mediatized and dominant ways of representing the urban, we arrive at the “social imagineers” (Giroux, 1999) of the urban as both a blessing and a burden. However, this essay is not an urban planning paper, but a sociological analysis of daily life as it concerns the urban as an imagined and educative place. 779 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 779–802. © 2007 Springer.
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Thus, it hinges less on formal processes, like housing policies, and more on the informal process of meaning-making, of signifying the urban through a chain of images and discourses, which are themselves constitutive of the education one finds in urban settings. It is not a study of ideology as divorced from the material process (Leonardo, 2003). Rather, it is a search for a proper relation between ideology and material life, two processes that are dialectically linked instead of opposed. Last, it does not propose a spatial theory of the urban context, but a theory of the urban imagination. The discussion shares some affinities with Robin Kelley’s (1998) treatment of the social science wars over representing the ghetto through structural or cultural theories, both of which are tethered by the construction of the ghetto as home to a monolithic and debased underclass culture. Kelley favors a political engagement of the aesthetics of the ghetto, arguing that its music and daily lifestyles are a source of pleasure for its participants. To Kelley, the cultural wars have taken “playing dozens,” or hurling insults as a form of entertainment, to a whole new level that forgets its playfulness and only deploys insults at the urban and the people who live in it. We go a long way with Kelley but part from him in our emphasis on the structural, rather than aesthetical, aspects of the urban as these find their expression through contradictory meanings. This method has several advantages, including a nuanced look at racialized, commodified, and gendered meanings attached to the urban in popular and youth culture, and the social relations that both create and are created from such meanings. As an imagined space, the urban is constructed through multiple and often contradicting meanings. These meanings are sites of contestation as to what the urban signifies in people’s imagination. Consequently, the imagined aspect of the urban setting affects urban education because it socially and culturally constructs the people who live in it as well as their needs. Urban dwellers and their “nature” are not a given and must be mediated through systems of meaning, competing discourses, and ideologies. We find that the urban has been constructed in three powerful ways: as a sophisticated space, an authentic place of identity, and a disorganized “jungle.” In order to avoid presenting the urban through a binary as essentially either a “positive” or “negative” place, we take a critical, dialectical position on the social meanings that constitute the urban for their traces of power relations, specifically with respect to race and class structures. In short, the four following sections problematize and critically examine the everyday meanings of the urban. In the first section, “The Sophisticated Urban Space,” we analyze the representation of the urban as a sophisticated space where modernism expresses its advances in civil society through art and culture. In this case, being urban is a sign of being modern, of civilization itself. It is a reminder of what Matthew Arnold once called the best that Culture in all its grandeur has to offer. In the second section, “Urban Space and the Politics of Authenticity,” we argue that urban (often ghetto) spaces are constructed as authentic places of identity for people of color. Both Whites and people of color construct the “essential” or “real” person of color as urban, usually born from the concrete activities and histories of the urban but also a form of style or the self-(re)presentation of minority youth one often finds in inner city schools. In the third section, simply titled “The Urban Jungle,” we analyze the popular cultural perception of the ghetto as a pathological place marked by a profound disorganization, criminal character, and moral malaise. In this most popular and durable
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representation of the ghetto, images of the underclass shine through the lens of the culture of poverty argument first launched by Oscar Lewis (1968), reincarnated by William Julius Wilson (1987), and appropriated by the educational system to address the “urban problem,” which goes by the common label of the “achievement gap.” This pejorative sounding section regarding the urban differs from the previous two sections that cast the urban as “positive.” Last, in “Social and Policy Implications for Education: Re-imagining the Urban,” we make initial connections between the urban imagination and educational policies targeting urban settings. We argue that daily constructions of the urban (particularly the poor or pejorative version) are consequential to the way educators imagine the kind of schooling appropriate for urban students. We end the essay by re-imagining the urban as a place of struggle over the very meaning of race and class in the context of the United States.
The Sophisticated Urban Space As part of modernization, the urban represents the advances achieved through technology (e.g., computer engineering and media), the complexity of metropolitan living (e.g., contrapuntal lifestyles and cultural hybridization), and confrontation with difference (e.g., immigration and ethno-racial mixing). In fact, to be “urbane” is literally defined as a positive thing, as in “to be sophisticated” or “refined.” Since the industrial revolution, the urban setting has been constructed as a place where the future meets the city, an idea that Voltaire was fond of and Rousseau despised. The urban represents the forward progress of civilization both in terms of material production for Karl Marx and cultural manners for Matthew Arnold. It was the way out of the constrictions of medieval social systems towards the opening up of the social universe as well as cultural universals. In short, homo urbano was the next development away from provincialism, which is a stone’s throw from primitivism. On this level, the urban defines the new social subject who is part of global development guided by the new civil society and the state institutions that Hegel once valorized. In short, being urban is a positive thing to be. However, when we consider that urbanization occurs in the context of power relations, contradictions begin to surface. For example with respect to diversity, being urban usually connotes supporting the “right amount” of ethnic and racial difference, but not too much. Often tokenism stands in for real integration in order to preserve a certain image of the urban as a controlled place of difference. Thus, during the Great Migration in the U.S. the exodus of Blacks from the South to Northern urban centers prompted Whites to contain them in ghettos, making integration all but a fantasy rather than a reality. In this instance, urban carried a double-edged meaning for Blacks who searched for better job opportunities only to find White labor resistance to their integration (Ignatiev, 1995; Roediger, 1991). Urban America became an opportunity structure for ethnic Whites, like the Irish, escaping religious and cultural persecution on their own land. By choosing to be members of the White racial imaginary, oppressed ethnic Europeans found their social promotion in the urban setting, edging out Blacks. In the latter’s perspective, civil society was everything but civil.
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In schools today, controlling for difference is sometimes exemplified in American colleges and universities’ desire to portray themselves as “diverse,” even if they aren’t, of using the term “urban” without the burden. In fact, this deception was exposed when the University of Wisconsin digitally inserted a Black male into one of its marketing photos so that the university could project a particular image of itself for the public; more important, it enabled the university to create the image it wanted of itself. In short, some universities and teacher education programs use the signifier “urban” to describe themselves in a way that seems diverse (and therefore sophisticated), without having to bear the burden of difference. In this case, appropriating diversity or urbanism is a way of marketing a school or program as “cutting edge,” as dealing with pluribus while only having to live with unum. Of course, the point is less about policing these universities and creating alibis out of particular campuses, and more about analyzing how the concept of “urban” is being constructed in order to deploy a particular image – better yet, deploying power for particular ends. In other words, the analysis hinges less on casting aspersions about a school’s desire for diversity and more on the contradictory meanings that result when it is invoked. Our point is that the increasing value of the signifier “urban” in education suggests that as the representation of diversity, urban people (read: students of color) are being recast in a “positive” light. Directly related to the meaning of urban, racial diversity is conscripted into a logic that co-opts it as a marker of cosmopolitanism, but with neither the reality nor the burden. Educators who deal with the urban are constructed as sophisticated, but the urban students and families themselves are not. Currently, American K-12 urban schooling promotes the importance of diversity, which is said to be good for education in general. In its authentic sense, diverse classrooms provide a setting where people from different backgrounds can debate an issue from various perspectives and in the process learn about their own uniqueness (Banks, 2002). This seemed to be the logic behind the University of Michigan Affirmative Action Supreme Court decision that supported racial considerations in admission processes as well as the rationale behind maintaining affirmative action in education in general. Rather than using the now problematic image of the melting pot, urban settings have become the meeting point of civilization. It holds the promise of unity and diversity. This does not come without challenges but it promotes the promise of intergenerational, interracial, and international relations that the new global citizenship offers in the urban setting. Because of the popular misconception that multiculturalism is a positive tool for students of color (see Glazer, 1997) or worse, as dividing the nation (Schlesinger, 1991), in urban settings the signifier “diverse” becomes a synonym for “students of color.” It happens frequently enough that teachers describe their school with a mostly Black or Latino student population as “diverse.” Often, they sincerely value such “diversity.” Of course, a predominantly black or brown school is not diverse, but its precise opposite, the hallmark of de facto segregated education. In this case, the meaning of urban becomes grafted onto bodies of color, making diversity, urban, and people of color coterminous with each other. Urban and multicultural schooling transform into an education for students of color; rarely do teachers describe an equally White suburban school as “diverse” or that multiculturalism or race-based pedagogies may
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enrich their educational and social experience. Whites seldom regard multicultural education as good for them, as a way to broaden their sense of civil society and expand their notion of humanity, that is, unless being “multicultural” makes them appear open, tolerant, and sophisticated. In contrast, many multiculturalists have argued that valuing diversity entails basic education for all students, including Whites (Banks, 2005; Nieto, 2003; Sleeter, 1995). When critical, it is a form of transformative education that allows both Whites and students of color to know more deeply their own histories as inflected by other groups’ struggles. This is urban sophistication in the inclusive sense, rather than the property of some and a problem for others. As part of being sophisticated, urban dwellers are often imagined as cosmopolitan, open-minded and perhaps most important, progressive. This was evidenced precisely in the 2004 U.S. presidential election when many New Yorkers and Los Angelenos (both from coastal Democratic-controlled states) blamed Bush’s victory on the Republican-controlled states in the middle of the country. This is reminiscent of the national problems of racism typically blamed on Midwesterners or Southerners, who pose as alibis for the country’s general and pervasive level of racism. In fact, coastal (including urban) California has been at the forefront of the recent onslaught of racist policies enacted against immigrants of color, such as Proposition 187 and 227, the former decreasing undocumented families’ medical and educational services and the latter attacking the legitimacy of bilingualism in schools and public places (which in California means Spanish). Despite this onslaught to discredit public schools, they are among the last institutions to leave the urban setting, watching the steady exodus of businesses and hospitals flee towards capital and more profitable spaces (Noguera, 1996). In other words, U.S. urban schools bear the burden of progress, of educating people’s children in the face of increased pressures for privatization. On the same note, the high profile police brutality cases against people of color have also been documented in urban Los Angeles and New York. We are not refuting the difference between Democratic and Republican strongholds. California and New York have two of the largest urban cities in the country and are obviously Democratic, especially when compared to other states. Although major urban settings may be racially problematic, people of color have felt a sense of protection by virtue of living in them because they recognize that difference is a fact of everyday life in these settings. In other words, people of color see their faces reflected in everyday life, even when these images are problematic. They are present and rarely silent. That said, the discourse during the 2004 presidential election forsakes a more accurate understanding of white supremacy that goes beyond the rural-imagined Klan and Neo-Nazis, and implicates even liberal urban Whites. That is, white supremacy is more about the centrality of white advantage from which urban Whites do not escape and often actively deploy (Leonardo, 2002). Each form of racism expresses its specific logic, traditional racism in rural settings and a more “sophisticated” color-blind racism or tokenism in urban centers. The urban has become a place for the White enjoyment of arts, music, and dining. In many cities, middle class Whites may drive their Chevy Suburbans into poor urban areas to valet park and attend the opera, symphony, or concerts but never have an “experience of color” despite being in a poor or black/brown area. For example, they may dislike Mexicans, resent them for “browning” California, and vote for Proposition 187,
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but they are avid lovers of their local Mexican restaurant and speak the occasional Spanish food phrase. Angelenos may feel comfortable with Mexicans who provide the bulk of cheap labor in the Southland, but curtail Mexican families’ access to social services and basic education. These dynamics are exacerbated in multiracial urban cities limiting access to high status knowledge and advanced courses in subjects like math and science (Oakes, Joseph, & Muir, 2004). In this sense, the meaning of urban becomes a site of consumption. Being urban is consumed for a given amount of time, enjoyed, and then forgotten until the next excursion. The urban resembles the colonies frequented by the colonists who never feel out of place, never not in charge (Memmi, 1965). Like the colonist who is numerically outnumbered in occupied areas, White and middle class people in the urban playground do not feel conspicuous for long. Using the colonial framework, the urban becomes an internal colony (Blauner, 1972; see also, Ladson-Billings, 1998), a cultural and material condition that links cities as diverse as Soweto and the South Bronx. These spaces are complete with a colonial-like educational system that treats the urban “natives” as something to be assimilated, civilized, and converted. Real urban dwellers (not to be confused with the stylized version of homo urbano) may not be constructed as sophisticated, but through proper education, it is believed they can become modernized. The urban is a heart of darkness for the internal colonist who enjoys it like Walter Benjamin’s flaneur, or dandy-about-town. In the popular show, “Sex and the City,” the White and well-to-do main cast lives the glamorous urban life that is Manhattan. As petite sophisticates, these four flaneuses treat the audience to adventure after adventure in their endless pit of a high-brow, but seductive lifestyle. Dressed to the hilt and as cosmopolitan as their drink, the protagonists are a perfect display of the urban sexual splendor at which even Freud may have blushed. Somehow, the show would not have been as powerful were it named “Sex and the Rural Town,” taking place in small town U.S.A. and premised on the sexual adventures of two farmers’ daughters, although this did not prevent Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie from trying. “Sex and the City” works precisely because of its urban allure, where exploits are part of the new feminism after the sexual revolution. It does a marvelous job at showcasing the urban crunch of time and space where meaningful relationships are equally as fleeting yet fulfilling. It shows the level of emotional sophistication necessary when one-night stands are reduced to thirty minutes. In the show, the sociology of sex hinges on the characters’ ability to emerge from the urban landscape emotionally vulnerable but rarely disheveled in their appearance. This is the urban-as-playground at its best and it takes an emotionally savvy, sophisticated viewer to appreciate its excesses. Arguably, New Orleans once posed as the southern urban playground. That is, until Hurricane Katrina hit. Previously, it was the site of a carnivalesque celebration of difference during Mardi Gras, where an intersubjective heteroglossia would have made someone like Bakhtin feel right at home. After Katrina, the urban carnival was abandoned and what was once a city by the sea became a city under it. In the dialectics of the urban, New Orleans could not have experienced a more stark reversal. Amidst fields of Black evacuees, the city was not only deemed a national disaster area, but abandoned by what many consider a neglectful president whose reaction was faster during the Asian tsunami that struck halfway across the globe. The disasters in New Orleans revealed the
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urban once again as a problem for the poor and Black. The event holds pedagogical lessons for students as they understand the burdens of being urban. First, with the help of the Associated Press students learn that White victims “find” food and drinks, whereas Blacks “loot” stores.2 Second, when the survivors trekked from New Orleans to Houston, Texas for shelter and aid, former first lady Barbara Bush commented that the relief efforts may create another problem insofar as the victims would want to remain in Houston due to the city’s hospitality. Inadvertently, students learn that displaced poor people cannot tell the difference between the comforts of their own home and the utter lack of decent conditions in the Texan holding centers, notwithstanding the diligent assistance from relief volunteers. Instead of seizing the opportunity to examine the social institutions that turned a natural disaster into a social one, Barbara Bush expressed her fears that the evacuees in Houston would overstay their time in Texas due to the city’s overwhelming hospitality. In short, she fears that the evacuees would turn the city of Houston into the wrong kind of urban, filled with poor Blacks who need help. Mrs. Bush unwittingly became a symbol for what Joyce King (2004a) calls “an uncritical habit of mind,” a certain “dysconsciousness” that prevents people from seeing the social order of things. Third, despite the ostensibly racial nature of the slow response, Black folks are again being told that, harking back to the Rodney King videos, they are not seeing what they think they see with their own eyes: that is, the response apparently was not racial here. In this instance, urban means Black and poor, and in the context of post-Civil Rights race discourse both are part of the life choices one makes. The whole saga prompted Reverend Jesse Jackson to proclaim that Americans have a high threshold for Black people’s suffering. It prodded the hip hop artist Kanye West to declare that President Bush does not care about Black people. Luckily with this last point, and appropriating from Spivak (1988), students also learn that the urban subaltern can speak, that they are able to “decipher knowledge” in King’s (2004b) sense (following Foucault) of the ability to critique regimes of knowledge and alter consciousness in search of an alternative explanation for social events.
Urban Space and the Politics of Authenticity Although Whites tend to imagine urban spaces as either sophisticated playgrounds or dirty, violent ghettos, some people of color offer another way of imagining the ghetto, as a home of authentic cultural practices. For many people of color, particularly Latinos, African Americans, and some Asians, urban spaces are home; that is where they grew up or live, where they return to visit family if they moved away, where they go for ethnic-specific groceries or for their own ethnic restaurants, where they get their hair done, or anything else. Because urban areas are home to so many people of color, both literally and figuratively, there is an abundance of images of urban areas as romantic, nurturing, accepting havens from a cold outside (read: suburban) world. Many Black movies and television shows portray poor urban neighborhoods as homey, familiar, nurturing environments, despite some of their dysfunctions or idiosyncrasies. These counter-narratives suggest that despite the poverty and occasional
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violence or street crime, urban neighborhoods provide a home to those who live there. These images are created in contrast to mainstream, White views of poor urban neighborhoods as dangerous, violent, mean, and uncaring (Guerrero, 1993). Whites also essentialize the ghetto as the place of “real” Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans largely because the mainstay of their interaction with racial minorities comes in the form of media consumption, of watching television shows and music videos about them, and listening to rap or hip-hop songs. As the “reality” television show, “Black. White.” points out very well, an archetype of the White urban imagination is that Blacks are a rap video, complete with the accompanying expectations that they should behave in such a manner. Without concrete, therefore varied, interactions with people of color, Whites project their ideal image of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians as essentially and one-dimensionally urban and espouse few counter, non-stereotypical images of them. In schools, this means that a largely White, female teacher population is illequipped to deal with urban students and their realities. In addition to being portrayed as a loving environment, poor urban neighborhoods are also imagined by some as the site of authentic cultural practices. The series of movies that include “Barbershop” and “Beauty Shop,” for instance, centers on the Black hair salon or Black barbershop. Both of these locations are uniquely Black and house not only cultural interactions about hair, but ways of talking, interacting, and relating to one another and the surrounding community in uniquely Black cultural ways. This series of movies and other contemporary Black movies answer the existential question, “What does it mean to be Black?” in problematic, yet predictable ways. For many African Americans and other ethnic groups, authentic identity originates in poor, segregated neighborhoods. Real Blacks reside there and they act, talk, and behave in legitimately Black ways. When they do not follow these prescriptions, their authenticity is questioned. This is ultimately what Fordham (1988, 1996) finds in her studies on “racelessness,” where Blacks who achieve in schools are perceived as “acting White” (read: not urban, not authentic). Authentic cultural practices are thought to abound in urban neighborhoods. For many Latinos, the ability to speak Spanish is crucial in urban areas where more recent immigrants are likely to be living (Lopez, 1997). Many people imagine that the food served in Mexican restaurants in East Los Angeles is more authentic than that sold in whiter parts of the city or the suburbs. Likewise, many Asians must travel to their own urban ethnic enclaves – sometimes also poor – to buy the grocery items that they need to cook the meals specific to their culture. This reality reinforces the notion that authentic language practices and food reside in urban spaces. Like Blacks, Latino students also face the challenges of essentialism when they do not speak Spanish and are branded as inauthentic, marginalized from the community, yet are not accepted because of a more general xenophobia in mainstream White culture (see Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, & Doucet, 2004). It creates a condition that Valenzuela (1999) calls “subtractive schooling,” which is another way of saying that education for Latino youth does not only fail to add to their school experience but actually takes away from their cultural way of being. Of course, it is possible that the brand of inauthenticity leveled against students of color involved with their own communities, is a coping mechanism cultivated by people of color who feel disempowered or are shut out from the culture of power.
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In order to assuage their own sense of marginalization, it is a power play they can hold over the heads of minority students who ascend to middle class status. For successful students, their claims to authenticity may reflect their internal struggles about achievement and maintaining a close tie with their communities. As part of Du Bois (1984) “talented tenth” and Steele’s (2004) “domain identified,” this ascending group of students face challenges within and without the group, not authentic enough for their own social group, not White enough for the mainstream. Both people of color and Whites tend to imagine urban spaces as more authentically “ethnic” or “racial” than suburban or rural spaces. Because we view urban spaces as more authentic (e.g., more truly Black, more Latino), being “from the ‘hood” takes on a particular status and meaning for many students of color. Being from the ‘hood is seen as a positive and “real” experience of blackness or brownness. In other words, it requires both race and class authenticity. For example, to be truly Black, the common perception is that one must be or have been from a poor, Black neighborhood (Johnson, 2003). Many Whites and people of color believe that exposure to the hardships of Black or Latino life is a prerequisite for an authentic ethno-racial identity. In mass culture, this dynamic can be seen in the figures of Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. Bryant, a basketball player who comes from an upper middle class upbringing, is said to lack “street cred(ibility)” (Rovell, 2005, http://espn.go.com/nba/s/2003/0707/1577650.html). He lacks a certain authenticity with both his Black and White fan base, many of whom are interpellated by an essentialist discourse on urbanness and Blackness. It is not hard to imagine that the criticism constructs Bryant as not of the ‘hood, something also leveled at another player, Grant Hill, who did not grow up in the ‘hood. However, the same cannot be said for Iverson, whose “bad boy” image and tough childhood earn him the brand of authenticity and credibility without much effort. Iverson’s Black Horatio Alger storyline is not only urban but thoroughly American. His case shows that it is also not enough simply to be from the ‘hood. One must be in regular contact with the ‘hood in order to avoid being seen by both people of color and Whites as a sell-out or as not really Black (or Brown or Asian in some cases). The question seems as much about “Who is urban?” as it is about “Who is Black?” The problem with imagining authenticity this way is that it locates “real blackness” or “real Chicanismo” in a particular set of experiences and social locations that are not part of U.S. public school culture. Schools are then defined as White places and “real” people of color become interlopers in their own neighborhood schools (Fordham, 1988; Ogbu, 1995). This is true to some extent. U.S. public schools value and inculcate White cultural practices, and consequently communicate to their students that “White is right.” Some schools, particularly charter schools, have made attempts to create culturally responsive curricula that value and engage the cultures of the student body (Gay, 2000). Notwithstanding the criticisms of charter schools as private schools in public sheep’s clothing, this has been one strategy to bridge the cultural divide between schools and the students of color from segregated urban neighborhoods and the educational system that alienates them from their home cultures. Urban neighborhoods typically represent authentic ethno-racial identities in part because much grassroots and community based organizing happens in them. Aside from the problems of urban areas, like drugs and violence, many community organizations
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exist there, in part to help alleviate some of those problems. For example, police brutality is a significant problem for young men of color in poor neighborhoods. Urban communities have reacted to this problem by creating grassroots organizations to raise awareness and pressure police departments to change their policies and investigate cases of police misconduct. The criminalization of youths of color happens in a euphemized form in schools where Black students are punished more harshly than their White counterparts for similar offenses (Parker & Stovall, 2005). This prompts a movement that links community based organizing to schools, making them sites for education and a more comprehensive urban reform beyond, but including, the schoolgrounds (Warren, 2005). For many suburbanites, the community organizations that do much of the work in sustaining and improving urban communities are outside of their purview. Because so many Whites and suburban residents have little or no contact with people of color or the poor (aside from their nannies and housekeepers) their knowledge of life in poor urban areas is obtained from local news and popular culture. The important role of local organizations for neighborhood peace, mentoring, affordable and fair housing, anti-gang efforts, and improved public education are largely unknown to people outside urban settings, but very familiar to those who reside there. For example, criticized for his anti-Semitism in the media, Minister Farrakhan’s role in urban community building rarely makes it on the news. Turned into a media spectacle, Reverend Al Sharpton’s community advocacy is eclipsed by his eccentricities. These two examples suggest that attempts at urban renewal often happen with little recognition or fanfare from people who essentialize it as authentically ethnic or racial but not as a places of community agency. The consequences of suburban and White ignorance of these community organizations are significant. Much of the public imagines people of color in urban areas as drains on the school system, lazy, helpless, and hopeless. Even when they are viewed sympathetically, which is not often, they are seen rather as passive victims of larger social inequalities, not agents or experts in their own lives. This image of urban residents portrays them utterly without power, creativity, perseverance, or intelligence to fight back against an unfair system. As a result, public policies that regulate the urban poor typically treat them as passive and childlike. This image in part comes from the public’s general ignorance of the substantial community organizing that happens in urban neighborhoods. People of color create organizations, creatively use meager resources, routinely lobby their elected representatives, and improve their communities. Even in the poorest neighborhoods, grassroots organizations exist to help alleviate the social and economic problems facing urban residents. These authentic community organizations are a key piece in the puzzle to improving life in urban neighborhoods and their schools.
The Urban “Jungle” Aside from the many ways we have discussed it thus far, representations of urban schooling most commonly evoke images of the urban as “jungle.” In this section, we discuss and problematize this representation in its larger context, including its racist
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overtones. In the “urban jungle” people imagine their city centers as teeming with Black, Brown, and Yellow bodies, which are poor and dirty, criminal and dangerous. Gangs, violence, and drugs are closely tied to any image of the urban for most people. Some of this is real. Certainly most urban areas deal with disproportionate amounts of violence, particularly among young men, and a drug economy that makes victims out of buyers, sellers, and everyone in between. Our task here is not to assess the veracity of this image, but to define the implications of this particular social imagination on the schooling experiences of young people in urban areas. Because so many people subscribe to the racist notion that urban areas are “jungles,” many Americans believe that spending money on urban schooling is a “waste.” Many people perceive children in urban areas as hopeless, going nowhere, unworthy, and without value or potential. In a word, they are “uneducable.” Consequently, allocating money to urban schools is routinely a fierce political battle. In White Racism, Feagin and Vera’s (1995) theory of racism as societal waste sheds light on this issue. They suggest that instead of thinking of resources spent on people of color as a “waste” we ought to realize that allowing all the potential and talent of people of color to go unused is true societal waste. Feagin and Vera argue that racism is a form of societal waste that the U.S. cannot afford. “What kind of things might we already have accomplished or invented had we developed all of our talent?” they ask. The problem is that many school board members, superintendents, state congressional representatives, and governors do not view racism as societal waste. Instead, in our color-blind era they are more inclined to see the victims of racism as a waste themselves, without talent, creativity, or intelligence to offer society. Perhaps even worse, many of our policy makers view children in urban areas as unworthy of the right to an education, and ultimately only useful for low wage labor or fueling the prison industrial complex (Davis, 2003; Piven & Cloward, 1993). Central to how many policymakers view students in urban areas is how they think the kids and their families got there to begin with. Are the poor deserving or undeserving of social aid? This question is the basis for these concerns. The long-standing culture of poverty debate in social science and public policy circles highlights the way that different constructions of the problem produce starkly different policy solutions. Social science researchers have arguably done as much harm as good to poor people by studying their communities. Several analysts (D’Souza, 1996; Murray, 1995; Sowell, 1995) construct behavior in ghettos and barrios as out of control, and that the people living there are pathological and culturally deviant from the mainstream. Even scholars who acknowledge the effect of institutional discrimination often fall prey to cultural explanations for ghetto persistence (Anderson, 1990; Massey & Denton, 1993; Wilson, 1987). Some of these researchers have argued that there is an “underclass culture” that encourages laziness, joblessness (read: welfare dependence), victimhood, lack of personal responsibility (thus the 1996 Welfare Reform Act), instant gratification (read: illegal activities), irresponsible sexual behavior, and a lack of family values (Murray, 1995). Some pundits, like D’Souza (1996), even go as far as arguing that it is the deviant culture of urban people that is the root of the structural problems social scientists have measured (unemployment, income gap, education gap, family structure, incarceration rates, etc.). Sometimes, this charge occurs from inside
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communities of color, as in the case of Bill Cosby’s speech in front of the NAACP’s celebration of Brown vs. Board’s 50th Anniversary, where he criticizes the parenting practices of poor and working class Black families. We will have more to say about this event in the last section below. The scholars and policy analysts who believe that the problem is largely cultural are likely to suggest “assimilation” efforts aimed at re-socializing the urban poor into the socalled mainstream. This means tying welfare benefits to “good behavior,” like getting married, as was done in 1994 in Wisconsin where the welfare reform program was often referred to as “Bridefare” (Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001). Another strategy from the culture side of the debate is aimed at re-socializing mothers into workers. Mothers are rewarded for their “good behavior” of working outside the home by receiving welfare benefits, now denied to those who do not leave their children in order to enter the workforce. This national policy, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, drastically reduced welfare benefits and required all people to work (even mothers of small children) in order to create a “culture of work.” This strategy has been punitive and paternalistic: change your ways or lose out on the resources of the country. It is also important to note how the family value of mothering is inverted for poor women and women of color. There is a strong cultural imperative, especially from conservative policy makers, for mothers to stay at home with their children. When poor women do this, however, they are seen as lazy, pathological, undermining a culture of work, and therefore ultimately harming their own children (Reese, 2005). Others disagree with the cultural analysis and favor a focus on structural explanations of ghetto and barrio conditions. Instead, to explain the educational and social disparity this set of scholars uses the language of institutional discrimination, inadequate educational opportunities, economic restructuring, a reduction of real wages for the poorest workers, inadequate medical care, and racial segregation (BonillaSilva, 2003; Brown et al., 2003; Feagin, 2001; Gans, 1996; Katz, 1990). The culture vs. structure debate is still important because the two different understandings of the problem lead to two starkly different assessments of whether the poor are deserving or undeserving, and what types of policies should be enacted to solve the problem. In this analysis, student readiness and home culture are not so much the determining factors as much as how the breakdown of neighborhood works against stable lives for young people, economic poverty means that basic material comforts are missing, and structural racism becomes a daily assault that students of color (particularly poor) must navigate and avoid despair while doing so. There are still a significant number of scholars and analysts who believe the problem of persistent poverty is largely institutional. They suggest structural solutions, such as improving public schools in poor neighborhoods, strengthening unions, requiring businesses to pay a living wage, reducing police brutality and abuse, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, and developing businesses and jobs in inner-city areas (Katz, 2002; Kozol, 1991; Nelson, 2001; Wilson, 1997). The culture of poverty debate has always centered primarily on people of color who are already U.S. citizens. The debates are typically about African American communities and sometimes about large Latino communities like Puerto Ricans in New York or Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. However, there is another very important and
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dominant image of urban neighborhoods – as foreign. Many people imagine urban areas as dirty, smelly, crowded immigrant enclaves where few people speak English and residents are hostile to Whites or outsiders. In this scenario, many view urban neighborhoods as dominated by an informal or black market economy, third-worldlike in their conditions of poverty, and a haven for those who “refuse to assimilate” to American ways. This image is particularly true in cities that host large numbers of migrants in the United States such as Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, and New York. Immigrant neighborhoods, often labeled in the diminutive of their residents’ place of origin, such as Little Saigon, Little Havana, and Koreatown, represent for many people the heart of the problem with today’s immigration: cultural pluralism. Catering to these “foreigners” by multiculturalizing the school curriculum, providing strong versions of bilingualism, or diversifying the teaching staff become part of the larger problem. The solution put forth is to create an educational version of the Patriot Act in order to reclaim the U.S. nationalism lost in the wake of “minority rights” that led to the softening of American global domination. Aside from the most common complaints about today’s immigrants (“They take our jobs” and “They come for the welfare money”) many people complain that today’s immigrants refuse to assimilate to American (read: Anglo) ways and are therefore hostile to American culture. Urban immigrant neighborhoods highlight this alarmist concern over national language, food, religion, and increased separatism because they are typically spaces where business is done in languages other than English, the products and foods available are unfamiliar to most people outside of that ethnic group, and the signs and storefronts often reflect the languages, values, and concerns of the particular ethnic group. Many Whites (and some African Americans as well) find it disconcerting to have their own language and cultural norms de-centered from their dominant Western and American position. Although the diversity and number of ethnic restaurants make urban areas attractive to many people, those traits also offend many Americans who are uncomfortable when Anglo dominance is challenged. Nativist attitudes have implications for school policy. Because many policy makers and even some teachers view urban neighborhoods as foreign and therefore problematic, schools often project negative attitudes toward their students from immigrant families. Some teachers resent immigrant parents for not being more “involved” with the school even when the school environment is hostile to non-English speakers (Valdes, 2001). Attitudes about bilingualism are also wrought with contradiction. Many people in the U.S. glamorize bilingualism when it is attained through study at elite European universities, but denigrate it when immigrant languages (e.g., Spanish, Chinese, or Farsi) are maintained at home (Fishman, 1966). That is, when American Whites speak a language besides English, this skill is perceived as “liberal” or “sophisticated” (i.e., the right kind of urban). When Mexicans learn to speak English (a process whose difficulty should not be downplayed), but insist on maintaining their Spanish, they are imagined as resistant to American culture (i.e., the wrong kind of urban). Despite the wave of public hysteria to the contrary, noted sociologist Alejandro Portes (2002) assures the U.S. public that “immigrant children today are rapidly embracing English over their native languages. The threat is less of a Babel-like society than of a society without cultural memory – at a cost to both immigrant children
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and the nation” (p. 10). Ultimately, U.S. xenophobia will erode the nation’s effectiveness in global interactions and undermine the success of immigrant students in U.S. schools. Urban neighborhoods are clearly racialized spaces, but they are also gendered spaces and the experiences and images of men and women in them differ significantly. The racist cliché of the “urban jungle” is also a highly gendered one. The urban jungle is decidedly feminine when the pundits talk about teenage parenthood, welfare dependence, and the out of control sexuality of women of color (see Luttrell, 2002). However, the urban jungle can also be masculine when the topics are gangs, violence, and the drug economy. Although women and men are of course involved in all of these activities, the different issues evoke specific images of problem women or problem men, all of which affect how younger people are perceived in schools. When women from urban areas are discussed it is most typically in relation to their sexuality and bodies. Popular culture reflects this characterization of young women of color, particularly through music videos. Even a cursory examination of hip-hop videos reveals an unending parade of young women of color, hyper-sexualized and routinely degraded. Similarly and interconnected, real women in ghetto or barrio neighborhoods are seen as sexually out of control (they have several male partners), overly fertile (they have too many kids), irresponsible (they refuse to use birth control), and unfit mothers (they are addicted to drugs while pregnant) (Collins, 2004). All of these assaulting images of women of color in urban areas suggest that they are “bad women” and just as significant, they are unlike the “good women” who are married, White, suburban, and middle class. When girls are pregnant in urban high schools they are often humiliated by school nursing staff and school counselors. They are often told that their futures are over and they are on the road to welfare dependence and a lifetime of hopelessness and poverty just like their mothers, aunts, or neighbors. In her book, Pregnant Bodies Fertile Minds, Wendy Luttrell (2002) describes the dominant discourse on teenage mothers in schools as “wrong girls.” In her ethnography she chronicles the humiliating treatment the girls receive from adult school staff as well as the alternate view of themselves that many of the girls offer. Luttrell’s evidence suggests that despite the pathologization of young pregnant students of color, this group of girls is able to project a counter-image of themselves as having some “good sense,” of recognizing the myths that impinge on their subjectivity, not unlike Willis’ (1977) lads in Learning to Labor, who were able to penetrate the discourses about their own working class limitations (see also, MacLeod, 1987). Luttrell’s book is one of a handful of works that discusses how girls respond to negative discourses and policies toward them as young mothers (see also, McDade, 1992). Urban spaces are often seen as hyper-masculine spaces dominated with acts of machismo and one-upsmanship (Anderson, 2000). This is especially true with respect to urban gangs and drug markets. Although girls and women are increasingly involved in gangs and drug sales, the public still largely views these activities as male. In the nightly news in most American cities, gang culture and life are reduced to the description of a shooting frequently followed by the disclaimer, “Authorities believe the shooting may have been gang related.” This sentence can be found at the end of almost
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any homicide description in an urban area, usually attached to the picture of a young male of color. Certainly, many shootings in urban areas are “gang-related” in the broadest sense, but they are also related to many other more mundane things: hurt pride, self-defense, economic disputes, etc. The American public is at once enthralled with urban gang life and appalled by it. Hollywood has produced dozens of movies about young African American, Latino, and occasionally Asian men involved in illegal activities and violent gang life (Benshoff & Griffin, 2003). Some of these movies have been more thought provoking than others. Nonetheless, despite the national love affair with urban crime drama, there is also a substantial punitive streak among much of the American public. The majority of voters support harsher and harsher prison sentences for drug activity and violent crime (Johnson, 2001). Laws such as three strikes, mandatory minimums, and longer penalties for crack cocaine and other “urban drugs” all provide evidence for the punishing tendency of suburban America on urban kids. Nowhere is this development more poignantly captured than in the 2004 documentary film, “Juvies.” The film takes the viewer through the lives of troubled adolescents whose mistakes earned them jail sentences made excessive by the “enhancement” laws that some states, like California, have adopted to punish criminals who appear to have ties with gangs or were carrying guns when the crime occurred. These gang and gun enhancements basically seal an adolescent’s life when they add many years on top of normal sentences. As a commentator on the film remarked, a youth population that displays violent behavior shows us the extent to which their society is plagued by a violent condition not of their own making. Our views of young men in urban neighborhoods have already had a significant impact on our public policies. The policies of local police forces have also changed in response to the perceived threat of young urban men: more surveillance, broader ability to disperse crowds and control what public space people occupy, and the ongoing problem of racial profiling. For example, in Los Angeles, it is now illegal for people to “cruise” in their cars with music blaring from them. Our level of tolerance for loud music aside, this development is clearly racial for it is a response to the booming, bassheavy music to which many young students of color listen in the urban setting. In contrast, the White image of a motorcycle rider atop a loud Harley Davidson is not criminalized. In fact, one can order a Harley with a specific muffler sound in pursuit of a certain aesthetics. The immediate irony here is that the music form of hip-hop (Black noise) is eclipsed by bellowing mufflers as a form of art (White noise). This analysis is not meant to caste aspersions on Harley riders, but to point out the racial politics of urban life, the first criminalized, the second aestheticized. It is also worth mentioning that all the concern about violence committed by young men of color is coupled with a near complete disinterest in the hundreds and sometimes thousands of young men of color who are killed in urban neighborhoods each year (usually by other young men of color). Most suburban residents fear for their own safety when they think of urban violence and are ignorant of the large number of men of color’s lives lost in their own cities each year. This ignorance is assisted in part by the local news outlets that rarely cover homicides of poor, young men of color – that is, until it involves a White victim. Young men of color’s lives by themselves are often viewed as too unimportant to be covered in the news.
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The attitude of many White, suburban Americans toward urban life is full of contradictions. In a sort of modern day minstrel show, many middle class White students perform their image of urban blackness and brownness by imitating their view of urban life through clothing, music, language, and behavior. This aping of urban culture, however, is a big money business. Rappers, clothing companies, the music industry, Hollywood, and other social imagineers have worked together to sell the ghetto in a way that is unprecedented in U.S. history. It is fashionable, in its own outsider, low status way, to don urban clothing lines (Fubu, Enyce, Baby Phat, Apple Bottom), listen to rap or hip-hop music, and speak with the current colloquialisms of urban youth. In this sense, the urban is simultaneously performed and ridiculed. It is contemporary chic and denigrated – “don’t act so ghetto” – all at once. Urban life has been commodified and is for sale often for prices only middle class suburbanites can afford. Urban identity can be performed or “tried on” by White students or middle class people. They can dabble in the “urban” without ever losing their access to suburban space and White privilege. In short, they have the luxury of being urban without the burden. They can partake in the “jungle” without communing with its people – that is, unless we invoke the image of Tarzan, played by White actors who seem to be the only White person in the real jungles of Africa. This is not a new development, previously witnessed in the days when White entertainers from Pat Boone to Elvis appropriated and legitimated Black music. What seems novel about the new fetishism is its economic intensification and its urban character. In the case of music, there was much about the previous racial appropriation that took from rural Black sounds of blues. Today’s appropriation is decidedly urban.
Social and Policy Implications for Education: Re-imagining the Urban Imagining the urban is intimately connected with policies that impact urban people’s lives, particularly students of color. From medication to education, the pathological depictions of the urban contribute to policy creation that predominantly endorses behavioral and cultural responses to urban conditions instead of an institutional intervention to address its deep structure. This tone is summarized in the recent furor over Bill Cosby’s public comments about the crisis in poor Black communities. Previously in “Fat Albert,” Cosby was able to connect with the Black urban community in a way that did not alienate its youth. In his most recent speech, Cosby’s criticism of the “wrong kind of Blacks” (read: poor) imagines the urban as a criminal, pathological, and largely self-perpetuated poor Black condition. Delivered at the NAACP’s event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, Cosby’s “Ghettoesburg Address” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettosburg_Address) has sparked not only controversy but is likely to influence public policy regarding urban education for students of color. The speech does not only represent Cosby’s clarion call for poor Blacks to change their “misguided ways”; it is interpreted through the public’s urban imagination, one that now finds its legitimacy in a high profile Black figure. Cosby’s message reminds
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us of the class warfare within the Black community itself, one half that relegates the signifier “Nigger” to racist Whites, while the other appropriates “Nigga” for new urban politics. Cosby’s speech is heuristic insofar as it provides an exemplar for our general point about the social construction of urban spaces. It is not important so much for its truthvalue (i.e., whether or not poor Blacks are responsible for their plight), but for its social consequences and implications for education policy. Although Dyson (2005) correctly points out that Cosby does not have a social researcher’s training, Cosby’s sheer stature is enough to capture the imagination of the American public, its “collective racial unconscious” (Leonardo, 2006). Cosby’s commentary also affects the Black political landscape and community. Spike Lee showed mild support for the comedian whereas “Boondocks” comic artist, Arron McGruder, criticized Cosby for “vilifying the Black youth.” All three entertainers were interviewed separately by talk show host Tavis Smiley. One may level the same criticisms at Chris Rock, whose stand up show in Washington, DC expressed sentiments similar to Cosby when Rock publicized his disdain for “Niggas” and love for “Black people.” The main difference is that whereas Cosby’s speech seems to cut himself off from poor Blacks (the wrong kind of urban), Rock’s performances still seem to maintain a strong connection through his comic material, including his love for hip-hop and rap. In other words, Cosby leads us to perceive little or no redeeming aspects to the Black urban culture and experience. In his own defense, Cosby considers his speech a form of challenge to poor Blacks to change their parenting ways. That said, Cosby’s shaming tactics may subvert his desire to “uplift” poor Blacks. In schools, we do not have to look too far for connections. For example, when Cosby suggests that Black youth should dress more appropriately, this implicates Black students who may be perceived as not ready to learn based on their appearance. When Cosby shows concern for the way that Black youth speak in public (whether or not we want to call this Black English), he joins the discussion over language politics in schools. Not only does this pressure Black students to adopt a more middle class vernacular, but what is perceived as a standard, unmarked, White way of speech. This is reminiscent of a problem with even insurgent books on integration, such as Kozol’s (1991) Savage Inequalities, where it is assumed that Black students would do well to study next to White students, that is, Blacks need Whites in order to do well in school (Foster, 1993). We do not debate the importance of necessary skills for the advancement of one’s career and social legitimacy. But to suggest that Blacks lack access to decent education and jobs because they speak nonstandard dialect and dress with low-rise pants belies the structural origins of their oppression. In fact, so-called Black wear and language are hardly Black-specific anymore, as White, Asian, and Latino youth have appropriated such styles. They have become “merely urban” as hip-hop becomes popular with Whites, many of whom live in the suburbs. In the case of Whites and Asians, compared to Black youth their life chances do not seem damaged to the same extent when Whites and Asians dress or talk “Black.” They are not imagined as criminals in the same way for wearing the same thing.
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To the extent that urban youth of color promote their style as a form of resistance to whiteness (Dyson, 2005; see also Rose, 1994), they represent what Gramsci (1971) calls “good sense.” These acts, while not necessarily counter-hegemonic, recognize the urban space as a place of struggle. To the extent that they dress against whiteness, Black youth are cognizant of the racial strife that they did not create but live with on a daily basis. If educators listen, they discover that youth of color, while ensnared in their own contradictions, penetrate the racial and class formation, and are able to exert their own will on these processes rather than merely being reproduced by them. Instead, the common school reactions to these urban dynamics include: metal detectors, more police on campus, emptying of backpacks, random searches of lockers and bags, no hats (to avoid gang affiliation). Since most, if not all, educators believe that creating a learning culture is part of raising achievement, we must conclude that these incarcerating policies re-create prison conditions where little learning is likely to take place. Student resistance in the urban setting is often difficult to decipher. It is complicated by the effects of media, fast capitalism, and a heightened sense of identity politics. Often, urban youth grow up more quickly than their suburban counterparts because the former are faced with harsh conditions and an even harsher future prospect. The innocence that adults treasure in young people is lost more quickly in urban youth. Urban Latino students have dealt with the transformation of the barrio from a literal term connoting community to a term of burden. Through English-Only movements and anti-immigrant legislation, Latino students have been imagined as the culprits of the Third-Worldization of urban places, like Los Angeles. With their national attrition rates higher than those for Blacks, Latino students may become the new urban underclass. When we imagine them as “illegal immigrants” rather than displaced people in search of a decent life, and whose labor is fully welcomed by both policymakers and business owners, educators ensure that Latino children’s education becomes expendable. At best, their education remains irrelevant to their worldview and cultural understanding, ignoring much of the cultural resources that urban families have to offer, otherwise known as “funds of knowledge” to Moll and Gonzalez (2004) and “ecologies of engagement” to Barton, Drake, Perez, Louis, and George (2004). Or, we run the risk of dumbing down their curriculum by depriving them of access to classic European texts with high status and replete with cultural capital, in exchange for a “relatable education” with examples about drugs, gangs, and other problematic constructions that are rarely put in their proper structural contexts. As mentioned, the urban imagination also comes in gendered forms of racialization. Cosby’s comments contribute to this dynamic when he criticizes Black women for failing to control their children, their own sexuality, and their men. Controlling images of women in urban areas have direct implications on policies in urban schools. For instance, many girls of color in urban areas are encouraged to use birth control from an early age. Often the types of birth control that are suggested are invasive and hard to reverse such as Depo Provera and Norplant. Young urban women’s sexuality is seen as problematic and needing to be controlled in contrast to suburban female sexuality, which is often viewed as something to be protected and saved. The sexuality of girls of color is a problem; the sexuality of middle class White girls is a virtue.
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In light of the high stakes testing that No Child Left Behind has put in place in U.S. schools, urban schools again take center stage in the elusive search to bridge the “achievement gap.” Under this legislation, teachers and administrators are in a mad dash to show Adequate Yearly Progress or face sanctions, including the reconstitution of its teaching and administrative staff or takeover by a private educational company. Commendable for its public decree that failing schools shall not be tolerated any longer, NCLB won the support of both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. In addition, it targets precisely the student subgroups that need the most assistance: students with disabilities, English language learners, poor students, and racial minorities. In particular, urban schools show that several of the subgroups, like English language learners, children of color, and poor students, meet to paint a complex picture of who is being left behind, but equally as important, where they are. In addition, since it is a well-known fact that students of color are classified with disabilities at higher rates than their White counterparts, NCLB’s impact in urban settings is all-encompassing. Already suffering from lack of resources, faster teacher burnouts, and higher levels of violence, urban schools are imagined as the testing ground for a school reform that offers little extra funding. In fact, NCLB falls short of providing more funds to struggling urban schools in light of the unequal needs they face because its creators declare that getting students to proficient levels in reading and math is already the school’s job. High on threats and low on assistance, NCLB dooms public urban schools to fail targets that are virtually impossible to meet (Darling-Hammond, 2004). The Act lays down the gauntlet for schools to improve in as little time as two years or lose control of their funding, face student exodus, or eventual reconstitution of their staff. NCLB receives criticism not so much for its noble dream of leaving no child behind, but for its ability to leave behind the social origins and conditions that plague American urban schools, such as racism, economic inequality, and institutional discrimination (see CochranSmith, 2005). Urban schools suffer a lion’s share of NCLB’s burden and blame if all students do not reach 100% competency by 2014, an unreasonable expectation in light of the fact that no state or country currently boasts those achievements (Linn, 2003). NCLB’s measure of Adequate Yearly Progress will confirm the popular image of inner-city schools as a problem, or the negative pole in the dialectics of the urban. It comes with a “diversity penalty” for urban schools that serve multiple social groups and are required to report satisfactory progress on more indicators than homogeneous schools (Novak & Fuller, 2003). Urban immigration, media spectacles, threats of terrorism, violence, and higher costs of living converge to create a learning condition that NCLB’s focus on higher test scores is woefully unable to crack, a move which “mistakes measuring schools for fixing them” (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 9). Higher test scores, while showing one kind of improvement, fail to account for the relevance of the learning taking place in urban classrooms, favoring a language of outputs (e.g., test scores) over inputs (e.g., instructional support). Re-imagining urban schooling takes a concerted effort to recast its conditions neither as a gift of progress nor its underbelly for some unfortunate people. It requires a radical shift in urban planning, economic base, and schooling infrastructure. But consistent with this essay’s thesis, it also necessitates an equally radical questioning of the way educators and concerned people currently imagine the urban from a place of
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decline to a place of possibilities. Part of this recasting of the urban means that businesses may work more closely with communities in addressing the waste of both human potential and talent, which would add to the viability of the nation, let alone the creation of a democracy (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 2001). Although it would be difficult to re-imagine businesses separate from their profit motives in the context of late capitalism, there is a difference between for-profit educational ventures like the Edison Project and the kinds of neighborhood compacts that Henig et al. (2001) found in places like Washington DC and other urban cities around the U.S. Likewise, Henig et al. suggest that urban leadership would not only help urban communities and schools through increased funding, but also through increased civic capacity to speak politically about issues that affect their lives. It no doubt requires a critical amount of coordination between students, teachers, administrators, parents, scholars, businesses, politicians, and NGOs, but we should expect nothing less in re-imagining the urban, if by that we do not mean the idle notion of mind activity. Rather, if by re-imagining we mean a dynamic and engaged cultural process, then it is more a material act at its base and less a tinkering with ideas about the urban absent of institutional change. In this essay, we have argued that imagining the urban is an intimate part of making urban schools. It is an imagined reality that Americans construct even as we make daily sense of it. Re-imagining the urban in this context means that school reform must account for the complexity of teaching in an urban setting where the specific forces of civilization meet, such as the political economy, racialization, and gendered meanings. This re-imagining has taken some root in the “new urbanism” movement of housing and lifestyle that is dense but planned, with a mixed use of housing and commercial space, mixed income, and smaller utility spaces. This is the urban as anti-suburbia. This is also a response to the urban as “unlivable.” The dialectics of the urban may still be resolved into a higher logic that makes its promises and burdens a shared venture between Whites and people of color, between the rich and poor. Re-imagining the urban does not only take a certain courage to change, but a commitment to education in the concrete, rather than sentimental, sense.
Notes 1. We define the ghetto as a racially demarcated space actively constructed by Whites, as a method for containing Black community development and mobility. In this definition, we are not far off from Massey and Denton’s study of the ghetto, in their book American Apartheid, as a social phenomenon that began at the turn of the twentieth century. Before this time, the “dissimilarity index” between Whites and Blacks in U.S. neighborhoods was not radical. It was not until Whites enacted neighborhood policies as well as social behaviors during reconstruction that the ghetto was created. As such, the ghetto is not only a poor place, but rather a racial place where one finds heavy concentrations of African Americans. Unlike other groups, like Eastern European and Jewish immigrants, for whom the ghetto has a fleeting history, the Black ghetto seems to have an enduring place in U.S. racial relations. 2. In 2005 several U.S. newspapers showcased a photo taken by the Associated Press on August 30 from the New Orleans tragedy, featuring a caption describing a Black family holding food and drinks as “looting.” In contrast, some newspapers featured a similar photo of White families taken by Getty Images describing its members as having “found” such items. Sometimes this contrast was featured on the very same page of a particular newspaper, making the racist juxtaposition even more glaring.
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King, J. (2004b). Culture-centered knowledge: Black Studies, curriculum transformation, and social action. In J. Banks, & C. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 349–378). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities. New York: Perennial. Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). From Soweto to the South Bronx: African Americans and colonial education in the United States. In C. Torres, & T. Mitchell (Eds.), Sociology of education: Emerging perspectives (pp. 247–264). Albany: SUNY Press. Leonardo, Z. (2002). The souls of white folk: Critical pedagogy, whiteness studies, and globalization discourse. Race Ethnicity & Education, 5(1), 29–50. Leonardo, Z. (2003). Ideology, discourse, and school reform. Westport, CT: Praeger. Leonardo, Z. (2006). Through the multicultural glass: Althusser, ideology, and race relations in post-Civil Rights America. Policy Futures in Education, 3(4), 400–412. Lewis, O. (1968). The culture of poverty. In D. P. Moynihan (Ed.), On understanding poverty: Perspectives from the social sciences (pp. 187–220). New York: Basic Books. Linn, R. (2003). Accountability: Responsibility and reasonable expectations. Educational Researcher, 32(7), 3–13. Lopez, D. (1997). Language: Diversity and assimilation. In R. Waldinger, & M. Bozorgmehr (Eds.), Ethnic Los Angeles (pp. 139–164). New York: Russell Sage. Luttrell, W. (2002). Pregnant bodies fertile minds. New York: Routledge. MacLeod, J. (1987). Ain’t no makin’ it. Boulder: Westview Press, Inc. Massey, D., & Denton, N. (1993). American apartheid. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McDade, L. (1992). Sex, pregnancy, and schooling: obstacles to a critical teaching of the body. In K. Weiler, & C. Mitchell (Eds.), What schools can do (pp. 49–73). Albany: SUNY Press. Memmi, A. (1965). The colonizer and the colonized. Boston: Beacon Press. Moll, L., & Gonzalez, N. (2004). Engaging life: A funds-of-knowledge approach to multicultural education. In J. Banks, & C. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed.) (pp. 699–715). San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Murray, C. (1995). Losing ground. New York: Basic Books. Nelson, J. (2001). Police brutality. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Neubeck, K., & Cazenave, N. (2001). Welfare racism: Playing the race card against America’s poor. New York: Routledge. Nieto, S. (2003). Affirming diversity (4th ed.). New York: Longman. Noguera, P. (1996). Confronting the urban in urban school reform. The Urban Review, 28(1), 1–19. Novak, J., & Fuller, B. (2003). Penalizing diverse schools? Similar test scores but different students bring federal sanctions. Berkeley: Policy Analysis for California Education. Oakes, J., Joseph, R., & Muir, K. (2004). Access and achievement in mathematics and science: Inequalities that endure and change. In J. Banks, & C. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 69–90). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Ogbu, J. (1995). Understanding cultural diversity in the classroom. In A. Ornstein, & L. Behar (Eds.), Contemporary issues in curriculum (pp. 349–367). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Parker, L., & Stovall, D. (2005). Actions following words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Critical pedagogy and race (pp. 159–174). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Piven, F., & Cloward, R. (1993). Regulating the poor. New York: Vintage Books. Portes, A. (2002). English-only triumphs, but the costs are high. Contexts, 1(1), 10. Reese, E. (2005). Backlash against welfare mothers. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roediger, D. (1991). The wages of whiteness. New York: Verso. Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: Rap music and Black culture in contemporary America. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press. Rovell, D. (2005). Will brush with law raise Kobe’s ‘street cred’? ESPN.com http://espn.go.com/nba/s/ 2003/0707/1577650.html Schlesinger, J. (1991). The disuniting of America: Reflections on a multicultural society. Knoxville: Whittle Direct Books. Sleeter, C. (1995). An analysis of the critiques of multicultural education. In J. Banks, & C. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 81–94). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
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42 PERSUASIVE, PERVASIVE, AND LIMITING: HOW CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS SHAPE URBAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE Joseph Flessa* and Diane Ketelle† *University of Toronto, Canada; † Mills College, U.S.A.
No one commands the power to know all things. –– Michele Foster (1994), “The Power to Know One Thing is Never the Power to Know All Things: Methodological notes on two studies of Black American Teachers” When we analyze, we simplify … Organizing perceptions along some lines is essential, but which lines will we use—and come to use unthinkingly? –– Martha Minow, Making all the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law Normal policy making is not about change that shifts power relationships in the society. Transformative possibilities can often only be envisioned when alternative information and perspectives are used. –– Sheila Neysmith, Kate Bezanson, and Anne O’Connell, Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy I don’t expect many victories in the near future, but if we believe that our cities are worth saving and the world is worth remaking, we need to look in different places with new eyes. –– Robin D. G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the culture wars in urban America.
Introduction Urban public schools in North America, “culturally, racially and linguistically diverse and economically disadvantaged school settings” (James, 2004) routinely fail to provide most students with safe, challenging, or culturally affirming opportunities to learn. As other chapters in this volume attest, scholars examine the inequalities and injustices of urban education from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives. In this chapter, we use the lens of policy and politics to organize some of the 803 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 803–824. © 2007 Springer.
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existing theoretical and empirical research on urban education as well as to analyze contemporary issues in urban schooling. A policy approach to urban education could accurately be caricatured as posing the following question as its starting point: What’s wrong with urban schools and how can they be improved? Attempts to answer this question from a policy perspective often begin with problem definition that typically focuses on school failure, although some scholars argue that urban education policymakers could more usefully focus on student success (Conchas, 2006). Whatever the approach, problem definition in urban education means engaging with policy narratives that explain current conditions and propose solutions; these policy narratives are shaped both by elites and everyday people alike (Neysmith, Bezanson, & O’Connell, 2005; Roe, 1994). Policy narratives, when they link problems and solutions, inherently rely on causal logic: because a caused b, therefore c is the necessary reform. Policy stories and the politics that surround them generate alternative and often contradictory solutions. John Dewey (1938/1977) warned of this habit among school reformers stating, “Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities” (p. 17). And in fact, we note an Either-Or tendency at the heart of most writing about goals and politics in urban schools: either the way urban schools look and function is determined by structural inequalities in the society in which they’re nestled, or urban schools are the result of individual micro-level actors and actions. Stated another way, within the broad field of urban educational research, a picture emerges that either urban schools result from conditions beyond educators’ control (fix the society for the schools to follow), or urban schools result solely from those things that educators do within them (address educators’ pedagogical, curricular, and organizational incompetence, and urban schools will succeed). In this chapter, our underlying argument is Deweyian and posits that in the field of education, the embrace of theory/policy/practice “either-or” explanations is both prevalent and problematic. Either-ors are attractive analytically, yet they oversimplify, and in oversimplifying they limit both researchers’ and practitioners’ thinking and work towards improving the schools we care about.
Four Frameworks that Organize North American Urban Education Literature In order to highlight the particularly urban aspects of the relationship between educational policy, politics, and goals, we lay out four causal arguments central to debates about urban education. As urban educational researchers and former urban public school teachers and school administrators we realize that all of the “causes” we describe in the following pages are in play at the same time. Schools are complex organizations and their relationship to the society in which they are nestled is more complicated than most causal explanations can account for. Nevertheless, our purpose here is to indicate that there are indeed identifiable, separate, and occasionally quite divergent schools of thought regarding policy problems and remedies in urban education.
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Causal Argument #1: Economic Problems Need Economic Solutions William Julius Wilson’s (see 1987, 1996) quantitative sociological studies of inner city Chicago argue that historical (more so than contemporary) racism, in conjunction with deindustrialization and the accompanying unjust distribution of economic resources, have caused the poor Black residents of contemporary American cities – thanks to “concentration effects” and via cultural processes – to perpetuate their own isolation from power, jobs, and capital. The lever for change, according to his interpretation, is federal intervention in the economy specifically designed to ameliorate these cultural problems via the creation of more jobs. Economic reform will interrupt the corrosive ecology of ghetto life and realign its residents with the mainstream of America. Applying Wilsonian logic to the field of urban education, Jean Anyon (1997, 2005) likewise attributes the problems of urban areas to fundamentally economic roots. For example, in her historical study of Newark’s school system (1997), she portrays the economy as cause and poor schools as effect. Entirely skeptical of the ability of school-based reform efforts to counter the most significant problems facing urban school systems, at least in the absence of a broader social movement resulting in active federal creation of employment in the inner-city, Anyon (1997) writes, “If we do not resuscitate our cities, we face an impossible situation regarding urban educational reform: Attempting to fix inner city schools without fixing the city in which they are embedded is like trying to clean the air on one side of a screen door” (p. 170). She concludes her book with a call for “old fashioned political struggle” and “fundamental changes in the distribution of goods and services – and money” (p. 182). Schools not only reflect economic injustice; in this view, they can do little on their own to change it. Stated another way, “Individual and neighborhood poverty builds walls around schools and classrooms that educational policy does not penetrate or scale” (Anyon, 2005, p. 70).
What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics? Anyon’s economic argument echoes the older work of Martin Carnoy (1974) who argues that fundamentally changing the economic and social structure would be necessary before public schooling can be changed. We are also reminded of Katz (1975) whose early work argued that “Schools exist as part of a social system. Meaningful change can come to that system only through redistribution of power and resources. In that redistributive process schools can play a negligible role at best” (p. 152). In later work, Katz (1995) also wrote critically of reforms that attempt to address economic inequalities in the society by “improving poor people” through schools: As a strategy, improving poor people consistently has awarded education a starring role. Of all options, education has shone as the preferred solution for social problems by compensating for inadequate parenting, shaping values and attitudes, molding character, and imparting useful skills. Added to its other assignments, improving poor people has given American education an extraordinary – indeed, impossible – load, which is one reason why with regularity since the third quarter of the nineteenth century critics have alleged the failure of public schools. As the
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history of education shows, improving poor people not only has misdiagnosed the issues; it also time and again has deflected attention from their structural origins and from the difficult and uncomfortable responses they require. (p. 4) A more recent and significantly more conservative book about urban school reform (Hill, Campbell, & Harvey, 2000) ironically makes the same point, albeit relegated to a footnote: “This study focuses on strategies for school improvement. It does not directly address other factors (poverty, e.g., or language background) that might affect students’ learning. A successful strategy addressing all these problems could have more dramatic effects on student learning than a school improvement strategy alone” (p. 194–195). From this perspective, the policy levers best positioned to have an impact on schools are not school-based but instead are those that change urban schools’ social context. One recent policy brief (Rhode Island Kids Count, 2005) puts it this way: “The only way we can successfully ensure that many more children enter school ready to learn is to consider the family and community context in which they live, the schools they attend, and the services that are available to support their healthy growth and development” (p. 59). There are serious questions raised by this perspective for school-based actors. If schools simply reflect the economic realities that shape their context, is the only appropriate approach for school leadership to agitate for policies of economic redistribution? The overwhelming majority of urban educational goals and policy interventions pertain to what schools themselves can and should do differently. According to this perspective, should we conclude that are school-based reforms are inevitably doomed to fail? Or, stated another way, “Obviously, the social context in which schooling occurs is important, but is it so important that it completely overshadows what schools can reasonably be expected to accomplish?” (Noguera, 1996, p. 15). Some recent work making the economic argument suggests that reforms are not necessarily a waste of time, but must not be over promised. For example, Rothstein (2004b, 2004a) argues that achievement outcomes are less shaped from within schools than they are from without, but he nonetheless takes a reformist position. On the one hand, in a critique of Schrag (2006) Rothstein (2004a) states, “Even if lawsuits demanding a ‘adequate education’ could produce more money, class differences will continue to ensure an achievement gap because schools alone, no matter how well financed, can’t by themselves overcome the cultural, social, and economic causes of the differences in academic achievement.” The achievement gap, from this view, is not the schools’ problem alone; it is ensured by “class differences.” Nevertheless, he concludes that school-based remedies, however flawed, may be the best we can do now. “Since the U.S. today has less social mobility across generations than most other industrialized nations, modest improvement might be a more appropriate aspiration. If we fail to accept gradual progress, education reform will remain a hopeless enterprise.” Darder and Torres (2004), in work that interprets structural inequalities and racism through a Marxist lens, argue that accountability reforms like high-stakes testing, whatever their rhetoric of closing the “achievement gap” in public schools “can best be understood in light of the major changes taking place in the socioeconomic landscape of U.S. society” (p. 79). Similarly, in the Canadian context, Sears (2003) argues that
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school reforms have less to do with schools’ needs than with a policy environment that seeks limited government expenditures. He argues that, “education reform is aligned with reorientation of social policy toward the lean state” (p. 231). Both works emphasize the way that neoliberal structural shifts at a macro level have a negative impact inside classrooms and schools. Schools need not only be victims of those trends, however. Darder and Torres call for greater awareness of the ways that standardized tests perpetuate “the reproduction of racialized economic inequality and injustice” (p. 94); with this knowledge can come resistance and alternatives. In their theoretical work with implications for education, Darder and Torres “make no apologies for the centrality of our critique of capitalism and class formations in our analysis of racism” but also recognize that their argument “will be characterized by some as privileging class or simply as economic determinism” (p. 22). If the educational system is rigged by forces outside the schools, this argument asks, can educators do anything but perpetuate the status quo? Sears concludes that “the most important single factor in shattering the apparent inevitability of the shift to post-liberal education is mobilized opposition” (p. 233). In this way, he leads us to Causal Argument #2.
Causal Argument #2: Economic Problems Need Political Solutions Writers like Orfield (1997), Stone (1998), Henig, Hula, Orr, and Pedescleaux (1999), and Portz, Stein, and Jones (1999) provide a less deterministic alternative to Causal Argument #1. Both Causal Arguments #1 and #2 hold that schooling problems are caused by economic problems. However, Causal Argument #2 posits a political solution. The authors we associate with this causal argument utilize a political-science framework and accordingly emphasize policymakers, politicians, and political coalitions. Myron Orfield’s (1997) analysis of the Twin Cities bears some striking similarities to Wilson (1987, 1996), in the characterization of schools as little more than reflections of their local environment, in the implication that poverty isolation pathology. In the ultimate call for more and better jobs in the inner city he does suggest a fundamentally different approach to the same goal. For while nothing short of the resources and redistributive power of the federal government will fix Wilson’s Chicago, M. Orfield’s inner citizens can, via coalitions with inner-ring industrial suburbanites, out-vote their privileged neighbors and provide themselves with the metropolitan services that may set in motion wholesale change in ways that matter. The Institute on Race and Poverty (2000) calls this approach “regionalism,” and likewise argues that it represents a political solution to economic problems. Similarly, Stone’s (1998) analysis of urban education identifies the lack of political capital in poor communities and political will at large to explain persistent discrimination and low performing schools. Like M. Orfield, he argues that there are currently latent political relationships which, when forged, will improve urban schools – not necessarily via altruistic social intentions, but in pursuit of personal interests. For Stone, inequality is attributable primarily to political, not economic (a la Wilson & Anyon) processes. Stone’s rhetorical contribution is the notion of “civic capacity” and his empirical contribution is a collection of nine historical case studies of desegregation, school reform, and business participation in local schools. Stone notes, “Civic capacity refers to the mobilization of varied stakeholders in support
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of a community-wide cause. Two elements enter the picture. One is participation or involvement, especially as it includes contributing in some way to the cause. The more each sector participates, the greater the civic capacity. The other element is understanding. Civic capacity comes into play when people see an issue as a community problem, one that therefore calls for a collective (that is to say, civic) response” (p. 15). Henig et al.’s (1999) analysis of school reform in black-led cities is fundamentally aligned with that of Stone, but with greater organizing emphasis on race. The dynamics of racial relations, in other words, make it difficult for city stakeholders to coalesce around shared goals and build the necessary civic capacity. Henig’s argument views political coalition-building as the key to progressive change.
What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics? A focus on the relationship between a city’s schools and its politicians and local policymakers necessarily suggests that the instruments of local government can improve the conditions of teaching and learning in urban schools. That political intervention in city schools most frequently takes the form of changing school district governance (see Bryk, Burney, Fruchter, & Simmons, 2006; Kirst, 2002; Yee with Flessa, 2004) would strike some observers as welcome, but insufficient. As long as the connections between urban schools and the urban labor market are neglected, for example, “the chances of school reform are limited” (Rich, 1996, p. 200). One recent report (Edelman, Holzer, & Offner, 2006) focuses on the school’s role in improving economic opportunities for urban young men, stating: We think the following have the greatest potential for improving links between disconnected youth and the labor market: (a) vocational education – now known as career and technical education (CTE); school-to-work policies; (c) Career Academies; and (d) alternative and charter high schools. (p. 45) However, other writers are less sanguine about the possibility of school-based reforms because “the turmoil in the economy makes planning an economically rational curriculum difficult, if not impossible” (Rich, 1996, p. 195). How much faith should those interested in urban schools place in politics? Even proponents of the “civic capacity” framework recognize that politics’ ability to reshape opportunity via school reform is limited. Creating common ground is an ongoing task. And finally, the overall economic and social problems of central cities remain. Entrenched poverty amidst a continuing decline in blue-collar jobs makes mobility for many urban youth unlikely. Extensive social problems cannot be combated by the schools alone. To build civic capacity is indeed a formidable challenge, but it is one that merits the attention and resources of urban leaders. (Portz et al., 1999) There are important dilemmas raised by this framework for those who seek to improve urban schools. First of all, what is the relationship, if any, between school work and
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metropolitan politics? What role, and what forum, if any, is there for urban educators in political coalitions? Smith et al. (2004) argue that national “political spectacle” has rendered local political participation mostly symbolic and indeed locally elected school boards in cities are increasingly vulnerable (Flessa, 2004; Howell, 2005; Yee with Flessa, 2004). With growing federal involvement in local schools in the United States via No Child Left Behind Act (2001) accountability, what role could local political organizing play in shaping goals for urban schools? In Canada, where the federal role is negligible, but schools are tightly coupled to provincial policy, what types of political organizing, short of voting out the provincial government entirely, influence educational policy? Is there any reason to believe that urban educators’ participation in political coalitions will not lead to more “spinning wheels” (Hess, 1999), where energy is expended but change does not happen? Or, when the consequences of the “rough politics” of education are divisiveness, unease, and low morale (Gidney, 1999, p. 280), what sort of municipal coalitions are possible? Are all of the arrows of political (and policy) influence pointing from outside the schools in, or are there ways that some arrows of influence might point out? Can schools shape the political context whatsoever in ways that respond to persistent economic inequalities in cities? Larry Cuban (2001) offers a potentially useful framing of the connection between outside and within school influences and priorities for reformers; as his view makes clear, the extent of responsibilities school leaders have in urban schools is enormous. In short, in cities, schools can’t do it alone … [but] of course, broadening the urban agenda to encompass a community-based strategy to school improvement does not mean that students, teachers, and principals should be held less responsible for working hard to achieve their goals. Nor does this recognition of a school being nested in a larger community suggest that there should be different standards for those who are well off and those who are poor. The obvious fact that schools are entangled in their communities only makes clear the tasks that face urban school leaders. (p. 9) Left unanswered by his statement, however, is where school leaders should start. From a policy perspective, is political energy best spent attempting school-focused reforms, or would other starting places make more strategic and substantive sense?
Causal Argument #3: Urban School Failure is a Result of Racism and Antiracist Solutions Take Many Forms According to Causal Argument #3, racism is the predominant cause of the form, shape, and substance of urban schooling. The work we associate with this argument shares the perspective that racism causes and perpetuates school failure; however, there is no shared agreement within this body of work on what solutions and policy remedies make most sense. Although several authors grouped under Arguments 1 and 2 address race, racism, and racial disparities in their analyses of urban education, the difference with the work we group in this Argument is that here the authors characterize race and racism as having the most explanatory power for the nature of urban education.
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The scholars that we have grouped into this argument do not perceive racial discrimination as merely a result of economic injustice or as a tool enabling politically powerful elites to maintain control over material resources and cultural capital; instead, racism is itself an autonomous, overriding predictor and cause of urban stratification and of inequitable schooling opportunities. For example, Dei (2003) states, “We know that within North American society race demarcates life chances more profoundly than any other form of difference” (p. 4). Kirp et al.’s (1995) analysis of Camden and a protracted fight over publicly supported housing for example, calls into question Orfield’s (1997) suggestion that inner-city residents and inner-ring suburbanites would ever see themselves as sharing common interests. Kirp et al. argue, “The very last thing [these suburbanites] want to do is to assume responsibility for those whom they have deliberately left behind” (p. 6). In fact, it is the local failure of and perhaps impossibility of ever forming the very political coalitions advocated by Argument #2 that historically has necessitated judicial intervention. In this way there has been an attempt to forge some sort of justice regarding housing, schooling and equal access to public services. Political processes that potentially could promote positive social change have either collapsed or, have never existed at all because of racism leaving judicial intervention as the only possible lever for change. Massey and Denton (1993) likewise argue that the major incentive at work in urban collapse has been the legacy of racism. They note, “The emergence of the black ghetto did not happen as a chance by-product of other socioeconomic processes. Rather, white Americans made a series of deliberate decisions to deny blacks access to urban housing markets and to reinforce their spatial segregation” (p. 19). The causal process at work is racial prejudice resulting in segregation. The significance is the correspondingly unjust and unequal relationship with and access to resources. The implied reform, then, is government intervention to break down racial segregation in housing. Ford (1995) extends this analysis, arguing that not only is segregation something different from the accumulation of individual preference for housing, the racism itself explains it is an institutionalized process through which white supremacy is maintained. He notes, “If racial segregation is a collective social responsibility rather than exclusively the result of private transgressions, then it must be accepted as official policy or remedied through collective action” (p. 450). Gary Orfield, Eaton, and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation (1996) not only agrees that the most significant determining factor at work in urban schooling is race, but furthermore posits that the appropriate state action to interrupt this racial antagonism is desegregation of public schooling. G. Orfield also makes one of the most consistent and visible normative defenses of the goal of desegregated schooling as an important urban reform (for more recent work see Orfield, 2001). However, other authors – for example, Foster (1993), Fultz (2004), and Ladson-Billings (2004) – raise questions about the frequently overlooked costs that have historically been placed on Black communities as a result of school desegregation policies. Within this grouping of writers who posit race as the major causal process there is divergence regarding both the appropriate way to characterize American racism as well as the best direction for reform. Calling for the reintroduction of race-conscious analyses from the left, Critical Race Theorists (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995)
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critique the prevailing view of race relations which treats “the exercise of racial power as rare and aberrational rather than systemic and ingrained” (p. xiv) and question, for example, the way that integration replaced school quality as the goal of federal lawsuits on behalf of Black school children (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw et al., 1995). Crenshaw writes, “Critical Race Theory [CRT] embraces a movement of left scholars, most of them scholars of color, situated in law schools, whose work challenges the ways in which race and racial power are constructed and represented in American legal culture and, more generally, in American society as a whole” (p. xiii). In an article that connects CRT to educational policy and leadership, López (2003) argues that “CRT has yet to make significant inroads into other areas of study such as educational administration, politics of education, policy studies, and political science. As a result, important discussions surrounding the permanence of racism remain largely absent in these particular fields” (p. 87). DeCuir and Dixson (2004) state that: In this historical moment when attacks on remedies for educational inequity, such as affirmative action, are on the rise, it is essential that we utilize the full power of CRT, including Whiteness as property, interest conversion, and the critique of liberalism. These particular aspects of CRT are especially powerful because through them, researchers are able to uncover and unmask the persistent and oppressive nature of the normatively of Whiteness, the co-option and distortion of oppositional discourses, and the ways in which policies that are offered as remedies to underachievement and educational disparity may not be in the best interests of marginalized groups, but rather serve the elite. (p. 30) Shared among these authors is an implied solution to current urban educational problems: CRT should be used not only within academic settings as a tool of critique and analysis of current policy but also as a framework in schools for formulating racially just policy. Education scholars who use anti-racist theories share with colleagues in CRT that racisms and white privilege, because they under gird everything that happens in educational institutions, must be identified and labeled in order to be dismantled. Antiracist educational theorizing and advocacy has particular salience in Canada, where it is in part a reaction to the fact that “race relations have been placed under the rubric of multiculturalism and generally are not recognized in principle as a separate concern” (Reitz, 2005). As James (2004) notes, “In Canada, where the discourse of multiculturalism produces and reproduces difference, hence marginalization, based on race, ethnicity, language, and immigrant status, scholars insist on anti-racism as a paradigm which stands as a counteractive measure” (p. 17–18). For example, Schick and St. Denis (2005) describe the ways that structural forms of racism in Canada are obscured “through commonplace national discourses.” They argue for example that in Canada, “the de facto examples of racism that warrant public outrage are often limited to apartheid in South Africa, the Holocaust in Germany, and slavery in the United States” (p. 304). In other words, Canadian racism is rarely addressed because racism is framed as something that exists only elsewhere; when racial and ethnic conflicts arise in Canada, Schick and St. Denis argue, a focus is
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shifted away from an analysis of Canadian racism and towards an examination “cultural difference.” Schick and St. Denis conclude: In the ubiquitous, well-intentioned information sessions about Aboriginal people, the fundamental position of whiteness as dominant remains largely unexamined, as does the standard of what passes for normal. By ignoring the production of racial identities, whiteness is at once invisible and a marker of difference. In Canada, discourses of race are ignored or seen as bad manners, allowing a certain raceless Canadian identity as the norm … Multicultural education that emphasizes cultural difference and ignores the salience of race is inadequate as a preparation for preservice teachers and for any other form of cultural awareness education intending to increase understanding of Aboriginal and white Canadians in a post/colonial society. (pp. 312–313) The implication here is that educational policies that attempt to address racial inequality in schools without addressing the structures and mechanisms of white privilege fail at both theoretical and practical levels; school practitioners might make an impact on racially stratified educational outcomes only if they focus squarely on race, racism, and privilege in school settings. In contrast, Ferguson (2000), offers no incremental, schools-based remedy to fundamentally anti-Black racism in urban public schools, and in fact critiques educators and policymakers who would push her in that direction. This request for solutions is made on the assumption that schools, unlike the family and the workplace, are basically sound with flaws that need adjusting. My hesitation to propose solutions comes from a conviction that minor inputs, temporary interventions, individual prescriptions into schools are vastly inadequate to remedy an institution that is fundamentally flawed and whose goal for urban black children seems to be the creation of “a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society.” (p. 234) There exist numerous qualitative studies that illuminate the dynamics of micro/school level reproduction of white supremacy; for each specific dynamic, there would be a specialized recommended intervention. The fundamental argument at the heart of most of these works is that, regardless of individual intention, schools are institutions that perpetuate white privilege via, for example, the mechanisms of mono-cultural assimilation (Ginwright, 2004; Olsen, 1997; Valenzuela, 1999), school funding and assignment (Kozol, 1991, 2005), school tracking (Noguera, 1995b), discipline policies (Ferguson, 2000; Noguera, 1995a) or the views of teachers (Foster, 1993; Pink, 1994). These works view the phenomenon as having a specifically racial project at its core. These writers diverge from the class-based sociological investigation of American schooling which has chronicled the ways in which high status economic elites manipulate school regulations to reinforce their own status (see, Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Eckert, 1989; Hollingshead, 1949).
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Other writers ( see Ogbu, 2003, 1987 or McWhorter, 2001) attempt to explain racial disparities in schooling with arguments focused on negative student norms or selfdefeating student cultures which, they argue, undermine academic accomplishment. Noguera (2004) and Conchas (2006) critique these arguments for their monolithically negative portrayals of Black and Latino student academic “culture,” for their inability to account for student success, and for their neglect of policy-amenable structural conditions, from funding to discipline policy to teacher quality that must also explain some of current conditions.
What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics? According to one observer (Galston, 2005), educational policy reflects “politicized” and “polarized” debates because “it is linked to virtually everything Americans care about” and “education policy straddles the fault lines of the major divisions in U.S. politics and society, and it cannot avoid replicating those divisions” (p. 57). Galston in an examination of “the contemporary legacy of racial discrimination – in particular, on the travails of many urban school systems in which African American students now constitute the majority” states that “race has been the single most divisive factor in American educational policy” (p. 71). If schools “cannot avoid replicating” the divisions that exist outside them – in this case, if schools cannot avoid reproducing the profound racial disparities and inequalities that exist within North American society – the moral and political implications for school practitioners are significant because they are salaried participants in the maintenance of a racial hierarchy. If schools generally reflect broader societal problems like racism, then the appropriate educational and political goals would be to address directly societal racial discrimination. If, however, there can exist something such as an antiracist school, then educational policymakers’ responsibility is to articulate what would support such schools and to marshal political, organizational, and financial resources to support them. Again, one’s perspective on the solution depends on one’s framing of the problem. If, as Lipman (1998) argues, the failure of public schools to educate Black children is not a flaw of the system, but is the system itself, then the remedy is to be found beyond the walls of the schoolhouse. If, alternately, as recent scholarship on high-performing, high-poverty, highminority schools has demonstrated (Conchas, 2006; Jerald, 2001), successful schools and programs for urban students do exist, policymakers’ responsibility is to determine how to make such schools less rare. Causal Argument # 4: Economic, Political, and Racial Problems in Urban Education Needs Local, Democratic Solutions The fourth causal argument within urban education posits that urban decline is attributable to the collapse or repression of localized democratic participation, and the corresponding loss of control of social institutions. By implication, those reforms which will spark local democratic participation may spark a growth in social capital among inner city residents and thus neighborhood revitalization and school improvement. The rhetoric of empowerment via local participation in social institutions has been mobilized to
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serve both the expansion of federal programs (like Johnson’s Great Society urban initiatives) as well as their decentralization. There is a body of literature (see, Handler, 1996; Rofes & Stulberg, 2004; Sugarman & Kemerer, 1999) which indicts economic, political, and racial hierarchies as deriving from weak local democratic processes; inequality associated with economics, politics, and race, can all be ameliorated via democracy, and this democracy can be built both within schools and via their governance. Democracy is both the ideological approach and the concrete collection of mechanisms – like voice, vote, and resources – that can transform individualism into broad social change. Carnoy and Levin (1985) note: Observing the relationship of teachers to pupils and of parents to teachers and administrators suggests, for example, the difficulty of individual family action (outside social movements) to try to change reproductive practices. Such individual action is circumscribed by rules, regulations, and attitudes that can only be changed by collective social action. In a collective group with common interests and purposes, individual parents, teachers, and students can attack the structure in which practices are situated. (p. 111) This argument highlights a classic controversy of whether democratic goals and participation are best protected through centralized systems or community control of governmental services. Callahan (1962), Ravitch (1974/2000), and Donato (1997), for example, like school reformers from the Progressive Era, argue that via the bureaucratic processes associated with centralized decision-making, a “common school” is both an accomplishment and building block of democracy. Notwithstanding the growing federalization of public education in the United States via the No Child Left Behind Act, such centralized responses are viewed with increasing skepticism. Fuller (2003) writes that the current U.S. policy environment is “shedding essential tenets of modern statecraft,” leaving behind one-best-system policy conceptions, preferring instead policies that reflect “cultural pluralism.” The romantic ideals of common schooling, by the 1960s, had been eclipsed by the school’s impersonal (rational) organization and the realization that not all families were joining the middle class. The modern school in many communities had become a disappointing symbol of ineffectual public authority, yielding for families a shallow stake in mainstream society. Intense policy action by central government, such as desegregation decrees and school finance reforms, yielded only modest results. (p. 19) Similarly, Gittell (1971), Katz (1975), Bryk, Lee, and Holland (1993) and Bryk, Sebring, Kerbow, Rollow, and Easton (1998) interpret both the history and contemporary expression of professionalized, school board-based decision making as not only inefficient, but also as a way by which elite interests are promoted at the expense of the urban poor. Policy can structure revitalization of urban areas via the return of resources, authority, and responsibility to local democratic actors. Bryk et al. (1998),
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in their study of Chicago school reform and the empowerment there of school site committees to make substantive localized school governance decisions argue that: The loss of local institutions of all kinds – social, economic, and religious – have denuded urban community life and undermined the viability of these communities. Any effort to stem the current destruction and to recreate communities requires a massive commitment to local institution-building. Key in this regard is expanded opportunities for citizen participation and community education about local affairs. With sustained local engagement and some external supports, it is argued that even poor citizens can take control of their circumstances and improve them. From this perspective, Chicago school reform can be viewed as part of a larger movement to renew urban life by revitalizing the public sphere. (p. 17) Westheimer (2005) and Westheimer and Kahne (2004) argue that strengthening democracy, and in turn schools, is possible through civic education, service learning and other pedagogies. They conceptualize a curriculum that develops citizenship and believe that such an approach requires political choices which have political consequences. Karumanchery and Portelli (2005) likewise examine the political implications of prevailing discourses of democracy and education and conclude that “a democratic education must speak to the everyday social concerns of the subjects and communities they serve. It must, in short, contribute to the development of a critical and invested body politic” (p. 344). Within this causal argument significant emphasis is placed on locallydriven responses and remedies to macro-level societal problems.
What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics? Of the four causal arguments, democratic schooling seems to make the most room for local educators to envision themselves as part of the remedy for urban school improvement. The question, however, is how much leeway local actors have in an accountability era that increasingly tightens the coupling between federal, state, or provincial policies and local schools. Another recent policy trend that would trouble proponents of this perspective is the fact that locally elected school boards, particularly in struggling urban areas, have found themselves in several instances removed from decision making authority through direct state or mayoral takeover or through indirect means such as mayoral appointees (Kirst, 2002; Yee with Flessa, 2004). Indeed, school boards’ utility, influence, and effectiveness are under examination with a renewed intensity (Howell, 2005). A similar question, raised by Fuller, is whether local, contextually-driven reforms, which “opt for small public squares, showing little interest in the modern state’s struggle to advance a larger, more inclusive common ground” (p. 16) in fact will leave “children and parents any better off than before” (p. 22). For democracy to be the solution for urban education, lack of democracy has to be the most important problem. Although there are many arenas in which increased democratic participation may make a difference, there remain critical questions regarding
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the ability of localized networks to challenge and change the power dynamics that created racial and economic inequalities in the first place (Lopez & Stack, 2001). Absent acknowledgment of urban communities’ unequal power, remedies that embrace the structures and mechanisms of democratic participation underestimate the difficulties that almost certainly ensue. We are reminded of Baldwin (1963): You must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen. (p. 3)
Conclusion The boundaries of the causal explanations laid out should bother both academics and school-level practitioners. Some academics might find suspect any universalizing “grand narrative” that attempts to order the world in one unified, modern, and mutually exclusive way. Furthermore, how any of the big policy or structural shifts would affect schools – through what processes these shifts reach into the core technologies of teaching and learning – is not illuminated by any of these arguments. For that reason, practitioners are unlikely to embrace any of the causal arguments that seem to underplay the amount of local influence educators might actually ever be able to have on urban educational outcomes. And indeed, how can one “either-or” perspective possibly account for the diversity of issues and problems facing urban school systems? The four causal arguments presented in this chapter are not cumulative, but instead represent different, separate ways of framing and understanding urban educational issues in contemporary society. Causal Arguments #1 and #2 deal with economic issues while putting forth different solutions. Causal Argument #3 focuses on race and Causal Argument #4 integrates elements of all the arguments and puts forth various solutions (Table 1). We acknowledge there will always be tension between policy, politics, research and practice and that schools inevitably reflect those conflicting influences. However, defining the problems facing urban schools in a multifaceted way might lead to more multifaceted responses; using causal arguments in combination with one another may have greater utility and be less limiting. As Dei (1996) suggests, “The idea is to respond to the challenges facing schooling with multiple, overlapping strategies” (p. 106). If researchers, politicians or practitioners approach their work from a single frame that has internal limitations, then the solutions proposed would, by their nature, be inadequate. This inadequacy highlights the need to break down the isolation of one approach from another from another. After all, in the real world all four causal arguments are intertwined. Issues, generally, are not exclusively economic or political or racial or democratic but in fact involve all four components, always. There are, of course, reform recommendations and scholarly treatments of urban education that attempt to incorporate a variety of perspectives. Kumashiro (2000)
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Table 1. Analysis of Causal Arguments in urban schooling Urban school reform causal arguments
Central premise
Implied solution
What’s left out?
#1 – Economic
Economics determines how successful urban schools can be
Improvement of the economy will improve schools
#2 – Economics/Politics
Economic success through political action will determine how successful urban schools can be Desegregation and successful school design determine how successful urban schools can be
Regional policy that focuses on improving the economic standing of citizens will improve schools Desegregation successfully implemented and/or successful school designs focused on the achievement of urban youth will improve schools Emphasis on school designs centered on democratic schooling principles will improve schools
Considerations of regional policy influence, school design and practice Considerations of race, school design and practice
#3 – Race
# 4 – Democracy
Developing systems that adhere to democratic principles determine how successful urban schools can be
Considerations of the societal influences of economics and public policy
Considerations of regional differences and economic influences
provides a potentially useful theoretical approach to frame urban educational reform from an “anti-oppressive” standpoint. McCready (2004) argues for the examination of race, gender, and sexuality as overlapping and multifaceted components of Black male students’ experiences of urban schools. Furthermore we note that in practice, reform recommendations – even those apparently most connected to one of the causal arguments we’ve laid out – may, depending on different articulations of the reform’s purposes, straddle several arguments. For example, both in the United States and in Canada parent and community organizers frustrated with urban district bureaucracies unresponsive to community needs have pushed for racially- or culturally-affirming schools. Ginwright (2004) has examined the purposes behind and challenges encountered during one public high school’s attempt to institutionalize Afrocentric school reform; Bancroft (2003) has described the history, aspirations, and pedagogical struggles that characterize an Afrocentric charter school and one Latino community-based charter school. These reforms were envisioned by participants as attempts not only to forge racially-affirming educational opportunities but also to create locations for political, democratic community organizing. Similarly, in Canada, proponents of Black-focused schools articulate a variety of purposes and ends. Advocates point to a variety of empirical facts: that Black students in Toronto are overrepresented in special education and applied streams (lower,
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nonacademic tracks that limit future economic mobility); that Black students in Toronto are disproportionately targeted by provincial disciplinary “safe schools” policies (see Yuen, 2005); that curriculum in mainstream public schools neglect the accomplishments of Black and African people in Canada; that there are too few Black teachers and administrators, enabling schools to institutionalize hostility to Black families; that youth violence is on the rise and is disproportionately affecting Black communities (see Toronto Community Foundation, 2006). In order to create educational opportunities for Black students that might counter these inequities, OISE/UT Professor George Dei and others have called for the opening of Black-focused schools. The “Black-focused school” (or as some of us prefer to call “African-centered school”) is a concept for the promotion of education primarily (but not exclusively) for Black peoples of African descent … The school is offered as one of many endeavors that can be done to enhance learning for our youth. It should be on a pilot/experimental basis. If the school succeeds, the lessons can be transferred into the mainstream public school system. (Dei, 2005, p. 1 and 3) This proposal has been disregarded (recently, as in the past) by provincial politicians and educational policymakers who regard the idea of Black-focused schools as “segregation” (see Kalinowski & Brown, 2005). The rejection of the proposal reflects as much about a political context suspicious of Black community organizing as it does about fears of “segregation,” given that Ontario currently publicly funds separate Catholic and French schools with little fanfare (Dei, 2005). The case of Black-focused schools in Toronto stands as an interesting counterbalance to our characterization of one-size-fits-all recommendations. Perhaps Black-focused schools might, if given the chance, become sites of democratic openness, dialogue, discussion, and community empowerment (Beecher, 2005). There is a tension created between the macro framing of issues and the micro implementation of a reform; sometimes this tension is characterized as big picture versus nuts-and-bolts. When practitioners attempt to implement change solely based on the local nuts and bolts, there’s a risk of neglecting to see how policy and practical problems are shaped both from inside and outside the school; there are risks in over promising what any school-based remedy can accomplish. Likewise, when researchers or policymakers stand only at arms length drawing the big picture and only critique, there’s a risk of viewing schools merely as reflections of forces that originate from without, never from within; such a perspective systematically underestimates the potential significance of collective school-based responses. There is no easy escape from this trap although we imagine that a policymaking process more concerned with implementation and an implementation process more concerned with policymaking is one way to start. Many accumulated years of work in both K-12 schooling and in research about K-12 schools have equipped us with a built-in answer to the question of which of the diverse conceptualizations laid out in this chapter is most salient or important. Our response? It depends. We take this stance not from ambivalence or from mushy theorizing or from ignorance of the existing empirical data, but instead from the
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perspective that both practitioners and researchers are better served when able to embrace an intertwined analysis of what has caused the urban schools and society we both inherit and create to be the way they are. If we start with “it depends” we are able to interrogate not only the way that problems are posed, but also which policy levers (economic, political, racial, or democratic) should be pulled and towards what ends. On the one hand, the separation of causal claims provides the kind of scrutiny of specific dynamics that are necessary for knowledge creation. On the other hand, when the arguments move from descriptive to prescriptive, too tight a focus removes from consideration potentially complementary policy responses. The answer to the question “What’s wrong with urban schools?” is plural; so, therefore, must be the recommendations for improving them.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the following people who read and commented on earlier drafts of this chapter: R. Pete Mesa and Delaine Eastin at Mills College; Jeffrey Kugler, Director of the Centre for Urban Schooling at OISE/University of Toronto; several colleagues in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at OISE/University of Toronto; and Rodney Hopson of Duquesne University. We would also like to thank William Pink for feedback on an earlier draft and Michele Foster for detailed critique and recommendations at several stages.
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Noguera, P. (1995b). Ties that bind, forces that divide: Berkeley High School and the challenge of integration. University of San Francisco Law Review, 29(3), 719–740. Noguera, P. (1996). Confronting the urban in urban school reform. The Urban Review, 28(1), 1–19. Noguera, P. (2004). City schools and the American dream: Reclaiming the promise of public education. New York: Teachers College Press. Ogbu, J. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18, 312–334. Ogbu, J. (2003). Black American students in an affluent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Olsen, L. (1997). Made in America: Immigrant students in our public schools. New York: The New Press. Orfield, G. (2001). Schools more separate: Consequences of a decade of resegregation. Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Orfield, G., Eaton, S., & Harvard project on school desegregation. (1996). Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: The New Press. Orfield, M. (1997). Metropolitics: A regional agenda for community and stability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Pink, W. (1994). Competing views of change: Reforming school culture. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Portz, J., Stein, L., & Jones, R. (1999). City schools and city politics: Institutions and leadership in Pittsburgh, Boston, and St. Louis. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Ravitch, D. (1974/2000). The great school wars: A history of the New York public schools. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reitz, J. (2005). Canada’s growing racial divide: Perceptions of bigotry among minorities are more widespread than Canadians believe. Toronto Star (A25), December 15th. Rhode Island Kids Count. (2005). Getting ready: Findings from the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative: A 17 state partnership. Providence, RI: Rhode Island Kids Count. Rich, W. (1996). Black mayors and school politics: The failure of reform in Detroit, Gary, and Newark. New York: Garland Publishing. Roe, E. (1994). Narrative policy analysis: Theory and practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rofes, E., & Stulberg, L. (2004). The emancipatory promise of charter schools: Toward a progressive politics of school choice. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Rothstein, R. (2004a). Must schools fail? The New York Review of Books, 51(19), 29–37. Rothstein, R. (2004b). Class and schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to close the Black–White achievement gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Schick, C., & St. Denis, V. (2005). Troubling national discourses in anti-racist curricular planning. Canadian Journal of Education, 28(3), 295–317. Schrag, P. (2006). California: America’s high stakes experiment. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sears, A. (2003). Retooling the mind factory: Education in a lean state. Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Press. Smith, M. with Miller-Kahn, L., Heinecke, W., & Jarvis, P. (2004). Political spectacle and the fate of American schools. New York: Routledge Falmer. Stone, C. (Ed.). (1998). Changing urban education. Lawrence, KS: The University Press of Kansas. Sugarman, S., & Kemerer, F. (Eds.). (1999). School choice and social controversy: Politics, Policy, and Law. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Toronto Community Foundation. (2006). Root causes and solutions to youth violence in Toronto: Insights of Black community leaders. Summary of findings. Toronto: Toronto Community Foundation. Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Westheimer, J. (2005). Schooling for democracy: One size does not fit all. Our Schools Our Selves: The Centre for Policy Alternatives, 15(1), 25–39. Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Wilson, W. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Vintage Books. Yee, G. with Flessa, J. (2004). Who leads? The school board and governance change in the Oakland Public Schools 1960–2004. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, April 2004. Yuen, J. (2005). Suspended while Black: Zero tolerance critics fear Grit review will gloss over racial bias in discipline. Now Magazine (Online ed.), March 17–23, 2005.
43 THE NEW IMMIGRANTS: SHAPING THE URBAN EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPE Lisa Konczal Department of Sociology and Criminology, Barry University, Florida, U.S.A.
Introduction In a crowded hallway of a high school in Miami, Florida, one of the students directed my attention toward a group huddled at the end of the hall and informed me, “There are the reffies. You know, the ones ‘right off the boat.’ They don’t speak English. Our neighborhood was a nice place to live before the reffies came.” Offering this narrative was, Anita, a popular student of Cuban parentage. The group she referenced was the large and growing crowd of newly arrived immigrant students at her school, mostly from Spanishspeaking nations. The derogatory term, reffie (from refugee) was something I became used to hearing even among the other, albeit more assimilated, immigrant youth at this school. Much to Anita’s dismay, she and these newcomers have a lot in common. Together they are a part of the growing stock of new immigrants that have entered into the US and its schools. Besides the teasing and taunting of some newcomers by school peers, immigrants today face other challenges unlike those of previous immigrant waves to US. Indeed, compared to the early stock of foreign-born, observed by scholars during the beginning of the twentieth century, the portrait of contemporary U.S. immigrants looks much different. Notably, immigration to the US over the past 20 years is a highly urban1 phenomenon and one concentrated in the largest cities, especially in the poorer, innercity areas (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). In the early 1990s more than half of incoming U.S. immigrants settled in only ten metropolitan locations (ibid.). On the top of that list is New York, which has always been the preferred destination, right above Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami (US Census, 2000). In Canada 94% of immigrants arriving during the 1990s settled in metropolitan areas. 73% came to just three major Canadian cities: Montreal Toronto, and Vancover (McIssac, 2003). Although settling into urban, metropolitan cities is not something new for migrants to North America, the concentrations into these cities has increased (see Fry, 2002; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). Another difference is that today’s immigrants are faced with a different economy than that of immigrants 70 years ago (Alba & Nee, 1997; Perlman & Waldinger, 1997; 825 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 825–840. © 2007 Springer.
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Portes, 1997; Waldinger, 1994). In the past, immigrants could obtain industrial, bluecollar positions, which offered higher wages, and thus a stepping stone for immigrant offspring. Jobs in early twentieth century factories within the industrial rust-belt offered fairly stable work and incomes to parents. In contrast, today’s economy, characterized by high-tech, white-collar industries offers opportunity and upward mobility primarily to those with higher educations. Now, more than ever, it is the education of immigrant children that has become the most crucial and perhaps the only path to advancement. Finally, today’s U.S. immigrants, who come mostly from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Asia are racially distinct from the immigrants of 70 years ago who were predominately of European descent (Portes, 1995; Zhou, 1997). In Canada, although people from Europe still make up the majority immigrant population, those coming from Asia are the fastest growing immigrant group. They are part of what the Canadian Census refers to as “visible minorities” or “persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasion in race and non-white in color.” And Canada’s visible minority population is growing “nearly six times faster than the total population” (Statistics Canada, 2003). The new immigrants therefore are often subjected to more discrimination and blocked from educational and occupational opportunities. During the 1990s anti-immigrant sentiment was played out within the policies of urban school systems and on a more micro-level: within the schools themselves. This chapter will elaborate on each of these changes faced by what contemporary scholars call the “New Immigrant” and implications for the education of their children. Besides first-generation (or foreign-born) immigrants, it also refers to second-generation immigrants (native-born children of immigrant parentage).2 Specifically, this chapter addresses the following: (1) demographic settlement and socioeconomic patterns among recent immigrants. This data highlights the trends mentioned above: places of settlement of recently arrived immigrants, numbers reflecting how many of these immigrants are of school-age, language preferences; and predominate countries of origin in Canada and the US; (2) contemporary explanations of why some immigrant school-age youth succeed in school and some fail, drop-out, and underachieve. The explanations include new theoretical debates about the process of assimilation and acculturation; the reactions toward these immigrants, including changing curriculum and policy within the urban school systems to accommodate new forms of education for vastly growing population of non-English speaking students; and (3) how these policies shape the life chances of these children within various urban school settings across North America. To address the needs and challenges of even half of these immigrant communities (each with its own unique set of circumstances) would be impossible, if not unappreciative of the diversity among Canadian and U.S. immigrants. This chapter, therefore, uses select case studies of Asians in Canada, Mexicans in California, and Cubans and Haitians in Miami, Florida in hopes of demonstrating a wide range of immigrant schooling experiences and scholarly discourse about it.
Demographic Overview The most current numbers from the US Census (2000) reports that about 12% of the US population are foreign-born, most of whom come from Latin America (Central and
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US and Canadian immigrant population by place of birth: 2000 US No.
Total population Total immigrant population Central and South American Caribbean Europe Africa Asia Oceania North America
247,709,873 31,107,889 13,127,529 2,955,249 4,915,046 871,021 8,212,483 155,539 839,913
Canada %
No.
%
100 100 42.2 9.5 15.8 2.8 26.4 0.5 2.7
31,021,000 5,448,480 304,650 294,050 2,287,550 282,600 1,989,180 52,525 237,920
100 100 5.6 5.4 42.0 5.2 36.5 1.0 4.4
Sources: US Bureau of the Census. 2003. The Foreign-Born Population: 2000; Statistics Canada. 2003. Canadian Social Trends: Update on Cultural Diversity, no. 7.
South America and the Caribbean) followed by Asia and Europe. Mexicans, by a large margin encompass the largest immigrant group in the US. According to the 2000 Current Population Survey, more than one-quarter of the foreign-born population was from Mexico, which had the largest share of any country. Cuba, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador also ranked among the ten leading countries of foreign birth in the US (ibid.). In Canada, immigrants come predominately from Europe (especially France) and Asia. Canada has seen a large increase in peoples from China over recently, especially between 1996 and 2001 when the number of Chinese Canadians increased by 20% (Statistics Canada, 2003) (Table 1). Compared to non-foreign-born populations, immigrants in both the US and Canada have more school-age children (under 18) and have larger families. One in 15 school children is born outside of the US and one in seven speaks a language other than English at home (Van Hook, 2000). In Canada 10% of the total population of school-age children (between 15 and 24) are foreign born (Statistics Canada, 2003). Immigrants and their children settle in urban, metropolitan areas more than those of the past. In fact, over one-third of the US immigrant population of 28.4 million live in only two metropolitan areas, Los Angeles and New York and live in predominately central city3 areas (US Census, 2003). Similar high proportions exist in Canada: threequarters of the immigrants arriving to Canada during the 1990s lived in three major metropolises. This is an increase compared to the 1970s when less than 60% settled in metropolitan areas (Statistics Canada, 2003) (Table 2). In terms of educational attainment in the US, many immigrant children are lagging. They are less likely to have graduated from high school than natives of the same age and more than one-fifth of the foreign-born had less than a ninth-grade education in 2003. However, researchers studying immigrant education have found anomalies in this assessment while observing immigrants with respect to their particular national origin. Young people from Latin America have the highest drop-out rates, but from that group, youth from Central America and Cuba do comparatively well in school versus those who trace their descent to Mexico or Puerto Rico (Garcia & Montgomery, 1990;
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No. of foreign-born
% of total population
US Miami, FL Los Angeles, CA San Jose, CA San Francisco, CA New York, NY Houston, TX San Diego, CA Dallas, TX Chicago, IL Phoenix, AZ San Antonio, TX Philadelphia, PA Detroit, MI
31,107,889 215,739 1,512,720 329,757 285,541 2,871,032 516,105 314,227 290,436 628,903 257,325 133,675 137,205 45,541
11.1 59.5 40.9 36.8 36.8 35.9 26.4 25.7 24.4 21.7 19.5 11.7 9 4.8
US Bureau of the Census. 2003. The Foreign-Born Population: 2000.
Table 3.
Top 11 Canadian cities with the highest percentage foreign born: 2000
Place
No.
% of total population
Canada Toronto (Ont.) Vancouver (B.C.) Hamilton (Ont.) Windsor (Ont.) Kitchener (Ont.) Abbotsford (B.C.) Calgary (Alta.) Guelph (Ont.) London (Ont.) Victoria (B.C.) Montréal (Que.)
32,500,000 2,032,960 738,550 154,660 67,880 90,570 31,660 197,410 22,865 80,410 57,590 621,890
18 43.7 37.5 23.6 22.3 22.1 21.8 20.9 19.8 18.8 18.8 18.4
Source: Education indicators in Canada: Report of the Pan-Canadian Education Indicators Program 2005.
Gibson, 1991; Suarez-Orozco, 1991; Suarez-Orozco, 1997). In Canada, Asian immigrants achieve above the academic averages of the population as a whole (Table 3). What makes some immigrants succeed in school, while other fail, drop out, or underachieve? While differences in national origin appear to point to prior homeland experiences, researchers studying immigrants believe it is due primarily to the reception (either positive or negative) of the receiving country and community. The next section will examine these explanations that contribute to either positive or negative academic outcomes.
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Incorporation of Immigrants into Schools The experience of a foreign child adjusting to an unfamiliar school setting is illuminated within the context of assimilating into a foreign society in general. From the beginning of research on immigration, scholars assumed that immigrants and their subsequent generations would eventually assimilate into American society. Park and Burgess (1921) were the first to research immigrants to the US. As theorists from the Chicago School of Sociology, they observed their local metropolitan, multiethnic setting and provided a definition of assimilation as, “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them a common cultural life” (Park & Burgess, 1921, p. 735). The adoption of the core culture of the middle class, largely white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon represented the direction of American assimilation (ibid. Gordon, 1964). Furthermore, they asserted, assimilation was a prerequisite for upward mobility. These assimilation theorists anticipated this process would take some time, even several generations, but would inevitably take place. In more recent years empirical observation of the children of immigrants has offered new paradigms that attempt to more accurately reflect the reality of new groups of immigrants (Gans, 1992; Glazer, 1993; Kazal, 1995; Ogbu, 1991; Portes, 1995). Portes and Zhou (1993) argue that classical assimilation theory can no longer apply to today’s immigrants, basically due to the three main reasons mentioned earlier (changes in settlement patterns, new discrimination, and changing economy). The various paths that today’s immigrant stock may take is substantiated in segmentary assimilation theory (Portes, 1993; Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Zhou, 1997). In essence, this theory argues that outcomes of the adaptation process for the new stock of immigrants will not be uniform. Outcomes are segmented as a consequence of the contemporary contextual factors (racial distinctiveness, changes in the structure of U.S. economy, and geographic location) constraining the chances for successful adaptation of the children of immigrants.
Positive Academic Outlooks Advocates of the segmented assimilation theory attribute positive academic orientation to selective acculturation, where learning American ways combines with continuing strong bonds with the ethnic community (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). While traditional assimilation theorists argued for giving up homeland cultural traits as a prerequisite to succeed in the US (including in schools), current observations conclude that some immigrants succeed by deliberately maintaining certain ethnic norms and values such as the belief in the payoff of schooling. For example, children of early anti-Castro Cuban exiles attending private schools in Miami experienced an environment that was characterized by a culture that supported parental or homeland ethnic traits such as language and beliefs (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Stepick & Grenier, 1993). Cubans in Miami had the resources and capital to create private bilingual schools in Miami. In these schools children were taught English, but they did so while preserving Spanish and a strong attachment to the Cubans’ national history. Because of
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this preservation, rather than despite of it, educational attitudes and achievement were positive (ibid.). Similarly, Matute-Bianchi has found that school success is more likely among what she termed “Mexican-oriented” students: those who maintained strong, positive identities as “Mexicanos” in addition to valuing educational credentials as a means of achieving adult success (Matute-Bianchi, 1991). In contrast, “Chicano” students in her study did not embrace their ethnicity as an asset to their educational success. Instead, they actively rejected their heritage and, along with it, schooling. Like Cubans in Miami, Mexican-oriented students in California (Mexicanos specifically) maintained certain levels of their homeland identity and by virtue of that maintenance, rather than despite of it, they had a positive attitude about school. Some researchers attribute positive academic achievement to immigrants who maintain a “dual-frame-of-reference” with respect to their education (Ogbu, 1991; SuarezOrozco, 1997). Ogbu and Suarez-Orozco found that Central American students were able to succeed in school, because they compare the opportunities in the US favorably against those in their homelands. These immigrants interpret academic, economic and social barriers as temporary problems that they will overcome with hard work and education. To John Ogbu immigrants are “voluntary” minorities, who came to the US of their own will to seek a better life for themselves and their children (Ogbu, 1991). On the other hand, the ancestors of native-born, “involuntary” minorities were brought to the US by force for slavery (i.e., Africans) or conquest (i.e., Mexicans in the Southwest US). Indeed, recent studies have also shown that many immigrant students surpass their native counterparts (native-born minorities) in school. Portes and Rumbaut (1996), for example, found that in San Diego and Miami first-generation immigrant students tend to have higher GPAs than those born in the US. Furthermore, Asians in Britain (Gibson, 1991; Ogbu, 1978; Tomlinson, 1989), Polynesians in New Zealand (Ogbu, 1993), and Turks and Finns in Australia (Inglis & Manderson, 1991) all academically achieve higher than comparable native minorities.
Negative Academic Outlooks What makes some immigrants have a negative or adversarial outlook toward education? While addressing this question, researchers attribute degree of discrimination and the particular settlement patterns as relevant to academic attitudes. A relatively large number of immigrant children have settled in underprivileged neighborhoods where immigrants and their children come into direct daily contact with the native poor (Zhou, 1997). Such is the case of some Mexican immigrants in California and Haitians assimilating into poor urban areas that lack resources (Ogbu, 1991; Stepick, 1998). They reject mainstream norms and values; that is, they do not assimilate into this sector, because they actively reject it. According to Ogbu (1991), the peer culture of today’s inner-city schools often places immigrant children in a dilemma: if they choose to meet their parents’ expectations for academic achievement, they are likely to be ostracized as “uncool,” or “acting white” by their American peers in schools. However, if they submit to peer pressure and to “American” attitudes they likely will adopt negative attitudes toward school leading to poor
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academic performance that will limit their opportunities for advancement later (Portes, 1995; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Zhou, 1997). The end result of this latter adaptation path is summarized by Suarez-Orozco as “learning not to learn” (Suarez-Orozco, 1991). Studies of some immigrant youth tend to focus on their negative reception that is reflected in the extraordinary prejudice and discrimination they have confronted (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Stepick, 1998; Stepick, Stepick, Eugene, Teed, & Labissiere, 2001). Negative reception has produced cultural dissonance, which is manifest in youth covering up or hiding their home culture, including language. For example, studies of Haitians in Miami showed that compared to other immigrants, Haitian students claimed less knowledge of a foreign language (for them this would be Haitian Creole), even though they had did not have good English-language ability (Stepick et al., 2001). In other words, the Haitian students sometimes claimed not to know Haitian Creole, even though Stepick et al. believes they did. Researchers like Stepick et al. (2001) interpret the students’ claimed ignorance of Creole as a reflection of cultural dissonance, an effort to distance themselves from their roots. Contemporary thoughts on assimilation and schooling of immigrant children stress the importance of positive treatment of immigrants by agencies on micro and macro levels: from peers in their new school, from co-ethics in their local community and from the national policies. Some immigrant students, like Cubans in Miami had a positive response by the local community, which allowed for (and even encouraged) some degree of cultural maintenance. Most immigrants, including Haitians and Mexicans, have a less favorable reception, which ultimately resulted in higher drop-out rates and lower academic achievement. The following case studies detail the experiences of these immigrants.
Case Studies Canada: Chinese School-Age Youth This case study centers on Chinese-Canadian students for reasons inherent in the Canadian immigration demographic trends. According to the 2001 Canadian Census, Asian immigrants make up over 36% of the immigrant population, second to European (predominately French) arrivals. Asians, predominantly from China comprise the largest group of recent arrivals “accounting for 40 percent of all those immigrants who came to Canada between 1978 and 1986 and comprising 3 percent of the total population in 1999” (Badets, 1990; Dyson, 2005). More recently Chinese immigrants are undoubtedly the largest growing immigrant population in Canada, accounting for 17.3% of Canada’s immigrants in 2003 (Dyson, 2005). On average, Chinese immigrants in Canada are more likely to hold college degrees than the rest of the population. However, studies also show that their higher levels of education do not translate into high-income, prestigious work. Li (1998) found that the Chinese are still underrepresented in professional, white-collar positions. This contradiction (successful education not leading to equal-level occupations) is a reflection of positive parent cultural attitudes that promote educational achievement, but are restrained by persistent institutional discrimination.
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More optimistic though are observations of Asian immigrants in North America who succeed academically beyond both their immigrant and non-immigrant peers, what some scholars refer to as the “model minority” (Fuligni & Wikow, 2004; Waters & Eschbach, 1995). Studies in the US by Kao and Tienda (1998) found that, compared to their White, Hispanic, and Black peers, more Asian eighth-grade boys had much higher aspirations. The US Census (2000) shows that over 40% of Asians over 25 years of age had completed a college education compared with about 27% of non-Hispanic, Whites. Much scholarly attention has attributed it to a positive relationship between high parental exceptions and the students’ academic achievement (Peng & Wright, 1994; Li, 2004). Peng and Wright (1994) as well as scholars cited earlier in this chapter (see Portes & Rumbaut, Stepick & Matute-Bianchi) all argue that there are significant educational payoffs for maintaining parental norms and values. However, as these scholars also note, the adoption of parental values depends on support of and acceptance by the local school and broader receiving society. Experiences of discrimination diminish the effects of parental human capital. Studies show that Chinese youth in Canadian schools have been the targets of various forms of discrimination (Peakin & Bienvenue, 1990) including verbal and physical attacks in the schools (Chan, 1987; Huang & Ying, 1989). The following sections elaborate on both the parental influences and how they manifest in the experiences of Chinese-Canadian school children.
Parental cultural influences on education Positive school performance and achievement among Chinese-Canadian immigrants is often accredited to parental views about education brought from their homeland. In a qualitative study of seven families Li (2004) found that Chinese parents “praised Chinese education for providing systematic academic training, but criticized it for limiting children’s non-academic interests. They appreciated Canadian education for nurturing creativity and originality, but disliked its weak intellectual challenge” (Li, 2004, p. 4). Similarly, the cultural importance Chinese families place on children is a factor in those who succeed academically. In Chinese culture, education, and academic achievement of children is a sign of good parenting and lack of education can result in Chinese parents losing face in the community (Wason-Ellam, 2001). Hao and Bonsted-Bruns (1998) found that Chinese immigrant youth are more likely to equate good grades with parental satisfactions and share their parents’ high academic expectations, regardless of their socioeconomic status (compared to both their immigrant and native-born peers) (Goyette & Zie, 1999; Hao & Bonsted-Bruns, 1998; Kao & Tienda, 1998). Similarly, studies by Stepick et al. (2001) of Haitians in Miami, show that adoption of parental homeland values can be an asset to the education of immigrant children. But whether or not the children will follow those homeland attitudes is contingent upon several factors outside the home. The cultural beliefs that they are exposed to at the home may conflict with those beliefs valued by their Western peers, but they are also dependent upon resources acquired vis-à-vis settlement patterns and social capital. Factors beyond parents’ control While parental values matter, the extent to which young students are willing and able to maintain them, depends on other contextual factors, including settlement patterns and structural discrimination inherent in the school system and broader society.
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In her study of two Chinese-Canadian families with school-age children, WasonEllam (2001) found significant academic differences based on settlement patterns. Paying homage to Bourdieu (1972) she found that the some Chinese-Canadian families lacked social capital, settling within “the hub of an old Chinatown area” that had fewer occasions for them to use English in their day-to-day communications. Instead, children learned language from their labor-intensive job at their family-owned Chinese restaurant with little opportunity to practice “Canadian” language. Both families that were observed in Wason-Ellam’s study displayed high academic aspirations for the their children, but one family simply did not have the resources (including financial and community social capital) to provide literacy culture favorable for their children to meet those aspirations. Low academic achievement was due to lack of a cohesive Chinese ethnic community in small urban area that is “more of a commercial district marketing ethnic goods and services than a cultural community” (Wason-Ellam, 2001, p. 115). When immigrant children do not settle into a community with financially successful co-ethnics for support, they must rely on the receiving-nation’s institutions, and therefore are more vulnerable to institutional discrimination. For example, standardized or literacy tests in the Canadian (or Western) education system, which depends on language proficiency, delegates newly arrived immigrant students to low achiever status (Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Literacy can be, according to Stuckey (1991) as “a weapon the knife that severs society and slices the opportunities and rights of its poorest people” (as quoted in Wason-Ellam, 2001, p. 118).
California: Mexican School-Age Youth By far Mexican immigrants represent the largest and fastest-growing immigrant group in the US. From 1980 to 1990 the number of people from Mexico in the US doubled (from 2.1 to 4.2 million) and in 2000 that figure rose to 9.2 million people (30% of the US foreign-born) (US Census, 2000). Mexican-American students are the fastest growing population in American education (Crosnoe, Lopez-Gonzales, & Muller, 2004). Yet it is not just the high numbers that strike scholars as interesting. Rather it is how the children of these immigrants are fairing. In terms of schooling, they fall short compared to non-Mexican peers. Children of Mexican immigrants are more likely to fall out of school (Perlman & Waldinger, 1997; Rong & Preissle, 1998); have lower levels of education brought from their homeland (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Zhou, 1997); score relatively low on standardized test scores (Chavkin & Gonzalez, 2000; Trueba, 1999); and have higher high school dropout rates compared to other groups in the US (Ronda & Valencia, 1994; Rong & Preissle, 1998). Considering the requirements for positive segmented assimilation (and therefore positive academic achievement), Mexicans have the most detrimental combination: lack human capital from their homeland (low parental wealth and education) and high degrees of individual and structural discrimination. Oppositional cultural Because Mexican immigrants have been coming to the US in continuous waves for centuries, their case offers varying outcomes depending on generation. Matute-Bianchi’s study of “Field High” in Central California distinguishes between these various types. School success is more likely among what she termed “Mexican-oriented” students:
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those with a strong cultural ties to both Mexico and the US. They were primarily bilingual, speaking English at school and Spanish in the home. Most of them were born in Mexico but had lived in the US for more than five years. They maintained strong, positive identities as “Mexicanos” in addition to valuing educational credentials as a means of achieving adult success (Matute-Bianchi, 1991). In contrast, “Chicano” students in this same study did not embrace their ethnicity as an asset to their educational success. Instead, they actively rejected their heritage and, along with it, schooling. They are described by Matute-Bianchi as “not eating lunch in the quad where all the gringos, ‘white folks,’ and schoolboys hang out … cutting classes by faking a call slip so you can be with your friends at the 7–11 … sitting in the back of a class of ‘gabachos’ and not participating … not taking the difficult classes … doing the minimum to get by.” What is notable about the Chicanos is not so much their aversion to all things academic, but the factors that influence that aversion. As Portes notes, oppositional culture is not based on the human capital that immigrant parents bring with them to the US, but rather the context of reception (of the receiving country). According to Portes and Rumbaut (2001) Mexican immigrants “represent the textbook example of theoretically anticipated effects of low immigrant human capital combined with negative context of reception” (p. 277). Because of their visibility, Mexican immigrants have continually been targets of hostility by anti-immigration groups. Nothing is more evident of this than recent backlashes against “illegals,” something not new to California. In California the 1994 California ballots included the Proposition 187, which among other things, sought to make illegal immigrants ineligible for public school education at elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels. Under this proposed proposition, schools and teachers were expected to report immigrant families who were suspected of being in the country illegally. Although this proposition was found unconstitutional in the courts, Proposition 209 was passed in California shortly after. Known as the “Anti-Affirmative Action Proposition,” it prohibited public schools and other public institutions giving any type of preferential treatment. And again, in 1998, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 227, an initiative that eliminates bilingual education from public schools. Under this scheme, most Limited English Proficient (LEP) students in California were shifted as quickly as possible into regular classrooms.
Feelings of discrimination Poor context of reception results in high degrees of perceived discrimination. According to the CILS study, perceived discrimination among San Diego MexicanAmerican youth are pronounced even when controlling for various levels of English proficiency. Those who were the least English proficient were found to perceive the most discrimination – 88% agreed that there is racial discrimination in America and 67% report having personally experienced it. Other studies, such as Stanton-Salazar’s study in a large urban San Diego high school found similar results describing high incidences of feelings of discrimination, but this did not affect feels about school achievement. The same sample agreed that Latino students did have an unequal opportunity to achieve at school (compared with other ethnic/racial groups).
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Miami: the Tale of Two Schools By asserting membership in the Cuban enclave in South Florida, young people are not only celebrating their ancestry, but also asserting their superiority vis-à-vis stigmatized or vulnerable populations like those formed by Mexicans. Cuban youngsters are abundantly represented among those in US private schools and among families with annual earnings in excess of $150,000 (Rumbaut & Portes, 2001). They are also more likely than any other group to pursue an advanced education or professional degree and to own businesses (ibid.). The beneficial policies toward them made such a situation feasible. The first wave of Cubans were fleeing a socialist nation and therefore granted one of the most generous welcoming packages ever bestowed on any immigrant. The combination of easy access to legal citizenship (in effect giving them the right to vote, a privilege not shared by most newly arrived U.S. immigrants) and wealth carried from the island by that first wave of industrious Cubans gave them an advantage that, years later, would be dubbed “Cuban success story” or the “Golden Exiles” by scholars (Perez, 2002). Their legal privilege meant that many experienced teachers from Cuba were recruited into Miami’s schools and became an integral part of the English-as-Second-Language programs. For Cuban and many Hispanic youngsters in Miami this meant a process of selective acculturation (rather than the traditional straight-line assimilation), where learning American ways combines with continuing strong bonds with the ethnic community (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). In effect, Cubans, were able to achieve a rapid process of incorporation, exhibiting relatively high levels of occupational and political achievement (Perez, 2001; Portes & Stepick, 1993; Portes & Zhou, 1993; Stepick & Grenier, 1993). In sum, Latinos in Miami have done exceptionally well, economically and politically, compared to immigrants in other parts of the nation. While Miami has only 5% of the total U.S. Latino population, it has close to half of the 40 largest Latino-owned industrial and commercial firms in the country (Stepick et al., 2001). Besides economic, Latinos in Miami have substantial political influence. In 1985, the Miami City Commission were majority Cuban American and has had a Cuban American mayor almost continually since then. The current county mayor, Carlos Alvarez, is also Cuban American. Two Miami Cubans are in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Miami-Dade County state legislative delegation along with the Miami-Dade County School Board are dominated by foreign-born Latinos, especially Cubans. Indeed, never before has a minority immigrant group held so much power in a major U.S. city (ibid.). This has given young ethnic Cubans, and others who associate with that group (those from Spanish-speaking populations), an advantage whereby maintaining some degree of their homeland culture (i.e., language) is beneficial rather than a hindrance. It is no surprise that the principal at the high school is Cuban and many of the teachers are fluent Spanish speakers. This is not the situation held by all school children. Even young Anita, who spoke down upon the reffies in her school speaks with an accent and proudly calls herself Cuban. She may put herself above the new arrivals at her school, but soon they will be like her.
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Haitians in Miami Across town, in a Miami inner-city high school, Haitian students are stigmatized for being Haitian or as one student put it, “American people are always pickin’ on Haitians. Like, any time two American people get into an argument or somethin’ the curse word they use is ‘Haitian’ it’s some type of curse word.” (quoted in Stepick et al., 2001). In the early 1980s in Miami, when Haitians first started entering the high school closest to the toughest parts of inner-city Miami in significant numbers, conflict episodically convulsed the school. Students ridiculed and beat up anyone Haitian-looking or who spoke Creole or accented English. African American, Anglo, and Hispanic students severely mocked newly arrived Haitians during sports games (ibid.). After years of research in the South Florida Haitian community and schools Stepick and his associates found that Haitians are more likely than other immigrant groups to say they have felt discrimination (especially from other students). Furthermore, they are more likely than their other immigrant counter parts to strongly agree that racial discrimination exists in the US and that people will still discriminate regardless of education. Yet stigmatizing by school peers is a reflection of a more complex struggle within the broader society. Haitians are sometimes referred to as triple minorities in the US (Bryce-LaPorte, 1993; Stepick, 1998). First, they are dark skinned and in the context of the US, automatically labeled as socially Black. Second, they speak an unfamiliar language, Haitian Creole, unique to the nation to Haiti. Finally, they are immigrants. Differential policy toward Haitian immigrants was justified by the US government classifying Haitians as economic, rather than political refugees and thus refused them asylum on political grounds (Masud-Piloto, 1996; Nackerud, Springer, Larrison, & Issac, 1999). They were regarded as different from, for example, Cubans who came to flee a Communist government. The double-standard was most evident during the Mariel boatlift of 1980 when 125,000 Cubans were welcomed to the US with “open arms” while an estimated 25,000 Haitians, who came around the same time were denied asylum and threatened with deportation (Masud-Piloto, 1996). The poor treatment reflects on both their community and schools within Miami’s Little Haiti area. Although not an official municipality, it is very much a tight knit and distinctive community where its residents are predominately Haitian. An estimated 85–90% of the neighborhood’s mostly black population is Haitian (Little Haiti Housing Association [LHHA], 1998). Like similar ethnic towns, such as the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco or Little Havana in Miami, Little Haiti encompasses both a residential area and an ethnic business community where immigrants speak their native language and sell customary goods not commonly available elsewhere in the US (ibid.). The economic conditions of Little Haiti are difficult. Little Haiti’s poverty rate of 45.6% is significantly higher than Miami’s citywide average of 31.2% and is roughly four times the rate for Florida as a whole (LHHA, 1998). According to a 1990 statistical profile, 48% of Little Haiti’s labor force is unemployed (South Florida Housing and Community Development Corporation (SFHCDC), 1998). Current figures on educational attainment show that about 35% of Haitian immigrants in the US do not have a high-school diploma, which is slightly more than the total immigrant population and 10% points more than the total US population (US Census, 2000). However, those who did graduate high school are likely to go on to achieve at least some upper-level education, although usually they do not attain a Bachelor’s or higher degree.
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Completion of a college degree is relatively infrequent among Haitian immigrants compared to both the US population and total U.S. immigrant population. Ultimately, the history of poor reception led to a blocked educational opportunity, which echoes within the halls of the schools in Little Haiti, “… they’re always pickin’ on Haitians.”
Conclusion The American social transformations that coincided with arrival of immigrants during the past 20 years have instigated challenges for both the schools and the immigrant children who attend them. The assertions made by past immigrant scholars no longer apply to newcomers who are larger in numbers, settle in urban, sometimes inner-city areas and depend on education more than ever for upward mobility. The idea that immigrants would gradually become assimilated and, thus successful, has been challenged by segmented assimilation theory. Contemporary research on today’s immigrants articulates that paths that immigrants and their children take, including those that lead toward academic success, varies depending on the either positive or negative reception. Reception of immigrant takes on several forms such as policies about teaching LEP students English, the granting of legal citizenship and local ethnic social capital. As illustrated by English-Proficiency debates, the treatment is not uniform via immigrant group nor geographic area. Young Chinese-Canadian students are caught between the two words of the their parents, who represent positive homeland norms conducive to a good education and structural factors in their new, westernized environment. Rather than a choice, the path the Chinese student takes is determined by structural factors: where they settle, level of solidarity amongst co-ethnics, level of school institutionalized discrimination, producing academic fates dependent upon standardized tests of Western linguistic ability. Miami’s schools reflect both the city’s already accomplished transformation and, to some extent, a possible future for some other American cities. Hispanic/Latinos, led by Cubans, have become the locally dominant group in South Florida and now maintaining ethnic identity is an asset. These conditions do not apply for Mexicans in the southwestern US. Powerful and successful Mexican Americans almost never speak with an accent. One must become more thoroughly mainstream American to succeed in a local context dominated by “Anglos,” or non-Hispanic Whites as the U.S. Census refers to the dominant U.S. ethnic population. Miami may not be utterly unique in this respect. In parts of California, Asians have come to dominate in a way that parallels Hispanic/Latinos in Miami. In Monterey Park, California in particular, Asians control or at least are a powerful influence in its politics, economics, and school district (Horton, 1995). On the other hand, discrimination against other immigrants, like Haitians, show that Miami reflects some of the racism and prejudice that exists in the broader U.S. society. While Cubans may be at one end of the spectrum, Haitians who some call triple minorities have had the most challenges, being dark-skinned immigrants (and subject to higher degrees of discrimination) and speaking a language virtually unknown to those not from Haiti. In sum, differences in adaptation are based on uneven modes of reception from host communities and for those who have not been given a chance to fulfill their potential are those who are left on the margins. These differences resulted in a number of consequences for America’s urban schools and the immigrants entering into them. In a few
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cases, immigrant youth can and do excel academically while maintaining their coethnic community’s homeland culture. Yet, they excel not despite this ethnic preservation, but rather, because of it. Having a city where the majority of the population are various groups of immigrant minorities vary dramatically according to the amount of power the ethnic segment has in the broader society. Settling into an area with a poor, ethnic minority, inner-city segment is more likely to increase the probability of downward mobility (Portes & Stepick, 1993; Portes & Zhou, 1993). On the other hand, assimilating into an economically and politically powerful segment can be as or even more rewarding than assimilating into mainstream American or Canadian society.
Notes 1. The US Census describes “Urban” as densely settled areas containing at least 50,000 people, and in other places with a population of 2,500 or more (but excluding the portion of a few incorporated places that contained a significant amount of sparsely settled territory). 2. Scholars and Demographers also refer to the 1.5 generation, usually referring to those who arrived by age 13 (see Fry, 2002). 3. The US Census defines central cities as those consisting of one or more of the largest population and employment centers of a metropolitan area (MA).
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44 URBAN SCHOOLING IN SUBURBAN CONTEXTS: EXPLORING THE IMMIGRANT FACTOR IN URBAN EDUCATION Carl E. James and Roger Saul Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Canada
In seeking to address the needs, interests and aspirations of Canadian youth living in urban and suburban areas in what is commonly referred to as “inner city” conditions in terms of poverty, highly populated areas, high non-white diversity, and poor school performance, educators have tended to rely on American educational models (including materials and resources).1 Such approaches speak to the experiences of minority Americans, particularly as Kincheloe (2004) puts it, “city dwelling African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Arab Americans” (p. 3). But while the American models of urban education, to an extent, provide valuable insights for working with racialized youth populations, the fact that the large majority of Canada’s youth are first and second generation Canadians2 suggests that unlike the American context, Canadian educators must evolve an approach to urban education that takes into account the immigrantinformed experiences and expectations of students. Such approaches must give consideration to how these immigrant-informed experiences are affected by living in neighborhoods characterized by conditions resulting from social and political marginalization, economic exclusion, conflict with schools and the police, nutrition-related health issues, and the effects of poverty and racism (see Kincheloe, 2004; Phelan & Schneider, 1996; Portelli & Solomon, 2001). Relevant here is the fact that in the Canadian context, today’s immigrants are not living their lives in the traditional reception, or “inner city” areas of Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver where earlier immigrants tended to settle. In fact, unlike the United States where “the majority of immigrants tend to settle in urban areas” (McClafferty, Torres, & Mitchell, 2000, p. 7),3 in Canada the growing numbers of immigrant families and first generation citizens, either by choice or government planning, are making their homes in the suburbs. Hence, the suburbs of today no longer conform to the stereotype of ethno-racial homogeneity, stability and affluence, and in many cases are socially, culturally and economically diverse. The resulting “urban” suburbs can be categorized as “inner-suburban” and “outer-suburban.” We use the term “innersuburban” to refer to the geographic areas outside of the urban core (or inner city), but 841 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 841–858. © 2007 Springer.
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within the city limits of large Canadian cities that are populated by poor and low income racial minority immigrants. On the other hand, we use “outer-suburban” to refer to the suburban areas located outside of the city limits which are populated by immigrants with similar characteristics. While some of these “urban” (inner- and outer-suburban) communities are new and were specifically established to accommodate the growing immigrant population, others were created as a result of the “out-migration” of middle class, mostly white Europeans (McClafferty et al., 2000) – or as Kincheloe (2004) terms it, “white flight” – who move outwards, and more recently inwards to downtown condominiums and now gentrified houses in former “inner-city” areas. In this chapter, with reference to Toronto, we explore the educational issues faced by students who live and attend schools in “inner-” and “outer-” suburban areas. We argue that schooling in today’s suburban areas must address the marginalization, racialization and exclusion which are often experienced by children of recent immigrants living in these areas – the new “suburbanites.” Education for these students must include measures to interrupt the historical tendency of schools to perpetuate structures of social, political and economic inequality and inequity. We suggest that giving attention to the immigrant backgrounds of students and the social and cultural capital they bring to their schooling can help to open up educational opportunities and possibilities, as well as facilitate and enable school participation that can result in improved academic performance and outcomes for students living in what Wooden and Blazak (2001) refer to as “suburban hoods.” In what follows, we discuss today’s suburban contexts and the “new” suburbanites, referring mainly to Canadian cities and Toronto in particular. We then go on to discuss (1) the lives and experiences of immigrants and their children in relation to the social and cultural capital they employ in living their lives, (2) how racialization affects the schooling and educational opportunities and possibilities of the children of immigrants, and (3) the similarities and differences of life in both “inner-” and “outer-suburban” areas. We conclude by suggesting that educators need to get to know about the experiences of students, the social and cultural contexts in which they live, and develop educational programs that address their needs, interests and aspiration.
The New Suburban Context We reference Toronto, not only because of our familiarity with the city, but also because it represents the pattern of suburban “urbanization” that is evident in many North American and European cities due in large part to immigration (Anisef & Lanphier, 2003; Gregg, 2006; Logan, 2003; Ornstein, 2006; Troper, 2003; Young, 2006). Created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the “inner suburbs” – or as Young (2006) puts it, these “in-between” neighborhoods located between the “glamour zones” of the gentrified downtown neighborhoods and the country estates of the outer-suburbs – were the result of a combination of factors that included a significant government investment in public housing, shifts in thinking about urban planning and design, and the de-racialization of Canada’s immigration policy.4 As a result, settlement in “inner” suburban communities – typically rented high- and low-rise apartments and townhouses – came to be populated by large numbers of immigrants on the basis of a combination of affordability
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(i.e., the low-cost rentals and government subsidized housing), access to transportation and job opportunities, their desire to live within communities with people of similar ethnic and racial backgrounds (ethnoburbia),5 and their immigrant-informed understandings of “a new start” in life – that is, living in affordable conditions until they can attain more desirable accommodations. Today, residents in these racially and ethnically diverse “inner suburban” communities struggle with challenges related to a variety of social, economic and cultural factors which are regulated by life in the new society. And while these are not, at least aesthetically speaking, “inner-cities” in the sense that one will not see abandoned or decaying properties or vehicles, and boarded-up homes or factories, the orderly appearance of these neighborhoods with their high-rise apartment buildings and townhouses, conceals the poverty, hunger, unemployment and underemployment, alienation, inequitable schooling conditions and concern with street crime and violence that mark them as “inner” suburbs. Writing of an inner-suburban Toronto community, DeWolf (2004) mentions that the area located in “the far northeastern side of the city” is, as one newspaper columnist contends, “culturally diverse but very poor” – a situation which is considered to be “part of an alarming trend of ghettoization and systemic poverty. You can meet kids who’ve never been downtown. They expect to stay there for the rest of their lives … . We’ve unwittingly created large pockets of suburban underclass” (in De Wolf, 2004, p. 3). On the other hand, in the “outer-suburbs,” one gets a sense of middle-class affluence in terms of streets with what appear to be single-family homes with double-car garages occupied by people who are comfortably living life. However, research suggests that these outer-appearances are somewhat deceptive (Bauder & Sharpe, 2002; Preston & Wong, 2002). In fact, a recent newspaper article reports that within the “row after row of slick suburban houses” reside immigrants who are experiencing “alienation, stress and turmoil” (The Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 11, 2006). The reporter, Anthony Reinhart (2006) writes of “immigrant families who have pushed past poverty and into the suburban promised land [where] in reality, many wind up suffering in silence behind walls made thick by cultural alienation, financial pressures and family turmoil” (p. A7). “Husbands,” Reinhardt says, working at menial jobs that, “fall short of their qualifications, supplement their income by working at ‘up to two full-time jobs’ while wives remain at home isolated and stranded because of inaccessible transit.” Children, he notes, “mature and provide a bridge between their parents and the mainstream community” (p. A7). Many immigrants move into these “outer-suburban” areas to purchase or rent houses or condominiums (in some cases their incomes can do little else but meet their monthly household expenses). Others live in rented apartments and townhouses – something that is made affordable by the fact that in their bid to accommodate the housing needs of the growing immigrant population, city governments have established policies of allocating “low-income immigrant households to suburban housing complexes” (Bauder & Sharp, 2002, p. 216). And insofar as access to housing and neighborhoods is influenced by the discriminatory practices of home-sellers, real estate agents, landlord and building managers, we will sometimes find, especially in the “outer-suburban” areas, a high concentration of an ethno-racial group of immigrants (e.g., South Asians and Asians) residing in particular suburban communities – one of the ways in which “ethnoburbs” are
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formed (see Preston & Wong, 2002, p. 33). DeWolf (2004) points out that “ethnoburbs” afford immigrant parents the chance to manage the acculturation of their children and help them to maintain their ethnic culture and language. Essentially, the residential patterns of immigrants in the suburbs (inner and outer) are related to both voluntary and involuntary factors and a combination of “the processes of economic and residential decentralization” (Bauder & Sharp, 2002, p. 207). That immigrants reside in racially, ethnically and economically diverse or homogeneous suburban communities is a product of a complex interrelationship of choice, ambition, affordability, social, economic and cultural factors, as well as racist and classist structures which not only enable or limit the integration and participation of immigrants in society, but also their aspirations for themselves and their children. Indeed, over time, and as immigrants become parents and grandparents, many of them move to the outer-suburbs in their bid to establish, if not re-invent, a middle class lifestyle – that is, owning their homes and living in what is assumed to be a safe, quiet, peaceful and comfortable environment. The movement from the “inner-suburbs” to the “outer-suburbs” is in keeping with what Anisef, Axelrod, Baichman-Anisef, James, and Turrittin (2000) refer to as the “immigrant drive.” In other words, driven by their desire for a “better life” – represented by outer-suburban living (real or imagined) – many immigrants gain a sense of upward social mobility and concomitantly social integration into society, when they escape the economically depressed, and in some cases, ethnoracially homogeneous immigrant enclaves (or ghettoes) of the inner-city or inner-suburb. For parents, the move to the outer-suburbs also means securing opportunities for their children to attend schools that provide the type of education that would enable their children to attain and/or retain their middle class status. Moreover, insofar as the suburbs are traditionally thought of as an area of the city with middle-class families and middle-class schools, it is understandable that immigrant parents, many of them professionals, would expect that outer-suburban schools would facilitate the lifestyle, interests and high educational and career aspirations that parents wish for their children (see Callejo Pérez, 2003; Sigelman & Henig, 2001). In fact, immigrant parents tend to see schooling and education as the means by which their children can acquire the human capital necessary to attain their occupational, social and economic aspirations (Dyson, 2001; Handa, 2003; Li, 2001; Presmeg, 2002); as such, they expect that educators will provide their children with the social and cultural capital that is necessary for their full participation and success in society.
Significance of Social and Cultural Capital in the Lives of Immigrant Families Evidently, there is no typical immigrant experience for there are significant differences in how generations of immigrant youth, (e.g., second generation and generation-anda-half) construct their educational and occupational aspirations. These differences are related in part to the socialization practices of parents, socioeconomic status (both in the new country and country of origin), place of residence, family composition (or structure – i.e., one or two parent-households), parents’ education,6 aspirations and
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perception of possibilities for their children’s social mobility, cultural traditions and attachment to these traditions, acculturation processes, parents’ active involvement in their children’s lives, the children’s schooling experiences, and the ways in which structural factors operate to facilitate their settlement in the new society (see Boyd & Grieco, 1998; Foner, 1997; Gibson, 2005; Henry, 2005; James, 2005a; Kao & Tienda, 1995; Portes & MacLeod, 1999; Waters, 1999; Zhang, Ollila, & Harvey, 1998; Zhou, 1997). Nevertheless, researchers agree that the close family and social ties and networks of immigrants, their sense of biculturality (as a result of straddling the worlds of their both foreign-born parents and the society in which they live), and their feelings of solidarity rooted in cultural memory have the potential to strengthen rather than limit their chances of succeeding in society (Boyd & Grieco, 1998; James, 2005b; Portes & Macleod, 1999; Zhou, 1997). Portes and MacLeod see immigrants as having social and cultural capital – “the ability to command scarce resources by virtue of membership in networks or broader social structures” (p. 257) – that will enable them to counteract barriers to their participation in society and their construction of high aspirations. So contrary to the view among many teachers that racialized immigrant parents, and hence their children, lack the social and cultural capital to effectively navigate school, evidence indicates that while financial support for their children might be limited, parents and their ethnic communities do provide moral support which may help their children to develop forms of behavior that will likely “break the cycle of disadvantage,” thus leading to upward social mobility (Zhou, 1997, p. 91). The case of Mark (pseudonym), who grew up in one of Toronto’s outer-suburban areas is a good example of how his immigrant background inspired his educational aspirations and outcomes (James, 2005a). Mark, a Black, male high school student who immigrated to Canada from Trinidad at the age of 13 years to join his mother, explains that his move to Canada with his younger brother was precipitated at the urging of their mother who highly valued the educational opportunities they would receive in Canada. According to Mark “Well, she [his mother] had us pretty convinced that it is a better standard of living, and basically the main reason is to look out for your future. She wanted us to have an opportunity … . So I wanted to come for two reasons: to live with her and to make a better future for myself ” (p. 233). A second year university student at the time of the interview, Mark credits the supports and expectations of his mother and grandparents, as well as his Trinidadian upbringing and schooling with providing him the foundation for attaining his educational goals. In Mark’s view, his educational and career ambitions are as much a product of the advantages he took of the educational and sporting opportunities he gained in Canada, as his “Trinidadian” social and familial discipline and values upon which he was able to draw. In this regard, with reference to the role of Mark’s family, James writes: “He looked to them for guidance, willingly complied with their expectations of him, and was comfortable with them living vicariously through him” (p. 240). Like parents, the immigrant communities of racialized students play a significant role in cultivating the necessary social and cultural capital that enable them to effectively navigate and negotiate their schooling and attain their educational ambitions. Portes (1995) suggests that the community network of immigrants represents a “sense of ‘we-ness’ prompted by the experience of being lumped together, defined in derogatory
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terms, and subjected to the same discrimination by the host society” (p. 256). This perception of commonality of experiences, combined with parents’ communication of high aspirations to their offspring,7 serves to influence their children’s desires to achieve in the face of experiences with discrimination and marginality. For example, in Zhou’s (1997) study of adolescents living in a Vietnamese community in the U.S., some of them mentioned that they were “constantly reminded of their duty to show respect for their elders, to take care of younger siblings, to work hard, and to make decisions upon approval of parents not simply within a particular family but in the community where other families practiced similar values” (p. 82). In his study of university students from an “inner-suburban” community in Toronto, James (2005b) found that the students’ motivation to obtain a university education was, in part, based on their desire to challenge and change the negative stereotypes of their community. They felt that by “giving back” to “their” community they could help change the reputation that is held of the community by residents and outsiders alike. Research demonstrates that children of immigrants often operate with social and cultural capital that places significance on their schooling and education. In this regard, instead of emphasizing students’ deficits through ubiquitous and prevailing assimilationist models of schooling, educators should recognize and build on the social and cultural experiences, values, ideas and ambitions of students and their parents (see Beynon, LaRocque, Ilieva, & Dagenais, 2005). Research indicates that the experiences and aspirations of students are often influenced and informed by deeply internalized understandings among the students of the sacrifices their parents, families, and often their ethno-racial communities have invested in them. As such, it should be self-evident that teachers should acknowledge the potential that this social and cultural capital offers students, rather than trivializing, repressing or dismissing them as irrelevant to the schooling contexts of these students.
Schooling and the Racialized Experiences of Immigrant Students As discussed earlier, immigrant parents often conceived of education as an essential mechanism for achieving the desired middle class existence which they seek, if not for themselves, then for their children (Anisef et al., 2000). Nonetheless, the schooling situations of many children of immigrants who have settled in both inner- and outersuburban communities are frequently characterized by difficulties rather than successes. One reason for this has to do with the prevailing assumptions and stereotypes that teachers hold of racialized immigrant students’ differences and possibilities. Much of these assumptions are informed by the dominant multicultural education model employed in Canadian schools. This model promotes “celebrating difference and diversity” through a variety of educational initiatives such as having students display their immigrant heritage in organized activities (multicultural days). Within this model, teachers would also uncritically use, “multicultural literature” (often American) with the expectation of engaging students. For example, in his essay about teaching in an inner-suburban school in Toronto, Andrew Allen recalls trying to use “multicultural picture books to get his
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students to read. He tells of choosing books with which he felt his students would identify – books that reflected ‘urban life’ in terms of ‘racial diversity, hardships and poverty’ ” (1996, p. 157). Despite his efforts and enthusiasm, Allen’s grade three students refused to work with the books because as Allen concludes, they could not relate to the “often exaggerated poverty; and the Black characters depicted were usually situated in an environment filled with adversity and laden with traditional stereotypes” – for example, children in “pauper clothing” and portraits of children “looking unhappy, depressed, upset or as having silly mischievous grins” (p. 162). The multicultural approach to meeting the needs and interests of Canadian students, frequently ignore the social and cultural contexts of students and the structural inequities that have mediated their schooling experiences. The result is tokenistic, celebratory approach that most often works to obscure the very real challenges against which these students struggle in their schools and communities. Furthermore, salient ways in which the social and cultural capital of these students might be drawn upon are ignored in favor of overly simplistic understandings of difference. The failure of “suburban” schools to fully engage students in their schooling and educational processes has resulted in many of the conflicts, difficulties and contestations that we observe between teachers and students. The irony is that teachers use the actions of students to reinforce their assumptions and stereotypes of the students from these suburban communities and in the process impose disciplinary measures such as suspensions and expulsions that often work to the disadvantage of students. Such actions by teachers are often based on the policy and practice of “zero tolerance” which many ethno-racial community members and teachers have observed (as in the US) disproportionately affects Black male students (see also Noguera, 2003; Ruck, Smith, & Fine, 2004). For example, in their study of the racial profiling of Black students within the Toronto area school system, Solomon and Palmer (2004) found that the Safe Schools policy of “zero tolerance,” where students are suspended or expelled from school for various infractions, have differential effects on Black students resulting in their schooling and life opportunities being seriously limited. The authors note that “zero tolerance policies do not take into consideration the social and environmental contexts of interpersonal interactions when deliberating youth’s infractions of school rules and regulations” (Solomon & Palmer, 2004, p. 8). Additionally, the Ontario Human Rights Commission has repeatedly claimed that minority students are disproportionately penalized under the government’s Safe Schools Act and discipline policies, and as recently as October 2005, the Commission ruled against one School Board in the metropolitan Toronto area for its disciplinary practice toward four Black students. The students were suspended for up to 20 days – a punishment the Commission felt was based on the racial background of the students. Similarly in the United States, as Ruck and his colleagues (2004) report, zero tolerance policies have led to large increases in expulsions and suspensions. Under zero tolerance, writes Rick and his colleagues, “the number of students suspended each year in U.S. schools almost doubled from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 1998, with 87,000 students being expelled” (p. 206). And in Chicago, in the three years following the 1995/1996 implementation of zero tolerance policies, students were increasingly
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“suspended or expelled for non-violent non-drug offenses, cutting classes and tardiness, and fighting.” Ruck et al. appropriately argue that “if zero tolerance policies were orking then we should have seen a decrease in suspensions and expulsions but this is not the case even with the decline in youth violence” (p. 207). According to the American Bar Association, “Zero tolerance is a perverse version of mandatory sentencing, first, because it takes no account of what we know about the child and adolescent development, and second, because in the criminal justice system … when mandatory sentences exist, there are different mandatory sentences for offenses of different seriousness” (cited in Ruck et al., 2004, p. 203). Given the fact that zero tolerance policies have a negative impact on students – leading in some cases to emotional problems and school drop-out (Ruck et al., 2004; Dei, Mazzuca, McIsaac, & Zine, 1997), it is important, as Ruck and his colleagues state in their warning to Canadians, for schools “to challenge the assumption that students themselves are the sole cause of misbehavior and examine the possibility that disciplinary action is also a function of school and classroom characteristics” (p. 214). Another significant way in which Black youth, especially males, experience their schooling is related to the ways in which educators frequently read their interest in sports. In this regard, James (2005c) points out that in observing that many Black male students are not performing well academically, teachers often encourage or enable their participation on sports teams, believing that their good intentions are rightly supporting these students’ interests. For their part, in attempting to negotiate schooling and societal structures which they perceive to be unsupportive and unresponsive to their needs and interests, many Black males actively embrace their construction as athletes (most often basketball players) which in turn greatly inform become their schooling identities (James, 2005c). Drawing upon these athletic identities often provides Black student athletes a source of strength and purpose especially within a context where their participation in sports seems to earn them “celebrity” status, popularity and public recognition. It is understandable, then, that participation in school sports would be attractive to large numbers of Black male students. But while many Black youth, and immigrants in particular, have effectively used their participation in sports to adjust to life in Canada and to their schooling situations (James, 2005c), their perceptions about their possibilities through athletics (such as gaining athletic scholarship to US universities) not only negatively affect their academic performance but also their alternative occupational possibilities. With limited finances and few recreational facilities many of these inner and outer suburban youth rely on their schools’ recreational facilities which in most cases offer them basketball. Also basketball facilities (as opposed to hockey) are inexpensive recreational activities that are available in their communities. Media images also support these Black student-athletes, their coaches, teachers and sometimes their parents’ view that sports, and basketball in particular, can help them to go from poverty to wealth. In a study of a Canadian newspaper reporting of student athletes’ sport activities, it was found that not only were Black athletes constructed as, or implied to be, “natural” athletes and shown to be struggling academically, their participation in sports participation was frequently constructed as a “way out” for them or a salvation from dire educational and social circumstances (Saul, 2006; Saul & James, 2006).
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Black middle school “inner-suburban” females, on the other hand, as educator Alison Gaymes (2006) found, were not supported by their teachers and coaches in the same way as their male counterparts because, as the girls stated, “boys are the ‘real athletes’” (p. 13). Further, the girls with whom Ms. Gaymes worked, indicated that like the Black males, teachers did not encourage them in their academic work either.8 As a result, they put their energies unto maintaining their “rude” stereotypical image which gave them, in a perverse way, the respect they gained from teachers and peers. So as Ms. Gaymes writes: “Even though violating the rules of the school meant being sent to the office, a phone call home, or even a suspension, these girls felt it was worth it to achieve the respect and power where it mattered” (p. 13). The racialization processes that construct Black students as academic underachievers, troublemakers and athletes also operate in the labeling of South Asians (Handa, 2003; Varghese, 2006) and Asian students as “model minority” students (Lee, 2003; Pon, 2000). One student, Deena writes: As an Asian, my body and skin colour are understood in a very specific way in Canadian society, I am considered a “model minority,” which is considered a “positive stereotype.” We are supposed to be “good citizens,” submissive and respectful to authority. Other “positive stereotypes” are that Asian people do well in school, are hardworking and intelligent. I have always been expected to excel in my academic work, and I have deeply disappointed my teachers when I do not, especially when I am dismal at math. (James, 2003) Stereotypes such as these speak to the pervasiveness of racialized assumptions that many minority students must negotiate within their schooling contexts. In this regard, Lee (2003), in speaking about similar occurrences in the United States, tells us that the effects of these stereotypes on Asian students can have a “tremendous impact on these adolescents’ self-concept, academic choices, and relationships with others in the school environment” (p. 42). Accordingly, while on the surface seemingly positive and flattering, Lee identifies two important effects that stereotypes such as these have on racial minority students. “First,” she states, “the stereotype denies the fact that some Asian Americans continue to struggle against structural and other barriers. Second, it has been used as a political weapon against other marginalized groups of colour” (Lee, 2003, p. 45). In other words, the flawed notion that Asian students achieve educational success solely through hard work and individual merit often serves to obscure the fact that structural barriers affect all students’ performance, achievements and engagements with school. As a result of this obscuring, many students – such as the Black males described earlier in relation to negative stereotypes, for example – suffer from the added perception that their struggles in school are solely a consequence of their own inadequacies. Evidently, all racial minority students negotiate a schooling system that is supported and maintained by various educational and teaching practices that operate to marginalize and racialize them in varying ways. In the Canadian context specifically, a major obstacle to the students’ combating their racialization and marginalization stems from the fact that educators are failing to draw upon the many resources related to the social and cultural capital that these students bring to their schooling context. We have found
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that gender stereotypes inform how males and females are treated. Indeed, in many ways gender is embedded in the institutional structures and arrangements of schools and as such function to racialize and marginalize students.9 Furthermore, schooling identities, can, and often do, become internalized and performed by students in problematic ways as a response to externally imposed raced, classed and gendered understandings placed upon them (Allen, 1996; Davis, 2001; Ferguson, 2000; Henry, 2005; Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004).
Similarities and Differences Between “Inner” and “Outer” Suburban Schooling Typically, teachers who work in inner-suburban schools are “outsiders” traveling from middle class suburban areas of the city. In some cases, teachers might live in or near to the outer-suburban communities. They bring with them to schools sets of taken-forgranted assumptions about the residents of the inner-suburban areas that come largely from their own family experiences, popular culture, mass media, and a poverty-phobic education (James-Wilson, 1999). Some are fearful of the community because of real and perceived gang activity, street crime, and violence. As such, many teachers in this context leave their school buildings while it is still light outside, thus unable to participate in after-school activities that are often crucial to students’ academic success and overall connection to the school. And the fear and assumptions of teachers are not helped by the fact that the doors of the school buildings where they work are locked (except for the main entrance to the school) during school hours; and in a few cases surveillance cameras operate to monitor the school corridors. Uncritical about their fears and the problematic schooling milieu of their inner-suburban students, teachers (Kincheloe, 2004) routinely teach with little understanding of how to deal with their students. For example, in a workshop one of us (James) conducted with some middle-school (grades 6–8) teachers in an inner-suburban neighborhood of Toronto, many expressed major concerns about the “anger” of their students. One teacher stated: “I see a lot of anger. I see it in a variety of students. I do not know where it comes from.” It is indeed possible that the students’ anger is related to, as Fine and Burns (2005) found in their study of students in California, their recognition of their material, cultural and social restrictions, “biased curricula and lack of consistent supportive relations with teachers” (p. 119). The middle-school teachers were also concerned about the students’ “lack of discipline” – including “ways of dressing.” They hypothesized that the students’ poor behavior was related to cultural norms – that is, the students were accustomed to authoritarian disciplinary practices at home by their parents, many of whom were of Caribbean backgrounds. On this basis, they believed that the disciplinary problems might be best addressed if teachers were more authoritarian and “less liberal” (see Delpit, 1995). What emerges in the teachers’ discussion of their efforts to maintain discipline in the school was their conviction that the behavior of the students was basically about the students and their lack of parenting. Essentially, what the teachers wanted was to have the students submit to their control rather than giving attention to the systemic factors – such as school expectations, curriculum content, and pedagogical approaches – that might
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be contributing to the students’ behaviors in the first place.10 And despite the fact that many of the teachers at the school shared the same cultural heritage as the students, it was clear to many of them that they were not able “to affect the lives of the students [they] teach” and address the “low expectations of students” on the basis of shared heritage. Seemingly, class differences or their “outsider” position played a more salient role in teacher-student relationships. Quite telling is the idea, as expressed by one teacher that “Black students identify Black teachers with the establishment. They don’t think that we inhabit their world or that we can relate to them. They perceive us as maintaining the system.” While class differences between teachers and students might be more evident in inner-suburban schools, in outer-suburban schools it is usually less clear. In fact, the ambiguity of the class position of students in the outer-suburbs is even less clear to the teachers, who themselves might be from similar suburban neighborhoods, and to an extent are trying to maintain their class interests. This ambiguity in students’ social status causes teachers at an outer-suburban school much consternation – something expressed by Lisa Varghese (2006) in her reporting of incidents at her school involving South Asian students. Ms. Varghese, a South Asian Canadian, tells of a number of incidents at her school which puzzled her and other teachers. While she could identify with many of the students’ cultural experiences and dilemmas related to growing up in the suburbs (since, like them, she grew up in the suburbs with immigrant parents), she could not relate, however, to what she identified as the “resistant, angry, abusive, truant, deviant and gang-related behaviours” that the students (mostly males) displayed in school. She said that some of their behaviors made her feel “ashamed, angry and, at times even brought her to tears.” Varghese reveals that while she could understand these behaviors being displayed by students living in “urban, low income areas” where the economic and social problems they experience “pressure them into making poor choices,” she did not understand similar behavior being displayed by the youth in the suburban schools where she was teaching. She writes: “… deviant behaviour among South Asian youth, living in the outer suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, is a fairly new phenomenon (or is it?). And most people do not know the reason why” (p. 7). Is it that the “outer-suburban” teachers and others do not know the reasons for the troublemaking behaviours of their students, or that they simply do not want to believe that, as Varghese puts it, “this fairly new phenomenon” has also migrated to the “outer suburbs?” Clearly, Varghese and her colleagues, and many others like them, have not taken the time to know their students and the social, cultural and economic conditions under which they live. They seem to take for granted that the suburban existence of their students represents financial stability as well as social and cultural integration (if not assimilation); and in so doing teachers are failing to meet the needs, interests and aspirations – educational, cultural and otherwise – of their students (see also Desai & Subramanian, 2000). This failure of outer-suburban teachers to give attention to the cultural diversity of their student population is reflected, not only in the teacher population, but also in the curriculum which seems to be based on the teachers’ assumptions about the “sameness” of the students – the idea that once they live in the suburbs their families have either integrated or wish to integrate culturally into the society. This assumption would explain Michelle’s schooling experience. Michelle, a Black student, began her education in an
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inner-suburban school but was transferred to an outer-suburban school when her family moved to the outer suburbs. In recalling her experiences in her new outer-suburban school, Michelle states: Just about everyone and everything at school was representative of all the things … . I was not. All my teachers, whom I liked very much, were European and/or Anglo-Saxon; all the people in the story books I enjoyed reading were European and/or Anglo-Saxon; all the pictures hung around the school were of people who were of European and/or Anglo-Saxon descent … . The dominant culture that was taught and displayed in my school played an increasingly significant role in the formation of my identity. Tell me, what person in their right mind would not want also to be white? After all, whites seemed to be like the most important people in the universe. I realize now that … [these] relationships … undoubtedly caused me to question who I was, as I was not satisfied with just being me. (James, 2003, p. 80) Michelle’s experience indicates that unlike their inner-suburban counterparts who were at least trying to work with curriculum materials that were reflective of their students’ cultural diversity, outer-suburban teachers had yet to do the same. It is understandable, therefore, that Michelle’s needs and interests would be ignored, and her racialized experiences as a Black female student overlooked (see Henry, 2005). So, to the extent that Michelle’s parents might have moved to an outer-suburban community with the expectation and hope of securing “good” educational opportunities for her, this was not realized. What students like Michelle experienced, were traditional schooling and educational models that make little or no efforts to cater to their specific needs. Michelle articulates this well in saying: Every day in school I listened to the lessons. I believed what the teachers taught, and I abided by their rules. I was a “good” student. Unconsciously, I was proud to have assimilated so successfully as it made “them” happy, and it also made me acceptable. It did not bother me that my culture(s) was not represented in the school curriculum … . In fact, I was never taught to think critically about my “place” in school. I was learning to be content with being a part of the “norm.” (James, 2003, p. 81) Michelle’s comments reflect the fact that students react to their schooling situation which fails to recognize their “cultural selves” or “differences” in complicated ways. Reflecting on her schooling experience as a university student, Michelle indicates that she complied with the expectations of her school – she “assimilated” – and was able to obtain an education even at the expense of her culture.11 Also Michelle seems to be suggesting that she exercised agency – making use of acquired cultural capital measures of discipline, obedience and compliance to negotiate her schooling. The notion of exercising agency and making use of their cultural capital to negotiate schooling structures is also captured in the stories of Black male student athletes. For instance, committed to the idea that it is through basketball they would be able to acquire postsecondary education (by wining a scholarship to attend a US college), a
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number of male student athletes, many of them Black, would enroll in schools on the basis of the reputation of the basketball team, the opportunities that they would get to play on the team, and the contacts that the school has with US college scouts. To this end, they would choose to attend high schools that are outside their boundaries or transfer to schools whenever necessary; and in so doing endure long commutes. When we compare how these practices might serve the interests of student athletes attending inner- and outer-suburban schools, we see some important differences. Student athletes attending inner-suburban schools in Toronto – with their ready access to transportation as well as access to city schools with basketball teams with established winning reputations and connections to US colleges – have advantages over their outer-suburban counterparts. Research has shown that some student athletes living in outer-suburban communities have chosen to attend school within Toronto, and many others wish they could (James, 2005c). So for outer-suburban student-athletes, lack of proximity to city centers coupled with inaccessible transportation services inevitably works to operate against them. Conversely, student athletes in inner-suburban schools with similar aspirations can capitalize on the relative ease of commuting to schools in relative proximity to each other in attempting to realize their aspirations and make the most of their studentathlete informed experiences. While the concerns of student-athletes might appear trivial – after all, an outside observer might suggest, and perhaps correctly so, that student-athletes can be better served by placing academic considerations ahead (or at least equal with) their basketball ambitions – it is imperative to consider that their use of basketball represents their attempts to navigate a schooling environment which operates to racialize and marginalize them, and in the process restrict their educational aspirations. In thinking through the similarities and differences of the schooling experiences faced by students in both inner- and outer-suburban communities, then, we observe that their struggles seem to mirror each other due to the marginalizing schooling conditions they encounter; yet each context presents specific sets of challenges in relation to the ways in which the students’ ambitions are mediated by their spatial locations. Contributing to the challenges of students in outer-suburban areas is their lack of the necessary middle class income; hence problems of access to a variety of essential public facilities can become exceedingly difficult. For example, for students without cars or other modes of transportation, access to libraries and recreational facilities in residential communities where public transportation is sparse and costly can frequently become a challenge. Similarly, the agency and flexibility that might be exercised in choosing one’s school – an undertaking valued by many city or inner-suburban students in attempting to best meet their educational needs – is in effect removed from consideration for most students living in sparse outer-suburbs. Considerations such as these should not be understated as they can enable a variety of adverse educational outcomes for large groups of students.
Conclusion As educators confront the realities of working in today’s suburban areas, it is necessary to reassess and revise the taken-for-granted assumptions about the areas and the students who live there. We have identified two kinds of suburban areas – the inner-suburbs and
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outer-suburbs that result from today’s “urbanization”12 – where we will find large numbers of students with immigrant parents whose “drive” and ambitions help to structure their belief that it is through education that their children will “make it” in the society. So, socialized in this belief and related social and cultural capital, students participate in school with the expectation that regardless of their background and where they live, schools will provide them opportunities by which they can freely prove their merit and in turn realize their own and their parents’ ambitions (Henze, 2005, p. 257). But as Fine and Burns (2005) point out, in the process of reproducing race and class inequity, schools actively stream “poor, working class, immigrant youth and youth of color, away from academic excellence and democratic participation and towards educational failure and civic alienation” (p. 116). Within this context, then, regardless of the schools they attend – whether inner-suburban or outer-suburban schools – students will have similar struggles in their attempt to negotiate their schooling and realize their educational and career ambitions. But while there are similarities in the experiences and struggles of students who attend schools in inner-suburban and outer-suburban neighborhoods, there are also differences. Schools in inner-suburbs to which teachers commute from their middleclass suburban homes tend to be plagued by preconceived images and notions of students as likely to perform poorly academically due to lack of interest in school and because of their poverty and immigrant background. And while it is in the innersuburban schools that we see teachers attempting to give attention to the multicultural character of the student population, they do so within a context where the curriculum is still premised on middle-class European values, ideas and pedagogy, consequently students remain estranged from the curriculum and schooling. In outer-suburban schools, the classed-based assumptions of students frequently result in the failure of educators to give attention to the particular situation of students and their related needs, issues and concerns, not only as racialized minorities and children of immigrants, but children living in family situation in which finances are limited. It is imperative that all teachers – especially those working in neighborhoods with which they are unfamiliar – to get to know their students and the neighborhoods in which they live in order to build the necessary teacher/student relationships. In this regard, having an awareness of the social, cultural, economic and political contexts of the suburban neighborhoods wherein students reside, will provide teachers valuable insights into the lives of their students, which teachers can in turn incorporate into their curriculum content, pedagogical approaches, and schooling programs. In an urban education course I (James) teach, I require teacher-candidates to visit the neighborhoods of the schools before beginning their practice teaching. The assignment involves teacher-candidates walking around the students’ neighborhoods, having conversations with people they meet, observing the racial and ethnic mix of the neighborhoods, noting the types of housing, recreational facilities and businesses as well as access to transportation. The idea here is for teachers to see students in their geographic settings and to experience, in whatever little way they can, the community life of the students so that they may be better informed to teach their students. We suggest community visits can be a way for teachers to begin to address their limited information and preconceived notions of their students and their communities, for
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what goes on inside the school building and classrooms is influenced by what is outside. Indeed, the communities in which students live not only help in the forming of their identities, but also help to shape the identity and reputation of the school – an identity and reputation in which teachers are implicated because of the fact that they work in that school.
Notes 1. For example, The Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children by Gloria LadsonBillings (1994) was a very popular book used by teachers in the Toronto area; so too was a journal article, “The silent dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children” by Lisa Delpit (1988). 2. The Canadian Census of 2001 indicates that some 43% of the population were immigrants, and in 2004, only 20% of the immigrants to Canada came from Europe, while the others came from China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Korea, Iran, Africa and the Caribbean. Allan Gregg (2006) reports that nearly 50% of the immigrants from the first six listed countries. Gregg also mentions that “secondgeneration immigrants represent only 14 percent of Canada’s current visible-minority population. But today, two-thirds of all native-born visible minorities in Canada are under sixteen years old. Their numbers are destined to swell … .” (p. 47). 3. Logan (2003) suggests that there is a growing change in this pattern of residency, noting that “there is strong evidence that immigrants are now major contributors to suburbanization” (p. 8). 4. Until the mid-1960s, Canada’s immigration policies restricted the entry of racial minority people into the country, but the 1967 immigration policy introduced a point system by which independent immigrants on the basis of, among other requirements, their education, professional qualification, language (English and/or French) and suitability would qualify for permanent residency in Canada (James, 2003). 5. The term ethnoburbia refers to the high concentration of a particular ethnic or racial group in a geographic area. The term was first coined in the 1990s by Arizona State University geography professor Wei Li with reference to the Chinatowns of Los Angeles (DeWolf, 2004). 6. The evidence is that immigrants tend to have higher levels of education that Canadian-born residents (Ornstein, 2006). 7. In the case of South Asians, for example, parents’ insistence on high aspirations and achievements, is related to, among other things, maintaining “family honour” (Handa, 2003). 8. Those girls who did well academically were seen as anomalies. Hence, from their perspective, appearing to be smart was not an advantage (Gaymes, 2006). 9. In telling of the gendered character of the struggles that Black girls experience in their bid to “participate fully” in school, Henry (2005) references the experiences of two 12-year-old Black female students in an urban Chicago school (both immigrated there from the Caribbean with their parents at age five years. She observed that the students’ struggle to participate was related to schooling structure which gave little to attention to their cultural differences and needs. 10. It is quite possible that these Toronto teachers, like those of whom Foster, Lewis, and Onafowora (2005) write, are displaying their “weak sense of teacher agency” and their desperate search for ways in which they might mitigate their own problems and those of students (p. 31). 11. It is worth noting that often parents, particularly immigrant parents, because of their unfamiliarity with the education system fail to give consideration to the assimilative nature of the educational system, sometimes at the expense of their children’s educational performance and outcome. 12. We suggest that the “urbanization” of the suburbs is a worldwide phenomenon which is evident in many North American and European cities where immigrants are settling low-cost suburban areas where poverty, unemployment, and lack of educational and occupational opportunities tend to plague their lives. It is in these suburbs where the alienation and lack of a sense of belonging contribute to such incidents as the recent riots in Paris, France, the bombings in London, England, and less heard about incidents in cities in Sweden, Germany and other countries (see Gregg, 2006).
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References Allen, A. (1996). “I don’t want to read this”: Students’ responses to illustrations of Black characters in children’s picture books. In K. S. Brathwaite, & C. E. James (Eds.), Educating African Canadians (pp. 147–166). Toronto: James Lorimer & Co. Anisef, P., Axelrod, P., Baichman-Anisef, E., James, C., & Turrittin, A. (2000). Opportunity and uncertainty: Life course experiences of the class of ‘73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Anisef, P., & Lanphier, M. (2003). The world in a city. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bauder, H., & Sharpe, B. (2002). Residential segregation of visible minorities in Canada’s gateway cities. Canadian Geographer, 46(3), 204–222. Beynon, J., LaRocque, L., Ilieva, R., & Dagenais, D. (2005). A socio-cultural and critical analysis of educational policies and programmes for minority youth in British Columbia. In C. E. James (Ed.), Possibilities and limitations: Multicultural policies and programmes in Canada (pp.109–128). Halifax, NS: Fernwood Press. Boyd, M., & Grieco, E. M. (1998). Triumphant transitions: Socioeconomic achievements of second generation in Canada. International Migration Review, 32(4), 853–876. Callejo Perez, D. M. (2003). Middle class identity and education. Teachers College Record, 106 (2), 347–354. Davis, J. E. (2001). Transgressing the masculine: African American boys and the failure of schools. In W. Martino, & B. Meyenn (Eds.), What about the boys? Issues of masculinity in schools (pp. 140–153). Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Dei, G. J. S., Mazzuca, J., McIsaac, E., & Zine, J. (1997). Reconstructing ‘drop-out’: A critical ethnography of the dynamics of black students’ disengagement from school. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), 280–298. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press. Desai, S., & Subramanian, S. (2000). Colour, culture and dual consciousness: Issues identified by South Asian immigrant youth in the Toronto area. In P. Anisef, & K. Kilbride (Eds.), Managing two worlds: The experiences and concerns of immigrant youth in Ontario (pp. 118–131). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. DeWolf, (2004). Keeping up with the Dosanjhs: The rise of North America’s ethnoburbs. October 25. Retrieved on March 1, 2006, from http:www.culturescanada.ca/news.php?detailn1098715809.news Dyson, L. L. (2001). Home-school communication and expectations of recent Chinese immigrants”. Canadian Journal of Education 26(4), 455–476. Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of masculinities. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Fine, M., & Burns, A. (2005). The color and class of betrayal in public education. In L. Karumanchery (Ed.), Engaging equity: New perspectives on anti-racist education (pp. 115–131). Calgary, Alberta: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. Foner, N. (1997). The immigrant families: Cultural legacies and cultural changes. International Migration Review, 32(4), 961–974. Foster, M., Lewis, J., & Onafowora, L. (2005, March). Grooming great urban teachers. Educational Leadership, 62(5), 28–32. Gaymes, A. (2006). Making spaces that matter: Black females in the pubic education system. MA Thesis. Toronto: Graduate Studies in Education, York University. Gibson, M. A. (2005). It’s all about relationships: Growing a community of college-oriented migrant youth. In L. Pease-Alvarez, & S. R. Schecter (Eds.), Learning, teaching, and community (pp. 47–68). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gregg, A. (2006, March). Identity crisis – multiculturalism: A twentieth-century dream becomes a twentyfirst-century conundrum. The Walrus, 38–47. Handa, A. (2003). Of silk and mini-skirts: South Asian girls walk the tightrope of culture. Toronto: Women’s Press. Henry, A. (2005). Writing in the margins of classroom life: A teacher/researcher partnership using dialogue journals. In L. Pease-Alvarez, & S. R. Schecter (Eds.), Learning, teaching, and community (pp. 69–87). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Henze, R. C. (2005). Veronica’s story: Reflections on the limitation of “support systems”. In L. Pease-Alvarez, & S. R. Schecter (Eds.), Learning, teaching, and community (pp. 257–276). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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James, C. E. (2003). Seeing ourselves: Exploring race, ethnicity and culture. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing. James, C. E. (2005a). “I feel like a Trini”: Narrative of a generation-and-a-half Canadian. In V. Agnew (Ed.), Diaspora, memory and identity: A search for home (pp. 230–253). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. James, C. E. (2005b). Constructing aspirations: The significance of community in the schooling lives of children of immigrants. In L. Pease-Alvarez, & S. R. Schecter (Eds.), Learning, teaching, and community (pp. 217–234). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. James, C. E. (2005c). Race in play: Understanding the socio-cultural worlds of student athletes. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. James-Wilson, S. V. (1999). Stories about the inner-city: Beginning teachers struggle with images and reality. Orbit, 30(3), 34–37. Kao, G., & Tienda, M. (1995). Optimism and achievement: The educational performance of immigrant youth. Social Science Quarterly, 76(1), 1–19. Kincheloe, J. L. (2004). Why a book on urban education? In J. L. Kincheloe (Ed.), 19 Urban education questions: Teaching in the city (pp. 1–28). New York: Peter Lang. Ladson Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Lee, S. J. (2003). The impact of stereotyping on Asian American students. In M. Sadowski (Ed.), Adolescents at school: Perspectives on youth, identity and education (pp. 41–49). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Li, J. (2001). Expectations of Chinese immigrant parents for their children’s education: The interplay of Chinese tradition and the Canadian context. Canadian Journal of Education, 26(4), 477–494. Logan, J. R. (2003). America’s newcomers. Albany, NY: Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, University of Albany. McClafferty, K. A., Torres, C. A., & Mitchell, T. R. (2000). Introduction: Challenges of the new sociology of urban education. In K. A. McClafferty, C. A. Torres, & T. R. Mitchell (Eds.), Challenges of urban education: Sociological perspectives for the new century (pp. 3–18). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Noguera, P. A. (2003). The trouble with Black boys: The role and influence of environmental and cultural factors on the academic performance of African American males. Urban Education, 38(4), 431–459. Ornstein, M. (2006). Ethno-racial groups in Toronto, 1971–2001: A demographic and socio-economic profile. Toronto: Institute of Social research, York University. Phelan, T. J., & Schneider, M. (1996). Race, ethnicity, and class in American suburbs. Urban Affair Review, 31(5), 659–680. Pon, G. (2000). Beamers, cells, malls and cantopop: Thinking through the geographies of Chineseness. In C. E. James (Ed.), Experiencing difference (pp. 222–234). Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing. Portelli, J. P., & Solomon, R. P. (Eds.). (2001). The erosion of democracy in education: From critique to possibilities. Calgary: Deselig Enterprises Ltd. Portes, A. (1995). Children of immigrants: Segregated assimilation and its determinants. In A. Portes (Ed.), The economic sociology of immigration (pp. 248–279). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Portes, A., & MacLeod, D. (1999). Educating the second generation: Determinants of academic achievement among children of immigrants in the United States. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 25(3), 373–396. Presmeg, N. (2002). Shifts in meaning during transitions. In G. de Abreu, A. J. Bishop, & N. C. Presmeg (Eds.), Transitions between contexts of mathematical practices (pp. 213–228). Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Preston, V., & Wong, M. (2002). Immigration and Canadian cities: Building inclusion. In C. Andrew, K. A. Graham, & S. D. Phillips (Eds.), Urban affairs: Back on the policy agenda (pp. 23–44). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Reinhart, A. (March 11, Saturday, 2006). Alienation, stress and turmoil invade the promised land. The Globe and Mail, p. A7. Ruck, M., Smith, K., & Fine, M. (2004). Resisting at the borders: Warnings from the US about zero tolerance. In Kidd, & J. Phillips (Eds.), Research on community safety: From enforcement and prevention to civic engagements (pp. 203–214). Toronto Centre of Criminology: University of Toronto.
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Saul, R. (2006). How black male student athletes get stereotyped in Canada’s schools. Our Schools, Our Selves, 15(2), 91–110. Saul, R., & James, C. E. (2006). Framing possibilities: Representations of black student athletes in Toronto media. Canadian and International Education Journal, 35(1), 63–79. Sigelman, L., & Henig, J. (September, 2001). Crossing the great divide – Race and preferences for living in the city versus the suburbs. Urban Affairs Review, 37(1), 3–18. Solomon, R. P., & Palmer, H. (2004). Schooling in Babylon, Babylon in school: When “racial profiling” and “zero tolerance” converge. Canadian Journal of Educational: Administration and Policy, 33. Retrieved on March, 2006, from http://www.umanitoba.ca/publiation/cjeap/issuesOnline.html Suarez-Orozco, C., & Qin-Hilliard, D. B. (2004). Immigrant boys’ experiences in U.S. schools. In N. Way, & J. Y. Chu (Eds.), Adolescent boys: Exploring diverse cultures of boyhood (pp. 295–316). New York: New York University Press. Troper, H. (2003). Becoming an immigrant city: A history of immigration into Toronto since the Second World War. In P. Anisef, & M. Lanphier (Eds.), The world in a city (pp. 19–62). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Varghese, L. S. (2006). Finding a “home”: Thinking through the issues and complexities of South Asian adolescent conduct in today’s Greater Toronto area. Toronto: Graduate Studies in Education, York University. Waters, M. C. (1999). Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press. Wooden, W. S., & Blazak, R. (2001). Renegade kids, suburban outlaws: From youth culture to delinquency. Belmont, CA: The Wadsworth Publishing. Young, D. (February 3, 2006). Dreams and demons: Governing modernisms legacies in Jane-Finch. Toronto: The City Seminar, Urban Research Collective, York University. Zhang, C., Ollila, L. O., & Harvey, B. (1998). Chinese parents’ perceptions of their children’s literacy and schooling in Canada. Canadian Journal of Education, 23(2), 182–190. Zhou, M. (1997). Growing up American: The challenge confronting immigrant children and children of immigrants. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 63–95.
45 URBAN SCHOOL REFORM: TO WHAT END?
James H. Lytle University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
This chapter chronicles urban school reform in the United States from the 1950s to the present and argues that: ● ●
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For the past 50 years urban schools have been in a continuous process of reform. The reforms have addressed almost every imaginable dimension of urban schooling, from district organization to classroom practice to the racial and ethnic composition of student populations and school faculties. Since the early 1980s education reform, including improving urban schools, has been at the top of the national and state political agenda; the rationale for reform has been maintaining the preeminence of the United States in the world economy. The result is that the reform agenda is increasingly directed from outside urban districts – by mayors, state legislatures and departments of education, and the federal government. An area of continuing contention is whether the mandated reforms have been adequately funded given often ambitious goals and objectives. Increasingly federal and state policies have focused on the work of teachers in classrooms, constraining professional autonomy and prescribing standards, curriculum, assessments, and pedagogy. Increasingly urban school reforms have been evaluated in terms of student outcomes, but improvement as measured by standardized test scores and high school completion rates has been limited.
This essay begins with a brief historical review of reforms over a period of six decades, then considers these reforms from four perspectives – organization, instruction, human resource development, and locus of authority, and finally considers several recurrent and emergent issues of reform.
859 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 859–882. © 2007 Springer.
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Reform Chronology The United States Constitution does not make mention of education. With the exception of the Morrill Act of 1862 which provided land grants to colleges to subsidize their growth, the federal government had taken no active role in educational policy up through the 1950s. State governments were presumed to have responsibility for the oversight of public schools, although most urban school systems operated as semi-autonomous entities (see Tyack, 1974 for a complete discussion.). The shift toward federal involvement in urban schools can be traced to the U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 when separate schools for Negro students were held to be unequal. Three years later the then President Eisenhower was ordering the National Guard to provide safe passage for black students attempting to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. The following year the Russians sent a rocket to the moon heightening cold war tensions, and the national interest began to be defined by the quality of its schools and particularly mathematics and science programs. At the same time racial tensions were beginning to rise in northern cities where blacks had immigrated from the south to be part of the World War II industrial expansion. The collapse of many of the heavy industries following the war meant rapidly rising unemployment for black men, and a shift to a welfare economy in inner cities (Wilson, 1987, 1996). The 1960s were a tumultuous decade in American history, marked by the Cuban missile crisis, the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and by Viet Nam protests and urban “race riots” (see Lytle, 2005). In the midst of the tumult President Lyndon Johnson, himself a former segregationist, oversaw the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), one of his “Great Society” programs. The primary purpose of ESEA was to address long-standing equity and student achievement issues linked to segregation, whether de facto or de jure. ESEA marked the first Congressional intervention in schooling since the Morrill Act, and set the stage for the increasing role of the federal government in urban school reform. The Act had a broad scope, providing funding for educational research, experimental programs, programs for children who did not speak English, and “compensatory” programs for students in high poverty schools who were not learning basic skills (Tyack, 1974, p. 281). Ironically, as the federal government was looking to public schools to eradicate long-standing disparities, sociologist James Coleman et al. (1966) published a massive study of school-effects, Equality of Educational Opportunity, which made the argument that schools had a very limited role in student performance, and that family background was a much more powerful determinant of school success than school programs or characteristics. In many respects this argument remains unresolved – whether schooling can overcome the effects of poverty, discrimination, and family instability. By the late 1960s urban school districts had begun to implement components of ESEA, from remedial reading to alternative school programs, but these programs could be considered palliatives for the reluctance of cities and states to embrace desegregation as the preferred reform option. In terms of national educational policy, the most significant federal action of the 1970s was the passage by Congress of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
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(PL 94–172) in 1974. In IDEA the equity concepts of ESEA were extended to handicapped students and those with special needs. Now urban schools were required to provide federally mandated services to both underachieving poor and minority students, including those who did not speak English and those with special needs. The reform challenge for urban schools and districts was to identify students entitled to these services, provide appropriate programs for them, evaluate the efficacy of those programs, and comply with all federal laws and regulations in the process. Because of constant litigation and federal and state audits, emphasis was more often on compliance than on quality programming (Lytle, 1988). Emergent research on instructional effectiveness and the characteristics of effective schools (see Edmonds, 1979) began to shape the discourse about school reform, positing that reform should be done within the context of research findings likely to lead to improved student outcomes. In an effort to address the desegregation mandates of the Supreme Court and a series of related, local cases, urban districts began to implement bussing programs and magnet schools intended to increase diversity in school enrollments. But the race rioting and protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, coupled with federal highway programs and housing incentives, provoked and enabled “white flight” – the withdrawal and departure of white and middle-class families from urban school districts with precipitous and corresponding enrollment declines. As an example, the Philadelphia Public Schools went from an enrollment of 305,000 in the early 1970s to 185,000 by the mid1980s. The related budget reductions and teacher lay-offs, reassignments, and strikes created continuing district turmoil, undermining reform. By the end of the 1970s the public and policy makers had given up on urban schools. Part of President Reagan’s platform for the 1980 election was the elimination of the U.S. Office of Education. That all changed with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). Terrell Bell, President Reagan’s Secretary of Education, had convened a committee of notable civic and corporate leaders to advise the President on the appropriate role for the federal government in national education policy. The unanticipated conclusion was that the deterioration of its public schools put the nation at grave risk of long-term economic decline, especially as other nations were investing in education as the means to improve their competitiveness in the international economy. In many respects urban school reform today is shaped more by the themes of A Nation at Risk than by the equity issues of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Nation spawned a host of reports and policy recommendations for improving the country’s urban schools (see Lytle, 1992). The emergent reform agenda for the late 1980s and the 1990s had two competing strands. One pressed the implementation of educational research, arguing that research on effective schools and effective instruction provided a substantive base for improving urban schools. The U.S. Department of Education’s What Works publication (1986) exemplifies this strand. The other built from the democratic notion that those best qualified to drive urban school improvement were those closest to schools and classrooms – parents, teachers, principals, and concerned community members. Federal, state, and local legislation supported the creation of “local school councils” or “school management teams,” often
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with the authority to hire principals, manage the school budget, and set program direction. The Chicago Public Schools provide the clearest example of this approach (see Catalyst, 1997). The re-authorization of ESEA in 1988 marked a significant shift in federal urban school reform policy. Schools with high concentrations of poor students could now use federal funds for “Schoolwide Projects,” which meant that the funds could be used to support the improvement work of the school as a whole, rather than being targeted to low performing students through “pull-out programs.” Funding was also provided for “comprehensive school reform,” meaning research-based programs like Success for All, School Development or Accelerated Schools. These programs had their genesis at major research universities and purported to provide organizational, governance, and instructional strategies which would assure improved student achievement. In some cases the strategies included “school-linked services” – making the school the site of health and social service provision for a community. Another emphasis was on school-to-career programs, as opposed to vocational education programs, intended to help students in urban schools connect to the opportunity structure of higher education and employment. An important marker for subsequent school reform was the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics publication in 1989 of it national standards (NCTM, 1989). The authors were a group of K-12 mathematics educators and university professors of mathematics who were responding to the challenge of A Nation at Risk by specifying what students needed to know and be able to do at each grade level of mathematics instruction, K-12. As policy makers embraced the new standards, other national curriculum organizations quickly followed with comparable versions. State departments of education, wishing to demonstrate their commitment to high standards, adopted and/or adapted these curriculum standards as state policy (generally accessible on state department of education web sites). And many urban districts responded by developing their own versions of these standards in the name of curriculum reform. Then states and districts initiated testing and assessment programs built from the standards. The rhetoric of the 1990s shifted the discourse for urban school reform to “all children achieving at high levels,” with high levels defined as demonstrating proficiency on tests corresponding to national standards in specific curriculum domains, but particularly reading/literacy and mathematics. One outcome of this shifting emphasis on standards and assessment was the developing evidence that many urban schools and districts seemed incapable of improvement. In response state governments initiated “take-overs” of urban districts (e.g., New Jersey and the cities of Newark, Patterson, and Jersey City), and mayors acted to seize control of their city’s districts and install leadership and policies they considered more likely to lead to improved performance and public perception (e.g., Richard Daley in Chicago), (Wong & Shen, 2003). Another outcome in many states was charter school legislation authorizing the creation of autonomous schools whose operating authority came directly from the state, rather than local districts. Although charter school regulations vary widely from state to state, the general principle is that the schools receive financial support equivalent to public schools in their communities and must participate in the same state testing systems as all other public schools. Symbolically, charter schools represent growing dissatisfaction with urban schools and districts; in many states the greatest interest in charter schools
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has been in inner cities where parents and entrepreneurs have embraced the opportunity to avoid their local public schools. Charters have also lead to the collapse of parochial schools in inner cities because they are tuition free. The federal government and many states have been aggressive in trying to support charter school development through subsidies and other incentives (see National Alliance for Public Charter Schools web site). A third outcome of the emphasis on standards was clarification of the meaning of equity, both in terms of opportunity to learn and in terms of equal outcomes. Although equity law suits have been put forward in many states based on the argument that states have a state constitutional obligation to provide a free and appropriate education to all children, the most notable success of these suits has been in New Jersey where the state supreme court in a series of decisions (Erlichson & Goertz, 2001) has mandated both parity funding for urban districts and program supports (e.g., pre-school for all three and four year olds). Although No Child Left Behind (NCLB), authorized by Congress in 2000, now dominates policy discussions, in a number of ways the reforms of the 1990s presaged NCLB. The emphasis on standards, high stakes assessment, sanctions and interventions for poor performance, state-take over, competition, required use of research-based strategies and methods – all were part of the urban school reform agenda prior to NCLB. Complying with NCLB is now the priority and preoccupation of both state departments of education and urban districts. The legislation is due for review and reauthorization in 2007, but the prediction is that despite resistance and complaints from states, professional associations, and urban districts, the reauthorized NCLB will differ little from the current version, excepting some flexibility in meeting the Adequate Yearly Progress standards. Members of Congress look at the substantial increase in funding provided to urban schools (and public schools generally) during the past 20 years, then look at National Assessment of Educational Progress, SAT scores, and TIMMs results and see little significant gain in student achievement over the same period. The educational community calls for smaller classes, more professional development, and more research as the necessary response. The Congress has seen little persuasive evidence that these “professional” reform policies will have the intended effect; their response is radical. In their view the entire K-12 public system needs redesign, and the best way to encourage redesign and innovation is to put public education in the market. That will lead to real reform (see DeBray, McDermott, & Wohlstetter, 2005). NCLB by design encourages private sector participation in the education services delivery system. In fact an intentional element of NCLB is the introduction of market forces in public education – through vouchers and choice programs, privatization, and competition. But independent of NCLB, technology and the market are rapidly changing the ways in which education is provided. The most obvious example might be virtual high schools operated by districts, states and private, for-profit providers. As the Internet expands information access, makes possible video conferencing, and as instructional software improves, the definition of what constitutes “school” has already begun to shift. For the urban poor, safety is a continuing preoccupation. For that reason alternatives to “unsafe” neighborhood schools, whether charter schools, small high schools, the
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Internet, or bussing, are likely to shape the urban school reform agenda for the foreseeable future. That is to say there is a market for safety, but quality will remain secondary to safety and survival. As a number of scholars have argued (Murphy, 1999, 2000) markets do not ensure equity without significant controls. As market forces are introduced into urban public education, the likelihood is that the same increase in disparity which has happened with family incomes over the past 30 years will also happen with access to quality education. Demographic studies of urban districts indicate that they are at least as segregated now as they were in the 1950s (Hardy, 2004; Orfield, 1994; Orfield & Yun, 1999). School district boundaries and real estate markets already separate families by race, ethnicity and income; in some respects access to quality education has been controlled by market forces for decades. But that gap is likely to increase, not decrease, as the K-12 education services market matures. Reform does not necessarily equate to improved opportunity or services.
Urban Education Reform (Policy) Chronology, 1950s–2000s 1. 1950s a. Brown v. Board of Education b. Sputnik 2. 1960s a. b. c. d.
Desegregation Elementary and Secondary Education Act Equality of Educational Opportunity (the “Coleman Report”) Compensatory Education
3. 1970s a. b. c. d. e.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Effectiveness [Changing Demographics – enrollment declines; white flight; Hispanic influx] Alternative Programs Culturally appropriate pedagogy
4. 1980s a. b. c. d.
Nation at Risk What Works – research-based School-Based Management – school-linked services ESEA – Schoolwide Projects
5. 1990s a. Comprehensive School Reform – whole school reform b. Charter Schools c. Standards
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d. School-to-Career e. State/Mayoral Take-over f. Equity (Abbott) 6. 2000s a. No Child Left Behind b. National/state performance standards and sanctions c. Increased standardized testing d. Teacher and Principal licensure e. Leadership – shortages, development, centrality f. Markets – choice, charters, vouchers, privatization; Edison, Philadelphia g. Systemic Reform h. Internet – virtual schools i. Instructional Management Systems j. Re-segregation; courts end desegregation k. High School – small schools, foundations, USDOE
Reform Strategies As this brief review and chronology of makes clear, there have been a plethora of attempts at urban school reform. Given the diversity of these reforms and the set of assumptions underlying them, it may be helpful to consider them in categories – reforms which focus on schools as organizations, those based on human resource development, those which address classroom instruction, and those which modify governance or locus of authority arrangements.
Reforming Schools and Districts as Organizations Schools are complex organizations with long-standing conventions regarding their organization, staffing, client populations, service areas, and so forth. In this section school reform means changing enrollment patterns or the ways in which schools are organized in terms of size or grades.
Early childhood, pre-school, head start The most effective of these reforms has been providing schooling for young children, aged three to five. Pre-school and Early Childhood programs like Head Start have been among the most carefully evaluated of all reforms. Cohorts of children who have had the benefit of these programs have been tracked into their adult lives. The accumulated evidence demonstrates that these children are less likely to be placed in special education classes, have fewer discipline problems, are less likely to be retained in grade, are more likely to complete high school, and are more likely to have productive adult lives than children with comparable demographic characteristics who have not had the benefit of such programs (Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 2005). Despite the
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demonstrable success and cost-effectiveness of pre-school in improving life chances for children in urban areas, federal and state governments have been reluctant to commit to providing them.
Desegregation – by race, ethnicity, economic circumstance A direct outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 was a series of attempts to integrate African-American students in schools that had been predominantly or completely white. Many of these attempts were bitterly opposed by white communities and required military and police intervention to force compliance. Bussing African-American students from their neighborhoods to white schools and neighborhoods was the most common approach; rarely were white students bussed to schools that had been predominantly black. Although the prevailing assumption was that the South would be the most difficult region in which to integrate schools, many Northeastern cities proved to be at least as opposed to integration (Orfield, 1994; Orfield & Yun, 1999). Serious efforts to desegregate schools did not begin until the late 1970s, 20 years after the Brown decision. As white families left cities and moved to the suburbs, often to avoid desegregation, the challenge of balancing white and black student enrollments in urban schools became increasingly problematic. By 2000 most urban districts were at least as segregated as they had been before the Brown decision, and as a result federal and state courts began to remove desegregation orders. There have been many attempts to evaluate the educational benefits of desegregation; generally the findings have been that African-American students benefit and white students maintain their previous levels of performance. One of the complicating factors in this research has been the relationship of the differing socioeconomic characteristics of the black and white students as predictors to their school performance. Increasing Hispanic and Asian student enrollments have also pressed the definition of desegregation since in many instances neither group is counted in the calculation of whether a school is desegregated. Magnet schools and alternative schools Partly as a response to court mandates for desegregation, and encouraged by federal funding for alternatives to traditional schools, in the late 1960s and early 1970s urban districts developed an array of magnet and alternative schools. The rationale was that attractive school programs, for example a performing arts magnet, would encourage applications from a diverse group of students leading to voluntary rather than coercive desegregation. Some cities, most notably Kansas City, Missouri, spent billions of dollars constructing magnet schools, only to find that the white students had left town or weren’t interested when the buildings were complete. Although many of the alternative schools of the 1970s and 1980s were relatively successful in improving student performance, their dependence on external funding meant that as budget crises developed and funding dwindled, they atrophied and disappeared. High school reform Because high schools in many ways define the success of urban districts – through graduation and dropout rates, SAT and state proficiency test scores, transition to adulthood,
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violence and discipline problems – they have been a continuing target for reform. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the predominant strategies were breaking large comprehensive high schools, often with 3,000 or more students, into “small learning communities” (SLCs) and encouraging “school-to-career” programs rather than vocational schools. In many instances the two strategies were combined into career-oriented small learning communities, for example, Health Professions or Law & Justice. Generally SLCs were self-contained with 250–400 students in grades 9–12 or 10–12 with a consistent core faculty so that teachers worked with the same students over a 3–4 year period. Moving from a rigid subject department and grade structure to an SLC organization proved to be complex because teachers had so little experience in collaborating across subjects and making students rather than courses their primary concern. When done with planning adequate time and support, SLCs proved to be successful in reducing dropout and discipline problems and increasing graduate access to college and careers (Fine & Somerville, 1998). Recently this approach has been given heightened emphasis as the preferred reform strategy of the New York City schools and the Gates Foundation (Robelen, 2006). In 2005 the Bush administration and the US Department of Education joined the call making smaller high schools the starting place for high school reform. New York City has been the lead urban district on converting large high schools to sets of smaller separate schools occupying the same building, each with its own distinct faculty and administration. A building manager oversees custodial, security, and food services.
Systemic reform One outcome of the continuing experience with urban school reform is the recognition that reform needs to be approached systemically. Schools can not be reformed if the districts in which they operate are not party to the reforms, and if state policies do not support the reforms (Fullan, 2004). The Annenberg Foundation’s enormous investment ($500,000,000) in urban school reform from 1994 to 2002 (see Annenberg Institute for School Reform web site) produced relatively little long-term effect given the investment, but it did demonstrate the importance of a systemic approach to reform. And the District 2 experience in New York during the superintendency of Anthony Alvarado made a compelling argument for tying together curriculum, assessment, professional development, and leadership development (Elmore, 2000, 2005). Researchers studying urban schools regularly identify successes – schools that overcome the commonalities of poverty, unemployment, violence, poor housing, and health care. The effective schools movement was built around locating these outliers, then determining what made them successful (Edmonds, 1979, 1982). Predictably the characteristics include strong principal leadership, business-like and supportive school climates, a focus on basic skills and the teaching/learning connection, frequent formative assessments, a shared sense of purpose, continuing investment in professional development and adult learning, and parent involvement. What has become apparent in studying effective schools is how fragile they are; how often success depends on stability and continuity of leadership. Further, recent scholarship (Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 1997; Barber & Fullan, 2005; Elmore, 2000, 2005; Honig & Hatch, 2004) suggests that sustained
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reform requires tri-level coherence – that LEA central office capacity and state/federal government support and policy coherence are as much determinants of school improvement as individual school efforts. In my work as an urban school district superintendent and in my discussions with superintendent colleagues from across the United States, I have had the opportunity to consider how central offices figure in school reform. The most important (and perhaps least examined) factor is the local board of education and how it functions. The board has authority over almost every aspect of district operations, ranging from the hiring of the superintendent to teacher contract approval, textbook purchasing, and school attendance boundary designation. To the degree the board chooses, these decisions are delegated to administration and board approval becomes a formality. Thus a crucial consideration relative to the prospects for meaningful school reform is a board’s determination of how it will exercise its authority. When a board puts the emphasis on policy performance review, then the district has latitude for reform. When the board chooses to micro-manage, then meaningful and sustained reform is likely to be impossible (which is why mayoral and state takeovers and NCLB intervention provisions have emerged).
Professional/Human Resource Development Strategies A second approach to urban school reform has been to improve employee quality and efficacy through pre-service training, recruitment, selection and professional development programs. Colleges and universities, teacher associations led by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, and more recently state legislatures, school boards, and the Congress have all supported increased qualifications for teacher candidates and for practicing teachers. Employment standards for administrators and for paraprofessionals have also increased. States have used licensure, certification, and re-certification as policy levers for improving employee qualifications. Teacher workforce development is generally seen as key to improving student achievement, and the strategies from pre-service training through compensation incentives and professional development are extensive and complex (Smylie, Miretsky, & Konkol, 2004).
Teacher unionization/professionalization Urban teachers unions have often been associated with blocking reform and with being more concerned with protecting members than serving students. But it is important to keep in mind that such basic “working conditions” as class size are usually not directly addressed in state or local policy, except for special populations (e.g., severely handicapped students). As a result, some of the most basic teacher concerns for conditions that support their work have been incorporated into teacher contracts and agreed to by local boards of education. Salaries, compensation incentives, class size, teaching loads, subject assignments, duty assignments, length of the instructional day, allocations for books and supplies, and transfer and seniority rules are common features of teacher contracts, and are incorporated in contracts because historically teachers
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believed that administrators behaved in arbitrary and capricious ways in managing these basic components of their working conditions (Bascia, 2004). Urban schools are perceived as challenging places to work, so recruiting and retaining talented teachers is considered an imperative for improving urban schools. Union leaders in large cities including Chicago and New York, and smaller cities like Toledo and Rochester, argue that they have taken leadership roles in urban school reform (Lynch, 2004). In their view their contributions range from mentoring and internship programs (Toledo) to schoolwide reform (the Chancellor’s District in New York), from lobbying state legislatures and the Congress for support for urban schools and for teacher participation in school governance to professionalizing teaching through support for the highly qualified teacher provisions in No Child Left Behind and the creation of the National Teaching Standards Board. Another dimension of emergent teacher professionalism is the movement for teachers to lead reform (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Little, 1993) and to contribute to the knowledge base for teaching and schooling (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993).
National board certification The creation of the National Board of Teaching Standards in the mid-1990s (Bunday & Kelly, 1996) was a direct outgrowth of a long-standing campaign by the late Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers, to professionalize the role of teachers. For the first time national standards for highly effective teachers were developed; experienced teachers could apply form Board Certification by submitting a complex portfolio including videotaped lessons for peer review. There is emerging evidence that states which have strongly supported teacher board certification (i.e., North Carolina) have had sustained records of improved student achievement, but research on causal links is still formative (Bond, Smith, Baker, & Hattie, 2000; Vandervoort, Amrein-Beardsley, & Berliner, 2004). Although in some instances urban districts may have encouraged teachers to seek board certification and provided incentives to do so, few urban district have made teacher board certification a centerpiece of their policies for improving student achievement. Highly qualified teachers The No Child Left Behind legislation deals with the teacher quality issue by requiring states to establish standards for “highly qualified teachers.” As an example, in order to be highly qualified a middle grade (6–8) mathematics teacher might need to have state certification, college credits in mathematics courses, and a passing score on a national teacher subject knowledge exam (usually from the Praxis series) as a qualification for teaching (see Cowan & Manasevit, 2002). The new requirement is intended to ensure that teachers have both the pedagogical and subject expertise to instruct students in ways that address state curriculum standards and assessments. Schools and districts must make public the degree to which their teachers meet the Highly Qualified standard. Behind these provisions of NCLB is the recognition that urban districts have often made extensive use of substitute teachers and assigned teachers to grades or subjects for which they were not certified.
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Leadership development Although there has been continuing national debate on leadership shortages at the principal and superintendent level (Knapp, 2003; Portin, 2000, 2003), there has been relatively little government or foundation support for addressing this challenge – which is ironic because leadership is so clearly associated with school reform and improvement. Both the Wallace Foundation (2003) and the Broad Foundation (2003) have taken leadership roles in urban administrator development, with Broad giving primary attention to the superintendency and principalship and Wallace pressing on leadership which can link federal and state policies to classroom practice (Adams & Copland, 2005). Through its grant programs Wallace has been able to encourage states to modify their administrator licensure requirements so that more attention is given to teaching and learning in leadership development programs (see the Broad Foundation and Wallace Foundation websites for a list of their programs and publications). To address the perceived leadership shortage, a number of cities have switched from hiring professional educators as superintendents and have instead hired Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) from outside the educator ranks. Within the last five years retired Army generals (Seattle & Washington, DC), former governors (Los Angeles), corporate executives (New York City), city government executives (Chicago & Philadelphia), and federal attorneys (San Diego) have served as CEOs. The argument for this solution is that those trained for the superintendency do not have the political skill and experience or the financial expertise to lead these extremely complex systems. Often the CEO hires a Chief Academic Officer (CAO) to deal with the educational aspects of district leadership (American School Board Journal, 2004; Mathews, 2001; National School Board Association, 2001). An emergent approach to reform has been through leadership development programs conducted outside the traditional university graduate preparation and licensure programs, with support from foundations (most notably Wallace) and the federal government (see for example, New Leaders for New Schools and the NYC Leadership Academy). At one level these programs are intended to respond to a shortage of qualified principal and superintendent candidates for urban schools. At another, the programs respond to a growing recognition that traditional college and university licensure programs do not provide adequate preparation for the challenges of providing instructional leadership that connects to improved student achievement. Licensure programs generally over-emphasize the operational and managerial aspects of school leadership and do not give sufficient attention to recent developments in learning, teaching, and curriculum or in effective leadership behavior, so candidates enter the field under-prepared for the most significant component of their jobs. Districts have responded to these challenges in a variety of ways. As an example, New York City’s Leadership Academy is a creation of the district but operates as an independent entity intended to address principal shortages and preparation problems. Candidates are carefully selected, then participate in a year-long series of courses and internships, much in the manner of corporate executive training programs, designed to prepare them for success upon placement. A similar pattern has emerged for urban teacher recruitment and training. Although many university-based teacher training programs have a strong urban emphasis and well-researched programs (Alkins, Banks-Santilli, Elliott, Guttenberg, & Kamii, 2006;
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Lara & Mitchell, 1986), the continuing shortage of qualified applicants has provided an opportunity for “non-traditional” programs to emerge, most notably Teach for America. TFA recruits prospective teachers for urban districts from highly selective colleges, then contracts with urban districts to provide candidates for “hard-to-fill” positions, for example middle schools. The candidates attend summer intensive training programs and go directly to full-time assignments beginning with school opening. TFA maintains that its teachers perform at least as well as traditional candidates.
Trust as a core resource for improvement One of the most compelling arguments for investing in leadership development as a strategy for urban school improvement comes from the extensive research conducted by Tony Bryk and his colleagues on Chicago school reform (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). After identifying a set of schools with long-term records of student achievement exceeding prediction equations, the researchers did on-site investigations to determine what the explanatory conditions were. Foremost was “relational trust” – characterized by respect, competence, personal regard for others and integrity. In a set of cases, principals are described who have been able to create schools where teachers, staff, students, and parents have relational trust for each other. This trust facilitates willingness to try new tasks associated with reform and public problem solving, and provides social control and belief in the organization’s mission (pp. 116–117). Leadership development programs like the NYC Leadership Academy are trying to translate these research findings into specific leadership behaviors which can be taught. Modifying Classroom Instruction A plethora of urban education reforms, often with strong proponents, have been developed over the past 40 years to change the way urban (read minority poor) students are taught in classrooms. Many of these reforms have been the subject of extensive research, contentious debate, books and journal articles, ideological controversy, political support or opposition, substantial investment, and/or corporate or university sponsorship. In a brief chapter there is only room to suggest the range of reforms and to provide references that might lead to further investigation.
The premise as difference To begin, the earliest of these reforms was embedded in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The premise was that “disadvantaged” students needed instruction which would compensate for the deficiencies in their families and communities. The initial solution was to provide “pull-out” programs for low performing K-12 students in reading and mathematics in small classes with expert teachers. Although this model is still in use in some schools, the accumulated evidence is that it has limited benefit over time. A related solution was incorporated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (PL 94–172) in 1974. IDEA expanded the definition of special needs to include children with “learning disabilities” and other “mild” handicaps and promised additional federal
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funding to support programs for special needs students. The result was a rapid increase in special education enrollments nationally, and the emergence of a pattern of overrepresentation of African-American males in special education classes (Harry & Klinger, 2005; Russo & Talbert-Johnson, 1997). The premise of IDEA was that through careful diagnosis and prescription of student deficiencies, followed by instruction from teachers with specialized training and expertise, continuing assessment, and reformulation of the prescriptions, the deficiencies could be remediated. Although evidence suggests that this process has worked well for children with severe handicaps, there is little evidence more than 40 years later that special education has improved the academic achievement of minority poor students with “mild” handicaps who have been identified as needing these services (Weikart, 1998). The inability to speak or read English has also been treated as a special need. Immigrant students and children whose parents do not speak English at home qualify for programs for “speakers of other languages” or in some states bi-lingual programs. These programs have been controversial when students are instructed in their native languages rather than English, even when evidence suggests that this may be the most effective way to teach them basic skills (Gándara & Merino, 1993; Macedo, 2000). A particularly contentious territory has centered around the question whether the spoken language of African-American students is a dialect sufficiently different from standard English that it justifies a distinct pedagogy (Labov, 1972). A number of African-American scholars have argued that the experience of slavery eradicated many of the positive attributes of African culture, and therefore public schools have a responsibility for teaching African-American (and other) students about their cultural histories (Asante, 1991/1992). Success in school is considered as contingent on developing a strong sense of self-regard which emerges from understanding one’s cultural roots. Related arguments are made for the need for distinct pedagogies designed to address the unique characteristics and needs of African-American students (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 1997). Strong arguments are also made for ensuring that African-American students are taught by African-American teachers who are sensitive to the challenges they face (Foster, 1998). Hispanic and Native American educators have built parallel cases for culturally appropriate pedagogies for their communities.
The premise as research-based pedagogy Beginning with Edmonds’ (1979) work on effective schools in the late 1970s, there has been a continuing line of research which takes a set of schools, for example, all New York City elementary schools, and identifies those schools whose students perform better by certain criteria, usually standardized tests, than would be predicted based on the demographic characteristics of their students. These schools then become cases that are carefully examined to determine their distinguishing dimensions. Typically these dimensions include: strong principal leadership; safe, orderly, trusting, and business-like environment; consistent focus on basic skills; regular assessment of student performance; stable and qualified teaching workforce; parent involvement; small classes in early grades; and a host of other variables identified in various studies (Clark, Lotto, & Astuto, 1984; Goodlad, 1983). The question continues to be how these conditions can be put in place in schools where they do not exist.
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Beginning in the mid-1980s and in response to this question, researchers and program developers, primarily university-based and often with federal government support, began creating “comprehensive” or “whole school” reform models as intervention strategies emerging from the effective schools research. Although there are more than 30 distinct models that have been subject to longitudinal evaluation, the best known include Success for All (Slavin, 2004), School Development (Comer, 2005), and Accelerated Schools (Levin, 1997). Some of the models centered on such strategies as curriculum articulation (Modern Red Schoolhouse), pacing (Accelerated Schools), or thematic curriculum units (CoNect). Others built from such approaches as increasing parent engagement with schools (School Development) or personalization of the relationships between teachers and students (First Things First). Most claimed to be dealing with the whole of schools, including curriculum, teaching methods, school climate, and governance. Although the efficacy of these models has been heatedly debated (Borman, Hewes, Overman, & Brown, 2003; Lytle, 2002; Pogrow, 1998) and only one, America’s Choice (Supovitz, Poglinco, & Snyder, 2001) has been able to demonstrate consistent success through rigorous evaluation, they still continue to be the intervention of choice in low-performing urban schools. A related but distinct intervention has been a focus on early literacy, beginning in pre-school where possible, and continuing through third grade. The premise is that if children can’t read by age eight/third grade, then the probability of their future success in school rapidly diminishes, and the probability of their referral to special education and other support services increases. Success for All is built from this premise and there are now a host of commercial reading programs (e.g., Read 180, Open Court) that claim to be effective in early grades. The attendant problem is that follow-up studies indicate that by eighth grade/age 14 many of these same students are reading well below grade level (Pogrow, 1998).
The premise as technology From the 1970s instructional computer technology has been considered as a teaching tool or supplement to conventional instruction that will provide an efficient and effective intervention or resource for urban students. Investment in instructional technology has been enormous so that urban schools can now be expected to have computer labs, computers in classrooms, Internet access, libraries of instructional software, and computer teachers. But the evidence to date is that the investment has generated only marginal returns (Becker, 2000; Doherty & Orlofsky, 2001; Sandham, 2001). Because computers and technology have become so central to daily life, the issue for parents less whether the technology is improving their children’s academic performance and more that their children are familiar with the technology. The premise as preparation for economic self-sufficiency and college access A primary goal of high school reform efforts has been to reduce the number of dropouts and increase the number of graduates going on to college and careers (Bailey, 1991; US Department of Labor, 1991). One approach has been to form corporate partnerships directly with high schools to provide internships at the employers’ worksites (Liebowitz & DeSalvatore, 2000). Another has been to form community college and high school
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partnerships (Early/Youth College) that permit students to take college courses for credit beginning in upper grades. And another has been to provide intensive tutoring and support programs for students with college potential beginning in eighth or ninth grade (e.g., Upward Bound). There has also been an effort to increase the number of Advanced Placement courses offered at urban high schools. And some districts have had success in reconnecting out-of-school-youth with schools through innovative programs designed to be responsive to the lives of their students (Martin & Halperin, 2006).
The premise of standards and assessment Earlier in this chapter I spoke about the emergence of the standards movement beginning in 1998 and the subsequent growth in the use of standardized tests and other assessments to determine whether students were meeting the standards. The literature on standards is voluminous, relating to general and generic issues, specific subjects, evaluation, testing and assessment, the translation of standards to classroom practice (Black & Wiliam, 1998, 2004; Schmoker & Marzano, 1999; The Aspen Institute, 2004). The adoption of NCLB heightened this emphasis on standards and testing, and increased emphasis on reading and mathematics proficiency as the indicators of student success. The cost, especially in urban schools where students are least likely to meet the proficiency standards, has been reduced attention to the arts, history, science, and foreign languages (DeBray et al., 2005). Interestingly, NCLB avoids intrusion in the curriculum and standards issues by focusing on organizational and employee qualification matters and, and by requiring that states determine their testing programs and proficiency standards for Adequate Yearly Progress subject to federal review and approval. The prospect of instructional management systems and formative assessment Student information management systems are a relatively recent development intended to help teachers provide timely and targeted instruction which takes advantage of the increased capacity, decreased cost, and connectivity of computer systems to provide teachers ready access to student information. Data elements include the obvious, simple descriptive information and performance histories, and the less obvious, electronic portfolios and program participation records. Test publishing companies are now beginning to market their extensive inventories of test items for online access by teachers who can use them to construct formative and summative assessment keyed to state curriculum standards. As teachers become more sophisticated at reviewing and discussing student work, reviewing student histories, and developing valid and reliable assessments, the premise is that more intentional instruction should result in improved student achievement (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshal, & Wiliam, 2004a, 2004b; Black & Wiliam, 2004). Modifying District and/or School Governance, Oversight and the Locus of Authority No child left behind At this point in American urban educational history it is impossible to consider strategies for reform independent of NCLB since so much of what is taking place in the name of reform is designed to comply with or meet NCLB requirements.
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No Child Left Behind includes an accountability framework requiring that all children regardless of disability, language spoken at home, ethnicity, or family economic status perform at proficient levels by 2014. In the discussion that follows it is important to keep in mind that there is no evidence in research that this goal can be accomplished; there is no extant knowledge base in research or practice that demonstrates that universal proficiency is possible. Nor is there accumulated research which demonstrates that any of the sanctions imposed by NCLB, either singly or in combination, leads to sustained improvement in student achievement or school performance. This despite nearly hysteric insistence by the Bush administration that interventions be “scientifically research based.” From its inception state departments of education have been responsible for overseeing NCLB implementation and have had to develop compliance implementation plans for review and approval by the U.S. Department of Education. Although this process often took 2–3 years and states were still scrambling to develop curriculum standards and related assessments four and five years after the legislation was passed, local districts and schools were immediately accountable for meeting Adequate Yearly Progress performance standards. From 2001 forward students were being assessed with newly developed tests on content they may not have been taught because performance criteria and measures were being created at the same time the students were in class. Regardless, the sanctions imposed by NCLB went into effect as scheduled in the legislation if schools or districts did not meet performance standards. Again, one needs to keep in mind that these sanctions equate to the school reforms mandated by NCLB as mechanisms for improving student achievement and school performance (see Cowan & Manasevit, 2002 for a detailed explication). First, a brief list of those sanctions and the effective dates; then a more complete explanation of each sanction and the actions it requires. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Offer students public school choice (2003) Offer Supplemental Educational Service (2003–2004) Implement Corrective Action (2004–2005) Replace school staff (2005–2006) Institute new curriculum (2005–2006) Decrease school management authority (2005–2006) Extend school year or day (2005–2006) Bring in outside experts (2005–2006) Restructure (2005–2006)
If these actions do not produce the intended results: ● ● ● ●
Continue to offer choice and supplemental programs (2007 ff.) Convert to charter schools (2007 ff.) Make significant staff changes (2007 ff.) Turn school (or district) over to state agency or private firm (2007 ff.)
Note that there are no explicit incentives – other than to avoid corrective action or take-over.
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A more detailed explication of these reforms helps clarify how they are operationalized: ●
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Offer students public school choice (Spring, 2003) – Local districts are required to notify parents of students attending low performing schools (those not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress [AYP] standards for two years or more) of their children’s right to attend other schools in the district that do meet the standards. Ten percent of the district’s federal Title I grant must be designated to pay for bussing for students whose parents choose this option. Nationally, this choice option has proved unpopular, with few parents choosing to move their children from neighborhood schools (Davis, 2006). Offer Supplemental Educational Service (2003–2004) – Local districts are also required to notify parents of students attending low performing schools (those not meeting AYP standards for two years or more) of their children’s right to receive after-school tutorial services from approved providers. An approved provider must be registered with the state department of education and offer a “scientifically research based” program designed to help students meet state proficiency standards. Although high performing schools in local districts may register as providers, low performing schools may not offer tutorial programs paid for with Title I dollars. In practice Supplemental Educational Service (SES) programs are intended to provide an opportunity for private, for-profit companies to gain a foothold in the K-12 public school market. Local districts are required to give vouchers to eligible parents who request them; the parents may use the voucher with any approved vendor (Typically a voucher would be worth $2,000). By statute 15% of a district’s Title I grant must be designated for SES programs; parents are given vouchers on request until the allocated funds have been exhausted. The local district has no control over the providers and may not evaluate their programs or services. Independent of any program quality issues, in creating SES programs the Congress has established and legitimized a national voucher-like program which could conceivably be expanded to include the total tuition cost of school. Implement Corrective Action (2004–2005) – In order to determine what corrective actions are necessary to ensure that low performing schools meet state NCLB standards, state departments of education organize consulting teams of experienced educators to make school visits and then issue corrective action reports outlining the steps necessary to improve student achievement. The school then has two years to implement the recommendations with support from the district/LEA. Replace school staff (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state department of education or the district central office the principal or certain teachers are inhibiting a school’s progress, they can be replaced (meaning removed, but not necessarily dismissed). Institute new curriculum (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state department of education or the district central office the literacy or mathematics curriculum of a low performing school (or district) is not research based and is not producing adequate yearly progress, then the curriculum can be replaced for any or all grades, K-12. Decrease school management authority (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state department of education, the local board of education, or the district central office
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school leadership of a low performing school is not exercising professional judgment likely to lead to improved student achievement, then the district office may assume direct management responsibility. Extend school year or day (2005–2006) – Districts are encouraged to extend the day or year to provide increased instructional time, but no federal funding is provided should there be additional cost. Bring in outside experts (2005–2006) – Districts and schools are encouraged to use “outside” experts to assist in designing and implementing more effective programs and services. Evidence that such help has been utilized would support any claim that the district or school was making an earnest effort to improve performance. Restructure (2005–2006) – The definition of restructure is deliberately ambiguous, but might include changes in grade organization, new scheduling arrangements (e.g., block scheduling), or redesigned compensation systems (e.g., merit pay).
NCLB provides for additional reforms/sanctions which would go into effect in the 2007–2008 school year if the actions listed above had not produced the intended results. These include: continuing to offer choice and supplemental programs, converting to charter schools, making significant staff changes (reconstitution), and/or turning a school (or district) over to a state agency or private firm.
Governance arrangements In the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s American urban education reform was driven by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision requiring racial desegregation, and by grassroots community activism and protest. The emergent “theory” of urban school reform was that communities should be given greater control over their schools. Local control would create a sense of ownership and encourage parents to become more involved in their children’s schooling (David, 1989). New York City schools were subdivided into local districts with independent boards of education and the Chicago schools were organized with local governance boards that had direct control over budgets and staff selection (Cuban, 1990 ). When evidence began to accumulate that decentralization was not a sufficient solution, the movement to re-centralization began, accompanied by the injection of urban mayors into the governance of their cities’ schools (e.g., New York, Chicago, San Diego) (Kirst & Buckley, 2000; Wong & Shen, 2003). At one level mayors have argued that the survival and success of their cities is dependent on the success of their public school systems, and therefore the schools must be a part of their urban reform strategies. At another, the increasing involvement of state and federal governments in urban public schools and districts has politicized public schooling in ways that require the influence represented by mayors (United States Conference of Mayors, 2006). Urban schools and districts in the marketplace During the past several decades it has not been unusual for urban school districts to contract with for-profit corporations for food services, transportation, school design and construction, and custodial and maintenance services, but with the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2000, the pressure for centralization and corporatization has increased.
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Textbooks and standardized tests have been routinely purchased from corporations, but corporate presence and influence have now moved into areas traditionally reserved to local education authorities. One example is that several large urban districts, including Chicago and Philadelphia, have contracted with Sylvan Learning Corporation to write and implement their core curriculum. Another is that after-school programs, and especially tutoring services (funded through NCLB/Title I), are being provided by for-profit entities (Viadero, 2006). The most extreme example of a “mixed-market” approach to reform is in Philadelphia where the State of Pennsylvania has taken over the district and installed Paul Vallas, former superintendent in Chicago, as the Chief Executive Officer. Vallas has pursued an aggressive “mixed market” strategy for reform by bringing in for-profit and not-for-profit corporations and area universities to directly manage schools, and has simultaneously encouraged charter school development (Useem, 2005). At one time the Philadelphia School District included over 265 schools; now there are fewer than 175 in the District and the total number of publicly funded schools has increased to over 300, while enrollment has remained relatively constant. Now when a school does not meet federal and state performance standards, its management control is turned over to another operator. To deal with school safety and discipline issues the district has contracted a for-profit corporation that operates schools to which more than 3,000 “disruptive” students have been assigned. The Philadelphia School District might be compared to a large corporate entity where low-performing units are spun-off, consultants and management companies are continually being retained to provide specific services, venture capital is invested in start-ups, and the central office is responsible for corporate policy, investment strategy, and quality control. If units perform poorly, their management company is dismissed and the school is turned over to another operator. The premise is that competition among production units, that is, schools, will improve corporate performance, but this assumption does not serve well for those students who are caught in a succession of low-performing schools. Evidence to date (Useem, 2005) is that the set of Philadelphia schools being operated by providers or as charters have not performed as well as those schools still within the district structure. This evidence not withstanding, the NCLB policy intervention timetable promulgates a set of take-over, intervention and market strategies very much like those being employed in Philadelphia.
Choice and vouchers as features of the market As indicated above, NCLB legitimates parent choice of schools as federal policy. Although this provision of the legislation has had relatively little impact to date, it is the policy rather than the practice which may have the most long-term consequences. After prolonged litigation, federal courts in both Milwaukee (WI) and Cleveland (OH) have authorized the use of vouchers as an option for parents dissatisfied with their public schools; the vouchers can be used for tuition at private and parochial schools which accept them (Wong & Walberg, 2006). A similar voucher provision specific to the Washington, DC Public Schools was written into the NCLB legislation (Robelen, 2004). The problem with the weakness in the market approaches is that investment in capacity building at either the school or district level is limited because it is costly and takes time. Market approaches also assume informed consumers, and that has been a consistent problem with urban school reform – that often parents do not have the information
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or resources to use the market effectively. Those who have studied urban school reform conclude that the locus of sustained improvement is in classrooms, not in management structures or markets and competition (Murphy, 1999, 2000).
In Conclusion I am old enough that I have lived through the period about which I write. I was in high school when the Brown v. Board of Education decision was rendered in 1954. My first teaching job was at a segregated inner city high school in a northeastern state in 1963–1964. For almost 40 years, since 1970, I have been an administrator and “reformer” in two northeastern “rust belt” urban school districts, one of them among the country’s largest, the other a relatively small one. In various ways I have been directly involved with the implementation of many of the major national and state policy initiatives during this era. I have also read and written and argued and taught about them as an academic and researcher. I would like to think that my work has improved the life chances for many of the students for whom I have been directly or indirectly responsible. Yet the disparities between the haves and the have-nots in income, employment opportunity, housing, health care, safety, transportation access, and quality schooling which concerned me in the 1950s and 1960s seem to have worsened in the new millennium. A policy and research review like this is supposed to be apolitical. But in my view it would be an injustice to those who attend urban schools to make the case that the string of education initiatives undertaken on their behalf since the 1950s has in fact improved their life chances. Public investment in education is relatively cheap when compared to addressing unemployment, health care, housing, safety, and the complex of circumstances that confront the urban poor. As Americans we can claim that we are improving opportunity for the urban poor through “improved” urban schools, but when we disassociate students’ performance in school from their living conditions, then we act in the face of a wealth of evidence that demonstrates the close relationship between family income and school performance. To put it the other way around, increased policy and accountability pressures do not address the societal reasons for the continuing poor academic performance of most students attending urban public schools.
References Adams, J. E., & Copland, M. S. (2005). When learning counts: Rethinking licenses for school leaders. Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education. Alkins, K., Banks-Santilli, L., Elliott, P., Guttenberg, N., & Kamii, M. (2006). Project quest: A journey of discovery with beginning teachers in urban schools. Equity & Excellence in Education, 39(1), 65–80. American School Board Journal. (2004). Looking for leaders: The state of the urban superintendency. American School Board Journal, 191(12), 36–50. Annenberg Institute for School Reform. (1997). Reasons for hope, voices for change: A report of the Annenberg Institute on public engagement for public education. Providence, RI: Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Asante, M. K. (1991/1992). Afrocentric curriculum. Educational Leadership, 49(4), 28–31. The Aspen Institute. (2004). The challenge for education reform: Standards, accountability, resources, and policy. Washington, DC: Author.
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46 SUCCESS STORIES IN URBAN EDUCATION: A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE ETHIC OF CARE IN PROGRAMS, PROJECTS, AND STRATEGIES THAT WORK FROM THE CLASSROOM TO COMMUNITY Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady*, Na’ilah Suad Nasir†, and Valerie Ooka Pang‡ *
University of New Mexico, U.S.A.; Stanford University, U.S.A.; ‡ San Diego State University, U.S.A. †
Introduction Although ambiguously complex and broad in scope, urban education is of central concern to educational researchers, practitioners, and reformists alike. As urban school students increasingly rank among the lowest in overall academic performance, it is not surprising that researchers from various fields (i.e., economists, sociologists, psychologists, and educational anthropologists) have long studied programs and practices in urban contexts to better understand and improve overall outcomes for urban youth (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Estrada et al., 2000; Gay, 2000; McLaughlin, Irby, & Langman, 1994; Quinn, 1997). As a result, many studies have contributed to discussions about what efforts work most effectively in urban contexts and more important, how educators can implement these efforts effectively into schools and classroom instruction at every grade level (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Ferguson, 2002; Foster, Lewis, & Onafowora, 2005; Mehan, Villanueva, Hubbard, & Lintz, 1996). In this chapter we discuss models of effective instruction for students in urban contexts, drawing on characteristics that underlie successful instruction. Specifically, we highlight the ways that such programs embody an “ethic of care,” (Noddings, 1984) and thus provide students with positive opportunities, viable human and material resources to succeed, and a safe place to learn.
A Word on the Urban in Urban Education In this volume, Foster (2007) and Leonardo and Hunter (2007) provide an extensive discussion on the various definitions and “dialectics” of the term urban. What we learn 883 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 883–904. © 2007 Springer.
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is that despite its complexity (see Chapters 40 and 41 of this volume), urban education is inextricably linked to factors that negatively characterize urban areas in general. These factors namely include oppressed non-White people living in poor economic, social, and political conditions. Thus, as generally understood, the concept of urban schooling concerns mostly students of color whose schools are deprived of the necessary material (i.e., supplies, funding, and technologies) and human resources (i.e., adult support, role-models, and community influence) to be effective. Like Leonardo and Hunter (2007), other scholars (Noguera, 2003) have characterized the urban in urban education as being less about geographic areas inside central cities and more about the social, cultural, and political constructs used to describe certain people and places. Noguera (2003) for example, pointedly affirms that “when media reports describe a neighborhood or group of residents as ‘urban,’ we can almost always be sure that those being described are relatively poor and in many cases non-White,” (p. 23). Thus, “urban,” as it relates to schooling, has evolved as a racially charged, socioeconomic concept. It comes as no surprise then, that negative perceptions of urban areas have fueled negative attitudes towards children of color, children of low socio-economic status, and children who under-perform academically in urban schools. Although stereotypes and racist perspectives fuel negative attitudes towards urban youth and their neighborhoods, many urban schools on the other hand, do face serious challenges that negatively affect how children learn.
The Ills of Urban Schools Many researchers agree that urban student populations face unique challenges and do not have the same resources as other school populations (Mendenhall, 2004; Noguera, 2003; Spencer, 2006). Poverty and other social forces that affect quality of life plague urban schools and youth growing up in urban areas. Research shows that urban students are largely poor and minority (Leonardo & Hunter, 2007)1 and the schools serving these students are often less equipped financially to fully support positive teaching and learning experiences (Kozol, 2005; Payne & Kaba, 2001). It is also the case that low-income urban areas are more likely to have less experienced teachers than the more well off neighborhoods (Mehan et al., 1996). Moreover, reports from the Education Trust (2004a, 2004b) for instance, showed 17-year-old African American and Latino students performing at the same math and reading levels as 13-year-old White students. Without a doubt, the achievement gaps between White students and African American and Latino students especially in urban schools are steadily increasing (Haycock, 2006; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003). Many factors account for the shortcomings of urban schools. Payne and Kaba (2001) for example, note that factors like distrust, mutual low expectations among students and teachers, and reluctance to confront certain issues head-on, tend to prevail in many urban schools, causing them to lack the supportive belief system and infrastructure to be effective learning institutions. Often tensions among administrators, teachers, students, and parents run rampant with regard to issues of race and ethnicity as does skepticism among teachers about students’ learning capabilities and overall interest in education (Lewis, 2003; Pollock, 2005). While it is the case that students of color often do not perform well
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academically in urban schools, urban schoolteachers often hesitate to accept responsibility and accountability for students’ academic performance. Beyond that, effective disciplinary practices tend to be absent and support for the implementation of effective programming is lacking. In general, research has revealed that urban schools serving underprivileged students tend to receive inequitable funding, utilize less effective methods of instruction with students, and have scarce facilities in comparison to their suburban counterparts (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Kozol, 2005; Oakes, 2004). As noted by Mehan et al. (1996), “The real source of inequality lies in the socioeconomic conditions and the culture of the wider society, not in school” (p. 18). While we acknowledge constraints in urban school districts as extant and complex, we also argue that how teachers view students and the personal commitment teachers make to students’ education is important as well. Despite being plagued by a myriad of social, political, economical, and organizational challenges however, some urban schools are successful. In the next section, we describe what we mean by “successful,” and we discuss some of the in-school and nonschool instructional efforts that contribute to the academic success of many urban students. We argue that successful urban instructional settings have two important characteristics: (1) they are organized to be culturally and personally relevant to students’ life experiences and center on relationships with caring adults; and (2) they are undergirded by a caring ideology that purposefully supports students’empowerment and view of themselves as capable, valuable, and contributing members of the learning environment. We see these characteristics as stemming from what other researchers have termed “the ethic of care” (Irvine, 2002; Liston, 2004; Liston & Garrison, 2004; McAllister & Irvine, 2002; Noblit, Rogers, & McCadden, 1995; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Pang, 2006).
The Ethic of Care The child who is educated [in the school] is a member of society and must be instructed and cared for as such a member. The moral responsibility of the school, and of those who conduct it, is to society. The school is fundamentally an institution erected by society to do a certain specific work–to exercise a certain specific function in maintaining the life and advancing the welfare of society. The educational system which does not recognize this fact as entailing upon it an ethical responsibility is derelict and a defaulter. It is not doing what it is called into existence to do, and what it pretends to do. Hence the necessity of discussing the entire structure and the specific workings of the school system from the standpoint of its moral position and moral function to society. –John Dewey2 As suggested in the above quote from John Dewey on the ethical principles underlying education, there is and must be an indubitable connection between caring for students and educating them effectively – this is the essence of effective education. Our laws, policies, politics, and methods for achieving social justice flow directly from what we care about and our commitment to a socially just society (Liston & Garrison, 2004; Noddings, 1984; Pang, 2005). Hence when they care about students, teachers are more likely to find ways to ensure students’ academic success while treating them equitably.
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We believe the ethic of care is a central element of teaching and learning processes in all settings, including schools, non-school settings, and after-school programs. As many scholars have noted (Noblit et al., 1995; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994), a caring learning environment is an equitable one built on trusting relationships between teachers and students. Consequently, having trusting relationships with their teachers promotes students’ positive intellectual, social, and moral development. As a framework, the ethic of care offers educators a view of schooling in relation to core national values, including social justice, democracy, community, humanity, and moral courage (Hursh & Ross, 2000; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Nussbaum, 1997; Pang, 2005; Pruyn, 2000; Walker, 1996; Vinson, 1998). These values not only affirm a belief in human dignity and commitment to care for each other, but also situate schooling as a dignified experience to which every child is entitled. By stressing the importance of relationships and feelings of connectedness among students, teachers, and all members of the educational community, a caring ideology is critical in urban schools, which as we have seen, are often marked by low teacher expectations, low-level curriculum, deficit policies, and minimal financial resources (Foster et al., 2005; Haberman, 1995; Irvine, 2002; Lipman, 1998; Liston & Garrison, 2004; Mehan et al., 1996; Oakes, 1990; Payne & Kaba, 2001; Skral, Scheurich, & Johnson, 2000). Given these realities, the schooling experiences of many students from underrepresented groups do not reflect equity and equality (Estrada et al., 2000; Kozol, 2005). As a philosophical orientation, the ethic of care upholds the importance of creating and nurturing a learning environment that promotes equitable education and respect for and among all members of the school community (Skral et al., 2000). Caring educators then, are educators who debunk the deficit theory3 (Pang, 2005). Rather than viewing students of color as ethnically or linguistically deficient, caring teachers practice equitable pedagogy, maintaining high expectations for their students and for themselves. To that end, caring teachers will view students’ academic performance and overall success from a results-driven point of view (Skral et al., 2000) and measure accountability on the equity of student performance rather than shifting focus (and blame) to various school-district inputs such as small school configurations or preoccupation with textbook adoptions. Caring teachers will also establish meaningful relationships with students and through these relationships mediate meaningful instructional practices. Relationships with students comprise a core aspect of a caring learning environment. Researchers have long explored how caring relationships between students and teachers function in learning, particularly in the academic achievement of students of color (Ferguson, 2002; McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002). This line of inquiry has drawn attention to personalized, individual mentoring and tutoring, long-term scholastic support, and small collaborative learning communities (Jurich & Estes, 2000). Students of caring teachers “… believe that adults in the school care about their learning and about them as individuals” (Blum, 2005, p. 16). Research studies such as McNeely et al. (2002) revealed that students feel connected when schools provide: “(1) high academic standards coupled with strong teacher support; (2) an environment in which adult and student relationships are positive and respectful; and (3) a physically and
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emotionally safe school environment” (Blum, 2005, p. 17). A caring learning environment is not one that simplifies instruction and reduces curriculum for underachieving students. To the contrary, rigorous curriculum, high expectations for student achievement, and institutional support are essential elements of a caring learning environment. Although he focused on suburban areas, Ferguson (2002) had this to say following his survey of 95 schools in 15 school districts: Perhaps the most interesting finding here is the distinctive importance of teacher encouragement as a reported source of motivation for nonwhite students, especially African-American students, and the fact that this difference is truly a racial one, mostly unrelated to measures of socioeconomic status. The special importance of encouragement highlights the likely importance of strong teacher-student relationships in affecting achievement, especially for African-American and Hispanic [sic] students. It also highlights the importance of trying to understand racial and ethnic differences in how students experience the social environments of schools and classrooms. (Ferguson, 2002, pp. 25–26) In Ferguson’s (2002) study, content, pedagogy, and relationships were three critical elements in student achievement. His findings show that students worked hard in school because their teachers encouraged them. And what is more, students worked hard to please and impress their parents as well4 (Ferguson, 2002). Indeed, rigorous content, equitable pedagogy, and trusting relationships with their teachers and parents enabled students to reach their academic goals. In the next part of this chapter we highlight four school-based reform efforts for urban students that reflect an ethic of care. One program, the Algebra Project, has been successful at helping middle and high school students achieve in math by making algebra a part of their everyday life experiences (Moses, 1994; Watson, 1996). Two programs, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and Upward Bound (UB), have been successful at reducing dropout rates among high school students, increasing the number of students from low-income families who take advanced or college preparatory courses, and increasing the number of students who enroll in colleges and universities (Mehan et al., 1996; Slavin & Fashola, 1998). Lastly, the Faculty Student Mentor Program (FSMP) is a university-based program that has been successful at helping students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds succeed in college once they get there.
Success Stories in School Settings In this section we discuss the positive opportunities that these four in-school programs provide. By positive opportunities, we mean the support that comes to students by way of the social structure. We believe that programs work when they provide students with opportunities to interact in an academic environment with peers who look, think, and act like them or live in the same neighborhoods and share like experiences. We also believe that successful programs have organizational structures that are organized to
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scaffold students’ successful participation in learning activities and provide students with the resources, trusting relationships, and advocacy they and their parents need to navigate through school politics and other institutional constraints. Lastly, we contend that successful programs provide students with a space that is both academically (having high academic standards and expectations with the help, tutoring, mentoring, and advocating that students need) and socially safe (providing the physical and emotional protection that students need) in the struggle for equitable education.
The Algebra Project The Algebra Project as conceived by its founder, Robert Moses, was developed in 1982 to help underrepresented youth achieve mathematics literacy (Moses, 1994). Stemming from Moses’s active involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the mission of the Algebra Project is to prepare students for successful citizenship by helping them succeed at college-preparatory mathematics (Moses, 1994; Moses & Cobb, 2001). In essence Moses viewed algebra as a gatekeeper to equality in education for underrepresented youth and envisioned the Algebra Project as students’ “passport” to opportunities in education, employment, leadership, and full self-development (Moses, 1994). Although it started as a local program, the Algebra Project has gained national recognition throughout various parts of the United States. Currently, the Project serves over 45,000 middle-school students from traditionally underrepresented and underserved backgrounds in 100 plus urban schools throughout the West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, and the rural South (Watson, 1996). Although expressly focused on the teaching of algebra, major thrusts of the Project espouse an ethic of care that includes social equality, culturally relevant instruction, and the creation of supportive learning communities (Moses & Cobb, 2001). The Algebra Project draws on everyday materials and experiences (such as using gumdrops and toothpicks to configure and solve algebraic equations) to teach mathematics. Reports from teachers and national evaluations of the Algebra Project show that it has had a favorable effect on students’ attitudes towards math, their motivation for learning, and their abilities to articulate and teach mathematical ideas to each other (Watson, 1996). These descriptions suggest that the success of the Algebra Project, although a curriculum-based program, has a lot to do with its basic ideology, one focused on developing students’ attitudes toward learning and the caring relationships that students build with their teachers, peers, and other members of the learning community. Unlike other programs that are based on specific curricula, the Algebra Project includes after-school math workshops, which extend the school day (Watson, 1996) and widen students’ range of mathematical experiences. These workshops are also designed to help parents learn the same skills that their children are learning. This in turn creates a reciprocal learning network among students and their parents and teachers. The instructional component of the Algebra Project utilizes culturally and personally relevant instruction. Specifically, instructional practices draw on students’ everyday life experiences to create learning environments that engage students in knowledge construction while also helping them see algebra as authentically significant in their lives. Whether
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creating mathematical experiences out of subway rides on “the E-train in Chicago” or also helping them see with “gumdrops in Mississippi” (Watson, 1996) the Algebra Project is organized to scaffold students’ successful mathematics learning within a safe, familial space. Drawing on its foundation in civil rights and social justice, the Algebra Project utilizes many principles of the ethic of care, particularly in the way of providing students with the supportive network they need to succeed. Teachers and parents of students participating in the Algebra Project not only commit to the belief that every student can be successful in mathematics, and algebra in particular, but they work together to ensure this vision.
AVID Similar to the Algebra Project, the Advancement Via Individual Determination program (AVID), which began in San Diego, California in 1980 following a court-ordered desegregation of the San Diego Unified School District, provides underachieving students in grades six through twelve with the opportunity to take college preparatory classes and increase their chances of enrolling in college. Specifically, AVID, as developed and envisioned by its founder, Mary Catherine Swanson, places low-achieving students from low-income backgrounds or underrepresented groups into rigorous college preparatory classes with students from high-income backgrounds (Mehan et al., 1996). This design not only provides students with the opportunities to mix with others who have common goals and shared interests, but also with a safe space to interact with peers whose goals, backgrounds, and interests are potentially different. AVID is a school-based detracking effort that provides students with the academic, social, and emotional support they need to be successful in school. A significant component of this support happens through the work of the AVID coordinators, who serve as mentors and academic coaches to students. Working as part of an interdisciplinary team consisting of the principal, counselor, and instructional leaders in English, foreign language, history, science, and mathematics, AVID coordinators provide students with a strong network of support as they make the shift between high school and college. For instance, AVID students are encouraged to take prep courses (in middle school) and move into honors/advanced placement courses in high school.5 Through AVID, underachieving students learn to excel academically and view school success and a college education as a realistic and highly attainable goal. Towards this end, AVID provides students with institutional, social and emotional support systems. Similar to the Algebra Project, interactions among AVID team members and students underscore care ideology by offering support and guidance that exceed boundaries typical of the traditional school day. Aside from encouraging students to enroll in accelerated courses, AVID coordinators assist students with an array of college preparatory tasks, such as writing essays for college applications and completing admissions and scholarship paperwork as needed. AVID team members demonstrate a devoted fidelity to their work with students (Guthrie & Guthrie, 2000), working with them outside of designated classroom time, during lunch, recess, and elective periods, and even on weekends (Mehan et al., 1996). Thus, AVID coordinators and team members are advocates for students, investing in their future successes and making the hidden dimensions of school life explicit and accessible.
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Research shows that the work of AVID has been to good effect (Mehan et al., 1996). In their two and a half-year study of AVID in eight schools in California, Mehan et al. (1996) observed AVID classes, interviewed AVID students and teachers, and compared college enrollment rates of AVID students with local and national college enrollment rates. Their data showed that AVID students excel in college prep courses and enroll in college in numbers that exceed local and national averages. What is more, the longer students are enrolled in AVID, the better the college enrollment record. Other researchers have reported similar findings (Guthrie & Guthrie, 2000; Slavin & Fashola, 1998). Students in AVID succeed in part because classrooms are organized to make teaching and learning experiences personally and culturally relevant to students’ lives. AVID provides students with opportunities to work collaboratively in small groups and time to interact with peers in academically and socially safe settings. The instructional program in AVID consists of note-taking, test-taking, and study strategies as well as academic coaching, mentoring, tutoring, and assistance with homework. This program design presents AVID students with a safe space to learn and excel in school and provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to benefit from the resources that AVID makes available to them. “Most [AVID parents have little] direct experience with higher education themselves, which means they have not accrued the “cultural capital” (Bourdieu, 1986) to spend on their children’s future (Mehan et al., 1996, p. 169). In the study conducted by Mehan and his colleagues, AVID parents supported their children by employing intermediaries as needed and enrolling children in support programs. Their findings revealed that although often lacking the necessary social and cultural capital themselves, AVID parents are committed to their children’s education and have high aspirations for them. In its work with students and parents, AVID focuses on providing students with the academic and social resources they need to support their college trajectories. In this way, AVID students acquire academic knowledge and social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) through the support network of relationships with AVID coordinators, teachers, tutors, peers, and parents.
Upward Bound Upward Bound (UB) is another program aimed at increasing students’ chances for attending and completing college. The program began in 1967 and was designed to prepare underrepresented high school students in particular.6 Many of the students participating in UB are from low-income families and are the first in their immediate families to attend a college or university. Today, approximately 44,000 students participate in nearly 600 Upward Bound programs throughout the United States.7 Similar to the kinds of support services that AVID provides to youth, UB provides students with academic counseling and advice about college as well as tutoring services and assistance with college and financial aid applications. Upward Bound students receive tutoring in subjects like math, science, foreign language, English, writing, and study skills (Slavin & Fashola, 1998). Beyond that, Upward Bound provides additional support to students by having them participate in an intensive residential stay on the campus of a local university. This aspect of the Upward Bound
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program is meant to connect students psychologically to college life and as with AVID, help students view going to college as a realistic and attainable goal (Slavin & Fashola, 1998). In addition to institutional support, students participating in UB receive social and emotional support, through counseling, regular meetings with program staff during the academic year, and participation in cultural enrichment programs. Although it shares many similarities with AVID, Upward Bound is the oldest and largest program of its kind. Research data has revealed several positive outcomes for UB students (Myers & Schrim, 1999). For instance, Myers and Schrim (1999) showed that UB participants are more likely to earn more college credits, receive higher levels of financial aid, and participate in more college activities than youth who do not participate in the UB program. Second, UB students who are at risk for academic failure in their first year of high school benefit more than those students who are at less risk for failure in their first year.8 These findings suggest that Upward Bound has been a successful form of early intervention in the prevention of academic failure among students at the start of their high school education. In addition to improving academic achievement among students, Upward Bound has been especially successful in reducing dropout rates and increasing college attendance rates among students from ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Major thrusts of the UB program involve providing students with the academic skills they need to excel in college preparatory classes as well as the resources and support networks they need to stay on course. Upward Bound staff demonstrate the dedication and commitment espoused by the ethic of care by providing support to students outside the boundaries of classroom hours, meeting students after school and even on weekends, demonstrating commitment to and genuine interest in the students’ futures. AVID, Upward Bound, and the Algebra Project are programs that center on positive expectations and affirmative opportunities for students. As such, these programs successfully provide underrepresented youth with multiple opportunities to interact socially with peers in academic settings and around academic content. By providing students with viable and caring human resources and the material resources they need, that is, information, assistance, mentoring, tutoring, and small-group collaborative interactions, these programs make academic achievement and college enrollment (and completion) attainable goals for students who might not have otherwise had these opportunities.
Faculty Student Mentorship Program Although they may be well-prepared for college through the support of programs like the Algebra Project, AVID and Upward Bound, once students get to college, they need similar kinds of support. The California State University system for example, is working to ensure that students from all communities, including those from urban cities, graduate with an undergraduate degree. The 22-campus system has implemented a variety of programs that are designed to support the retention and graduation of students. One of those programs is the Faculty Student Mentor Program (FSMP) in the College of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU). The College of Education Faculty/Student Mentorship Program (FSMP) is a unique retention and graduation program whose goal is to enhance the academic
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performance of underrepresented and at risk first year and transfer students of color to ensure that they gain admittance to SDSU’s Teacher Credential program.9 Most of the participants, also referred to as protégés or mentees, are first-generation college students who come from low-income backgrounds.10 Students in the FSMP program receive guidance regarding their course loads, schedules, and requirements needed for admissions into the College of Education’s post baccalaureate teacher credential program. Workshops and systematic individual tutoring are available for students enrolled in the FSMP for areas such as writing, linguistics, biology, math, and computer science. Student mentors in the FSMP11 program develop long-term supportive relationships important in the academic success of underserved students. In addition student mentors provide mentees with critical information about campus services and how to access them. Mentors not only help new students acclimate to the challenges of university life, but they also advise and teach them about the campus-wide FSMP network that includes Liberal Studies advisors, single subject discipline advisors, financial aid officers, and mental health professionals. In other words, students develop social networks to address their individual needs. The mission of the FSMP is unique as an undergraduate program in that it creates a cohesive learning community among liberal studies and single subject majors that enhances students’ identification with the College of Education as a professional school and simultaneously prepares them to complete successfully a multitude of prerequisites for teacher education. FSMP program participants develop positive, supportive relationships with fellow students, faculty, and staff, and thus feel more connected to and identified with the university community at large.12 Mentors in the FSMP demonstrate caring commitment to students in a variety of ways, but mostly in the number of hours they dedicate to providing protégés with the support they need to be academically and socially successful. Each mentor spends an average of 25 hours per month meeting with protégés face-to-face, conferring with them by telephone and electronic mail, tutoring them, and organizing workshops around topics like writing, note taking, and seeking financial aid opportunities. In the 2004–2005 academic year, FSMP mentors compiled two lists of College of Education-specific competencies that protégés should accomplish while in the program. These lists were important benchmarks for protégés because they gave protégés in-depth understanding of institutional expectations and norms. The first list was to ensure that the FSMP was serving protégés adequately. The second list was used to ensure that protégés were completing the requirements needed for admissions into the SDSU teaching credential program. The average FSMP student completed, 85% of the College of Education competencies. Students who were closer to graduating completed 87% of the teaching credential preparation competencies during the 2004–2005 school year. The FSMP was successful at assisting students with fulfilling the requirements they needed for maintaining satisfactory academic progress. In-school programs like the Algebra Project, AVID, and Upward Bound and support programs like FSMP on college campuses, provide youth with safe spaces and support networks to develop positive relationships with other members of the learning community and grow personally as well as academically. These programs also provide students
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with the encouragement they need to meet their full potential. Other research has focused on the important learning (both with respect to curriculum-relevant and practice relevant content) that occurs in non-school practices (Gonzalez & Moll, 2005; Masingila, 1994; Saxe, 1991, 1999), and has alluded to how the organization of these instructional settings supports effective learning, and the important role of relationships in that organization. In the next sections we discuss non-school and community-based programs and activities. We highlight three efforts for urban students that reflect an ethic of care: high school league basketball, the Boys and Girls Club after school programs, and religious-based community settings. We believe these spaces offer a different set of issues to consider that are potentially useful and fresh for designers of programs for urban students and for practitioners who work in urban communities.
Success Stories in Non-School Settings While we typically think about learning in relation to school-based programs and activities, non-school activities can also be rich sites for learning that incorporate the kinds of caring practices we highlight in this chapter. We have emphasized the impact of caring relationships and social networks in advancing students academically and equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to reach their full potentials. However, often overlooked, the time students spend in non-school instructional settings can also be important for helping students learn and realize their identities as successful learners. Non-school settings are developmental contexts in which students can gain important competencies and develop in positive and adaptive ways (Cole, 1996; Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Heath & McLaughlin, 1993; Hirsch, 2005; Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord, 2005). We consider non-school activities as both informal and community-based practices, including games such as chess or dominoes (Nasir, 2000), money exchange practices, such as buying items at local stores (Taylor, 2004), participation in church or religious-based activities (Donahue & Benson, 1995; King & Furrow, 2004; Peele-Eady, 2005) and organized activities for youth in communities and during the after-school hours, for instance, arts- or music-based programs (Ball & Heath, 1993; LawrenceLightfoot & Davis, 1997; O’Neill, 2005), sports (Nasir, 2000, 2002; Heath, 1991; Scanlan, Babkes, & Scanlan, 2005), tutoring, mentoring (Hirsch, 2005), vocational education (Rose, 2004), and technology clubs (Kim, 2004; Nicolopoulou & Cole, 1993). Researchers have argued that time spent in unstructured community activities can be instrumental to supplement and extend schooling experiences (Eccles, 2005). This is important, given the large proportion of waking hours that students spend in nonschool activities. And while urban students participate in after-school and community activities at lower rates than students of higher socioeconomic status (SES), and white students (Larson, Richards, Sims, & Dworkin, 2001), it is estimated that 60% of lowSES eighth- graders participated in an activity outside of school (Quinn, 1997). Further, school-age children in the United States spend approximately half of their waking hours in leisure activities (Larson & Verma, 1999). These high rates of participation have caused researchers and policy makers to pay closer attention to the content and effect of these after-school and non-school programs and activities (Hirsch, 2005;
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Ritter, Zief, & Lauver, 2003). Moreover, studies show that youth are most vulnerable to behaviors that could negatively impact academic, social, and behavioral well-being during the hours immediately after school (Ritter et al., 2003) making after-school and non-school programs and activities especially important in shaping positive student development. Further, students often find success in non-school activities, even when they perform poorly in school (Nasir, 2000; Saxe, 1991). Following, we consider successful13 non-school learning settings for urban students. We pay particular attention to the ways in which these settings provide urban youth with caring learning spaces. Research on successful settings for learning and development outside of school have highlighted how these programs attend to the psychosocial dimensions of learning and development (Nasir, Warren, Roseberry, & Lee, 2006). And while programs can vary extensively in terms of content and organization, (Halpern, cited in Hirsch, 2005), there are some important features that seem to hold stable. A committee of scholars appointed by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine (Eccles & Gootman, 2002) conducted a review of research on community-based youth programs and argued that eight features of social contexts support positive youth development. They are: physical and psychological safety, appropriate structure, supportive relationships, opportunities for belonging, positive social norms, support for efficacy and mattering, opportunity for skill building, and integration of family, school, and community efforts (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). In this section, we focus on three examples of non-school learning practices. As we do so, we highlight how these settings are organized in ways that support multiple aspects of caring, including (1) being personally and culturally relevant and supporting intimate and abiding relationships with adults and peers; and (2) being guided by and communicating a caring ideology that supports students’ conceptions of themselves as capable and valuable. The resources youth are offered and the expectations staff have of youth closely support a care ideology.
High School League Basketball Basketball is a popular activity and is played both recreationally (on playgrounds and in local gyms) and in leagues (based in schools, sports centers, or community centers). Our focus is competitive league basketball at the high school level. Participation in basketball is underscored by an ideology that encourages players to work hard, put forth their best effort, and play together as a team. Coaches regularly talk to players during practice about “playing their personal best” and about looking out for their teammates’ best interest – on the court and off. The basketball ideology also supports the idea of leadership, and encourages students to make decisions in line with being a leader. The organizational structures of high school league basketball provides players with both material and human resources that present players with the access, knowledge, and skills they need to be successful. As a sport, basketball is structured such that participation is highly active, and players have multiple opportunities to make important game decisions, such as, when to take a shot, when to pass the ball, and when to call a
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time-out. Although these might call for spur of the moment thinking, players are not left to make these important decisions alone. Indeed players have support and guidance; the coach and teammates are available for consultation and provide unsolicited advice as well as ongoing evaluation and feedback as the game or practice unfolds. The structure of practice sessions also supports the learning of necessary skills. Practices move from routine drills on basic skills (like dribbling or shooting), to combinations of skills (like a running pass), to full plays (like a box defense or fast break offense), to full-court scrimmage games. Thus, players have multiple opportunities to practice and master the same skills, while learning to use them authentically to matter in a game context. Often, practices are split by position (i.e., forwards, point guards, off guards) such that for the most part, everybody is learning the same information, but learning this in ways that meet individual needs and maximize individual potential. We view this support as a form of learning – that is, a caring environment is one that supports the full learning and development of its members. A significant component of playing basketball on a team is the relationships that players build with their coaches and teammates. These relationships provide a safe space within which to learn, lend themselves to the development of strong identities as learners of the sport, and help players master what they need to know to be competent members of the basketball community. Relationships, both with coaches and teammates are crucial to the success of the team (which also depends on the learning of each team member). Thus, relationship building is often an explicit goal of coaches in basketball (Nasir, 2000, 2002) as well as in other sports such as in high school track (see Nasir, Cooks, & Coffey, 2004). Relationship building is facilitated by regular long hours together in daily practices and weekly games, with occasional road trips, and a common sense of purpose among members of the community. This common sense of purpose is explicitly advocated by coaches, who remind players during practice that their ability to play “as a team” is directly related to their chances for success at winning games. Players often come to rely on coaches not only for technical support with basketball and scholarly support with academics, but also with negotiating important personal issues, including problems with girlfriends or boyfriends and parents (Nasir, 2000). At many schools, basketball team members form an exclusive social group on the broader campus, thus becoming not only team members, but close friends as well. Learning to work as a team is an important part of becoming more expert players (Nasir & Hand, in press). Further, feeling one’s self to be a member of the basketball community (both locally and more broadly) supports the learning of the mathematics of basketball – calculating their own and other players’ game statistics, such as average points scored per game, and percentage of shots made from the free-throw line (Nasir, 2000, 2002). This is especially significant when these same students perform poorly in math classes at school. In general, sports offer students opportunities to participate authentically and to feel that their membership adds significantly to the team endeavor (Nasir & Hand, in press). This in turn, creates a strong sense of personal relevance for youth. Players report that basketball provides them with a context where they can “be themselves,” by which they mean they have a role on the team, such as “keeping the other players calm” or “motivating teammates” or “leading by example” that they feel allows them to bring
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some of their personality and unique self-ness to the practice. Players argue and demonstrate that having dual, blended identities (as player and as individual) enhances both engagement and commitment to the game.
Boys and Girls Club The Boys and Girls clubs are community-based, drop-in youth centers that provide urban youth with informal activities and play spaces and equipment including basketball courts, volleyball courts, pin ball machines, and pool tables as well as a range of other sports and arts and crafts activities. These clubs also offer programming and other classes – for instance, Hirsch (2005) describes two life-skills courses where students meet with mentors to discuss important life and developmental issues. The ethic of care ideology undergirding interactions at the boys and girls clubs centers around safety and warmth. One of the most important features of successful out-ofschool and community-based programs is that they provide psychological and physical safety – this may be especially important for urban students, who may face challenging and unsafe conditions in their neighborhood environments. Youth who participated at the Boys and Girls Clubs in Hirsch’s (2005) study came to refer to the clubs as their “second home,” signaling the sense of safety and belonging that they felt there. One student in Hisrch’s study wrote that the club was “a quiet place to do work, … bond with friends, … get away from peer/family pressure, … confide in adults, [and a] safe space to get off the streets” (p. 41). Many other participants shared this sentiment, and Hirsch writes, “even as adult researchers, we often felt the warmth and hominess that emanated from the space” (p. 41). These components of students’ experiences at the Boys and Girls Club create opportunities for self-efficacy and feeling that one matters. This sense of safety and warmth is vital to providing a context where youth can learn and grow. It gives youth a space where it is all right to try new things, and perhaps even to fail at first. The ideology of safety and warmth also aligns with developmental resources for youth, including mentors that challenge their existing (less positive) practices and belief systems, and encourage youth to consider alternative (more positive) practices and beliefs (Hirsch, 2005). As Hirsch describes them, the strengths of the Boys and Girls Clubs programs were primarily social and centered around relationship building both with adult mentors and peers. These clubs provided a space for young adolescents to play and have fun. Hirsch cautions us not to downplay the developmental importance of providing youth with such a space for fun, arguing that in the lives of many urban students, it was the one place where they could truly be free to be just children. The clubs were also a place to be with friends. In fact, many of the attendees of the clubs reported that many of their closest friends were other adolescents whom they met through the clubs, and that the after-school time was one of the few times that they had to be with their friends. Again, Hirsch highlights the developmental importance of learning to maintain and negotiate friendships, and shows how the Boys and Girls Clubs play an important role in this area. The mentoring that the students received as a part of their attendance underscored this feeling of home. While some of this mentoring was explicit and took place in the context of formal programs or classes, much of it occurred on the fly, informally,
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during the ongoing interaction and friendships between youth and caring adults at the Boys and Girls Clubs. These relationships provided youth with protective spaces to talk about sensitive personal issues, and get an adult’s perspective on issues they might be facing. Among other things, Hirsch (2005) argues that these mentoring relationships support youths’ abilities to learn how to manage conflicts and to code switch (use African American vernacular, but also use formal English when appropriate), as many of the mentors modeled such code switching.
Religious-Based Settings Other community-based instructional settings include such places as Sunday schools, religious-based schools, and other contexts based on a spiritual or moral ideology. In her study of African American children in Sunday school at a Black Missionary Baptist Church in an urban California community, Peele-Eady (2005) showed how adult members of the church organized activities and interacted with children in ways that positioned them as capable, competent, and contributing members of the group (Peele-Eady, 2005). This fundamental view of children and their position in the church community had important implications for the ways that adults interacted with children across church contexts. Essentially, adults interacted with children in ways that promoted group solidarity and connectedness. That children worked closely and cooperatively with adults in virtually all aspects of the organization, demonstrated the trust and value that adults had for the children and their contributions. Sunday school teachers often asked students to relate what they were learning to events in their everyday experiences, viewing students’ narratives positively and as useful offerings to discussions. Incidentally, even when the students’ responses were less centrally relevant to the discussion at hand, teachers found ways to frame students’ contributions as noteworthy and appreciated. Like the Boys and Girls Clubs, Sunday schools are built on the ethic of care and constitute a mutual commitment and respect between teachers and students. Peele-Eady (2005) demonstrated how caring Sunday school teachers provided children with ample scaffolded opportunities to be successful at learning. Specifically, she showed that adults created teaching and learning conditions that nurtured the children’s successful participation, by deliberately designing activities that focused on success rather than on failure in performing membership practices. In sum, relationships in Sunday school church settings were set within a broader web of other relationships – that is, the children in the setting connected not only as Sunday school class members, but also as members of the larger church and religious community. Their parents, too, were linked by community membership, friendship, and sometimes kinship. These relationships at the community level found their way into the Sunday school classrooms as students referred to other church members as “brother” or “sister.” Nasir’s (2004) study of teaching and learning in an African-American Muslim school showed similar findings with respect to the complex web of relationships that links students in religious school contexts. While we recognize that the after-school and out-of-school programs that we have discussed here are not necessarily replicable in school settings, we argue that there is
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much to be gained from them. A look at the nature of teaching and learning outside of schools and in community settings offers a more expansive view of what might be possible and about what kinds of organizational structures and relationships might support both learning of content and other aspects of development, such as identity and selfesteem. The non-school settings that we have highlighted focus as much on developing youth as people and good citizens as they do in developing them as learners in a particular domain. This, we view as an important component of caring – and schools might greatly benefit from this holistic perspective on student learning and development.
Conclusion Most of the programs we have highlighted in this chapter – in one way or another – focus on developmental aspects of youths’ lived experiences in addition to their academic performance. We have given less attention to issues of subject-based content with the exception of the Algebra Project, though clearly the learning and mastery of content are critical to maximizing school success and human potential. Although we have focused heavily on how an ethic of care underlies the successful programs that we have discussed, we do recognize however, that there are limits to the usefulness of the ethic of care frame. Specifically, we want to address two important cautions to applying care theory in our analysis of successful programs for urban students. First, some scholars (Applebaum, 1998; Thompson, 1998) for example, critique care theory as an oppressive belief system because it situates women rather than men as the major nurturers in society. Other scholars (Applebaum, 1998) view the ethic of care as merely a female virtue and not so much the critical center of relationships. To the contrary however, the ethic of care is not genderspecific since caring can come from women as well as men. Nor does the ethic of care refer to the domination of men over women (Applebaum, 1998; Noddings, 1984; Thompson, 1998). This is especially important to consider when the majority of our teacher population is comprised of women. In addition, the ethic of care is not about domination. By that we mean a person who cares (i.e., the carer) does not do so in a way that results in the domination of the other’s needs over one’s own. Instead, care theory purports reciprocity in relationships (Noddings, 1984). Thus the cared-for responds to the carer, who through caring is able to evaluate her or his effectiveness with the cared-for. Also, capriciously assuming that caring is a natural, human thing to do is problematic at best. The historical treatment of people from underrepresented groups and communities has clearly demonstrated that caring for others who are seen as different is far from automatic or natural (Pang, 2005; Thompson, 1998). Therefore, it is important to examine care theory in conjunction with tensions of race, culture, power, and oppression, and this is especially critical when discussing equity in urban schools. Goldstein and Freedman (2003) found for example, that even in situations where the intended goal of teaching pre-service teachers how to care for their students, the teachers’ judgmental and negative perceptions of students of color and their parents increased rather than decreased (Goldstein & Freedman, 2003). Care theory espouses the belief that to teach effectively, educators must first reflect on their own biases, prejudices, and assimilationist viewpoints and then explore how these viewpoints can be potential obstacles to providing students with equity in education.
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Other examples in the literature document how the prejudicial attitudes that teachers and administrators sometimes hold about certain students and their families not only affect beliefs about teaching those students (Pang & Sablan, 1998), but also act as boulders to change and reform (Lipman, 1998). For example, in their study of pre-service teachers, Pang and Park (2003) found that 51.5% of pre-service teachers they studied demonstrated that they were unaware of or unwilling to examine their stereotypical beliefs about children of color and their parents. Further, when asked to account for poor student achievement, the teachers in Pang and Park’s (2003) study faulted the students and their families rather than placing responsibility with the schools or the practices and policies of teachers and administrators. Honesty and truth on the part of the educational community is crucial in the service of urban youth. In schools, colleges, or community contexts, “[g]ood teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher” (Palmer, 1998, p. 10). More to the point, teachers and other adults involved in the learning community whose pedagogy is guided by the ethic of care, make a personal, moral, and ethical commitment to the work they do with and for their students. We think there is much purchase in our focus on the ways that successful programs and activities influence how urban students see themselves in the world, and the ways that caring and relationships are central to that endeavor. We find this attention to positioning students with respect to communities that support their positive development and future trajectories of success especially important given the prevalence of common stereotypes and assumptions about urban students and their life pathways. It is our hope that more learning settings to which urban students are exposed can incorporate the kinds of caring practices and ideologies that we have seen in these programs and activities. In so doing, they will be moving toward equity in education and will counteract in a small way, the ways that our society maintains stratification by race and class for student learning and developmental outcomes.
Notes 1. U.S. poverty statistics for the year 2000 showed that people (the majority of whom were African American and Latino) living inside central cities experienced a poverty rate of 16.1%. 2. Dewey (1916) as cited in: Archambault (1964). 3. The deficit theory is a model founded upon the belief that students from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds are intellectually inferior and cultural differences are seen as cultural deficiencies. 4. The ethnic breakdown of participants in the study was 64% Asian, 63% mixed-race, 62% Latino, 62% African American, and 62% White. 5. http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/lret/avid/?loc=what_is_avid 6. http://www.library.cmu.edu/Research/Archives/UnivArchives/Cmap … 7. http://www.childtrends.org/Lifecourse/programs/UpwardBound.html 8. http://www.childtrends.org/Lifecourse/programs/UpwardBound.html 9. FSMP- http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/sdsutrio/fsmp/otherfsmp.html#education 10. FSMP serves a diverse group of protégés. During the 2004–2005 school year, the FSMP served 68% Hispanics, 12% Asian, 0.1% African American, and 29% White. 20% of the protégés served in the 2004–2005 school year were transfer students, 45% were freshmen, and 30% were others. In the 2004–2005 school year, 35% of the FSMP protégés were English language learners. In the 2005–2006 academic year, the FSMP served 50 protégés during the fall semester and 40 protégés during
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the spring semester. Additionally, 15 students who did not participate formally as protégés in the FSMP, participated in its sponsored events and requested occasional assistance from FSMP mentors and staff. 11. FSMP-College of Education Faculty/Student Mentor Program. 12. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~mentor/OurMission.htm 13. Our criteria for considering non-school programs as successful had less to do with external evaluations of learning, and more to do with whether or not students in the program learned to become competent, participating community members such that the nature of their participation shifted to become more expert over time. By successful, we also mean that programs support a wide-range of developmental needs and competencies. There is also a well-established corpus of research (Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord, 2005) to confirm that successful out-of-school programs contribute to increased educational attainment and achievement reduce problem behaviors, and heighten psychosocial competencies.
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47 REBUILDING SCHOOLS, RESTORING COMMUNITIES: A VISION OF URBAN EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION Rodney K. Hopson*, Jennifer C. Greene†, Katrina L. Bledsoe‡, Trinidad M. Villegas†, and Tanya A. Brown§ *
Duquesne University, U.S.A./Cambridge University, U.K.; University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, U.S.A.; ‡ The College of New Jersey, U.S.A.; § Duquesne University, U.S.A. †
Evaluators are inextricably imbued with value commitments, constrained by the context of the study, the politics of the setting, and the politics of the government. Evaluators are fully “situated” in the deepest sense: valued-imbued [sic], value-laden, and value-based. (House, 2004, p. 7) In this quote from a keynote address at the 2004 conference of the European Evaluation Society, Ernie House underscores a critical dimension of contemporary evaluation of social and educational programs and policies. Evaluation does not exist in some vacuum, unencumbered by or unresponsive to the social, political, and moral character of the larger social and political order or to the particular socio-political dynamics of the study setting. Rather, evaluators are fully situated in the context of study and thus in the politics, cultures, and social interactions of the setting in which their study occurs. Evaluators are also imbued with value commitments that shape the driving logic or theory of their study methodology and results. Evaluation exists within social structures and systems, inextricably tied to particular social and institutional structures and practices. In short, evaluation is fundamentally constituted by and helps to reconstitute the contexts in which it is conducted. Nowhere is this more evident than in educational settings, especially urban settings where diverse (and sometimes diverging) and varied agendas can provide dynamic yet challenging contexts. So what are the key characteristics and dynamics of current urban education settings in North America, particularly the United States? What challenges are facing urban schools today, and what creative ideas, assets, and innovations are being offered to balance these challenges? Current trends in urban education systems and communities feature the key themes of accountability, empowerment, and civic engagement. A vision for evaluation in 905 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 905–926. © 2007 Springer.
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urban educational settings should be neither ideologically – nor methodologically – centric but rather positioned to intersect and engage these themes within the complex contemporary patterns of political, economic, and cultural urban life. The failure to consider major trends in the ways urban education and communities settings in North America are structured and differentiated makes for uni-dimensional and narrow conceptions and applications of urban educational evaluation. Our vision of evaluation for urban education contexts is indeed multi-dimensional and expansive. Such a vision is respectful of the complexity and heterogeneity of urban settings in North America, and it offers multiple spaces for reconstituting this complexity in more democratic ways. Our vision of urban educational evaluation, that is, aims both to respect the multiplicity and diversity of life experiences and values that comprise urban communities, as well as to encourage and promote meaningful engagement with experiences, activities, and policies that serve democratic values of voice and empowerment, justice and equity. The vision is thus ideological – but so are all conceptions of evaluation (Greene, 1997). Yet, it is driven not by its ideological character but rather by its commitment to respectfully engage with the complex contours and dynamics of educational interactions and activities within urban school communities. So, to understand our vision for evaluation in the dynamic urban educational settings of North America inevitably means understanding how evaluation is framed alongside notions of democracy, social change, and social justice within our contemporary society. Additionally, this vision is shaped by our interdisciplinary interests in educational, public health, and social policy and prevention efforts among all communities, especially those of color who tend to be most often marginalized, are immigrant, and may also be bilingual or multilingual. The chapter begins with insights from selected theoretical underpinnings that help us make sense of evaluation in urban educational settings. The chapter then considers major trends in urban education as it simultaneously problematizes how urban education is defined and perceived in North America with primary attention on the U.S. Snapshots of the unique experiences of evaluation in urban educational contexts and settings of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois are presented, followed by an elaboration of our vision for urban educational evaluation. Overall, the chapter strives to advance a character of urban education and a vision for urban education through evaluation that values and privileges the creation of more equitable educational relationships and spaces.
Framing the Language of Evaluation, Urban Education, and Social Politics in Twenty-first Century America Embedded in our framework of evaluation in urban education settings are insights into how the language of evaluation and the language of urban education are framed by our larger social and educational milieu. The language and subsequent practice of evaluation (e.g., assessment, accreditation, or audit) is not immune from the dominant discourse being used to frame social issues and programs in the U.S. Language matters in evaluation, not solely by its lexicon but through how it is used in unique settings and contexts. Michael Patton’s analysis how and why language matters in evaluation suggests that “this
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evaluation Tower of Babel is a function of the fact that different people and organizations throughout the world use these core words in different ways within their own planning and evaluation frameworks” (2000, p. 8). Within urban education and social programs in the U.S. today, two dominant ideological perspectives in public discourse are prevalent and drive the way issues are conceptualized, addressed, and funded. George Lakoff’s (2004) cognitive science and linguistic treatment suggests that the public discourse around social and educational programs favors a conservative agenda manifest in the domestic and foreign policies of the current Bush administration. Lakoff argues that two worldviews, the nurturant parent and the strict father morality, drive the way political and social strategies are carried out and positions are drawn in contested issues related to the environment, education, and economy. Both worldviews operate with assumptions and cultural stereotypes, distinct ways of constructing rewards and sanctions, and in pursuit of unique interests. The nurturant parent worldview is gender-neutral and characteristic of a caring and empathetic moral responsibility. Where the strict father morality projects obedience and self-reliance, nurturant values emphasize fairness, cooperation, and honesty. The nurturant parent takes care of and protects the children and seeks a happy and fulfilled life for them and others. The strict father morality worldview, which takes its name from the head of the household, depicts a strong and strict father who prospers by pursuing his own self-interest in the land of opportunity where he can protect and support his family in a dangerous and difficult world. He tells his children what to do and teaches his children right from wrong. For instance, it is wrong to give people things they do not earn, and some people, by virtue of their discipline, are deservingly rich and wealthy The poor remain poor not only because they lack the discipline to prosper; they deserve to be poor.1 One notices in the examples Lakoff presents an understanding of the dominant frames and values that are in competition in contemporary America and how binary oppositions dominate the discourse (Apple, 2004). The way these binary oppositions work is as follows, according to Maggie MacLure (2003): “One ‘side’ achieves definition – comes to meaning – through its difference with respect to a (constructed) ‘other’ which is always lacking, lesser or derivative in some respect” (p. 10). This binary is the Either-Or tendency echoed by Flesso and Ketelle in their chapter that follows later in this section of the handbook. Taking a page from John Dewey, Flesso and Ketelle argue that the inherently causal reasoning about urban school reform are insufficient explanations to fix the conditions of our schools in the U.S. and Canada. Donald Schön (1982) sees metaphor as “central to the task of accounting for our perspectives on the world: how we think about things, make sense of reality, and set the problems we later try to solve” (p. 254). Following Schon, we can use Lakoff’s parental metaphors to better understand how the conceptual framing of contemporary urban education reveals competing issues, trends, and changes reflective of the larger social and cultural orders in respective nation states. Current education trends in many parts of the world – encouraged and influenced by conservative and right wing governments in Britain and the United States, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over the last 20 years – feature restructured and deregulated state educational systems that not only foster decentralized educational bureaucracies but devolved management and administrative systems of schooling (Whitty, 2000). Patrick Harrigan’s (1986)
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comparative perspective on trends in the history of Canadian education reveals the influence of the 1970s as a pivotal point in shaping the historiography of education in the country. Influenced by the cusp of educational thought in the U.S. and Europe, specifically France, Harrigan writes how “bureaucracy, social control, and class were the watchwords” (p. 75), indicative of the relationship among elites, higher education, and the social structure of North American society. If we take Lakoff’s argument further, we note how metaphors are inherent in the strict father policies and programs in urban America despite the use of language that appeals to nurturant values. The Orwellian language, that is, language that means the opposite of what it purports to say, is evident in the U.S. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, for instance, which is a core part of a larger conservative and moral authority strategy. Under NCLB, signed in January 2002 as a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), states are required to test children during different stages of their elementary, middle, and high school years. Mandating state-created standardized tests to assess reading and math proficiency, the Act requires qualified teachers to teach every child and school districts to show adequate progress or develop an improvement plan if adequate progress in student achievement is not met. The slippery slope nature of NCLB fails to emphasize a number of ill effects of the Act and the vicious cycle of failure and punishments. When students fail, schools metaphorically fail and are punished for failing with reduced resources, parental flight, and ultimately take-over by the state or the private sector. Less funding and a failing school report card could even signal the ultimate closure and elimination of many public schools, especially “under-performing” schools in urban centers. Of direct importance for urban schools, each subgroup of children – designated by race and ethnicity, gender, English language fluency, social class, and disability status – must make adequate annual progress or the whole school fails. Although the NCLB Act theoretically encourages excellence in school performance, it problematically does not consider particular contextual characteristics or social structures that make it difficult if not impossible for some schools to achieve the standards set by the dominant educational system. Moreover, “excellence” in this system is defined in terms that signal a meritocracy in play – those schools that work hard and achieve the standards will receive rewards, and those that do not put in the work necessary to meet the standards will receive punishments. This merit-based thinking underlying the NCLB ignores differences in schools’ starting points arising from historical and now systemic injustices and inequities. This meritocracy in education helps to create an underclass in society, as lately demonstrated by the number of students leaving high school without having passed so-called exit exams. The diploma is still considered the most highly valued pedigree indicating adherence to the meritocracy. Of course, if one does not have a diploma, but instead an equivalency document, this is an indication that students are not worthy of the riches afforded to those who adhere to the traditional educational paradigm. If educational standards for excellence are based upon a meritocracy, the rhetoric and logic behind evaluation and assessment of educational standards will also be based upon a meritocracy. Those strategies that are more paternalistic (e.g., the experimental
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and quasi-experimental designs) will be valued more in terms of their ability to provide so-called “objective” information. Conversely, those strategies that seem to allow for fluidity of reason (participatory approaches that are inclusive or democratic) would be less valued because they are open to interpretation and may provide a conflict with what is considered a standard of excellence. Jeannie Oakes and Martin Lipton (2003) further discuss how metaphors and myths shape American schooling and reiterate how basic ideologies that help support the commitment to schooling and social reality of education in this country have often paradoxical and Orwellian implications. According to Oakes and Lipton, the myth of merit stems from the meritocratic nature of our American society and contends “any child can grow up to be President,” and the myth of progress implies that generations inevitably make significant advances. As schools inherit factory models of production and standardized methods of making them more efficient, they reify the factory metaphor and embrace the market metaphor, which suggests that schools are primarily arenas for competition in a more global and international environment. This same American belief that purports that success in school and life follows from individual ability and aspiration also associates “inner-city crisis, family breakdown, and welfare receipt with individual shortcoming” (Wilson, 1997, p. 294). Children grow up to be President only when they follow a moral authority that rewards individual responsibility and discipline. The value of meritocracy is also being encouraged in the classroom: for every child who performs according to the metaphoric standard of excellence, which is most often operationalized as standardized test scores, teachers and schools receive merit pay. This is especially disconcerting – schools in low socioeconomic settings are likely to be even bigger losers under NCLB, due to inadequate funding and resources in the first place. The understandings and discourse surrounding twenty-first century urban schools and the settings in which they are located are profoundly shaped by contemporary ideologies, worldviews, and metaphors that continue to “blame the victim” for structural inequities and then punish her when she once again fails to meet standards set by someone else. The challenge for a vision of evaluation in the urban involves reframing these discourses to ones of restoration, vitality, and creativity, as well as reclaiming values of inclusion and justice. Schön’s revelation “that the essential difficulties in social policy have more to do with problem setting than with problem solving, more to do with ways in which we frame the purposes to be achieved than with the selection of optimal means or achieving them” (1982, p. 255) is as valuable now as then.
Characteristics and Dynamics of Urban Education in North America – Focus on the U.S. This section briefly describes the character of urban education today in North America, with a particular focus on the challenges facing urban schools and the creative ideas and innovations being offered to offset and balance these challenges. In describing this character, the section initially defines the urban and ultimately links a vision of urban educational evaluation toward progressive restoration of city school
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systems, educational programs, and the learners and youth who matriculate and participate therein. There has never been anything particularly easy about defining the urban. What is defined as urban varies considerably and is the source of much discussion. Not to be considered monolithic, urban has several definitions depending upon approaches and particular issues of emphasis. Murray Thomas (1994) provides six definitional options that range from the universality of the meanings of such words as urban and rural to the specificity of Census Bureau definitions precise in their delineation of population, geographic, and employment factors. Urban education is just as complex in its definitions and categorizations. Joe Kincheloe (2004) recognizes that blurred boundaries exist among urban, suburban, and rural schooling and that disparaging assumptions about urban schooling are reinforced by the use of this term as “a signifier for poverty, nonwhite violence, narcotics, bad neighborhoods, an absence of family values, crumbling housing, and failing schools” (p. 2). What happens then are oversimplifications that feed what Gerald Grace (1994) describes as either the language of crisis or the language of improvement in urban education. The language of crisis is associated with “failing students, failing schools, and failing communities, and its implicit or explicit prediction of social and political order” (p. 46). The language of improvement emphasizes “effective schools and schools leaders, progressive intervention programs and school reforms, influential community-business alliances, and powerful urban coalitions” (ibid.). We resonate with Grace’s criticisms of definitions of urban education that advance narrow and simplistic causes of the urban schooling crisis. Like Grace, we believe that the current crisis in urban education is rooted in structural inequities that require powerful social, political, and educational actions. The current depiction of urban education in advanced industrialized countries, such as the U.S. at the cusp of the twenty-first century frequently portrays a system in chaos and explains this as an inner city crisis, attributable to a plethora of human, educational, and fiscal shortages, declines, and failures. Those Americans identified in the late-1980s as the “truly disadvantaged” (Wilson, 1987) – situated in the middle of decaying cities, constituted by a heavily concentrated number of poor, people of color, and victims of unemployment, drugs, crime, and other social maladies – are no better in the first decade of the twenty-first century. There are as obvious signs that the condition of Canada’s metropolitan and urban cities, though unique to the U.S. in their own right, parallels the situation in American urban areas. That is, the role of race and structural patterns reveal rapid urbanization, massive industrialization, and immigration in Canada (Hajnal, 1995; Mercer, 1995). The immigration scene has contributed to a radical change in the urban social, educational, and economic life of Canada. According to John Mercer (1995), two striking features have made contemporary immigration over the latter part of the twentieth century unique. One feature is the economic transformation within the employment sector and specifically the predominant, diverse service-related jobs. The second feature is the change in the nature and identity of the immigrant, from one uniquely Eurocentric in perspective to the shift to a more racially and ethnically diverse. “Visible minorities,” a new group of immigrants not being identified as white, are mostly from Asia. One-fifth
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of Canadian immigrants are from Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America. Nelly Stromquist (1994) documented trends and issues affecting urban education in advanced industrial countries in the late-1980s and early-1990s, noting the continual increase and constant flux of Latinos from North and Central America, Black Americans, and Africans, a significant number of them poor and challenged by educational settings that did not recognize nor address their linguistic, cultural, and psychological needs. At this time – the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century – urban education is understood as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with distinguishing but not easily identifiable features. Kincheloe (2004), for instance, notes that urban schools in the U.S. operate in high population density areas, marked by profound economic disparity and with higher proportions of students of ethnic, linguistic, racial, and religious diversity than are found in other regions. Additionally, urban schools typically experience challenges concerning basic resources, often the cause of what Kincheloe calls “factionalized infighting on school boards.” (p. 6). Due to higher student, teacher, and administrator mobility and ineffective business operations strained by the persistent lack of basic resources to operate schools, transport children to schools, and political favor, urban schools tend to be undermined, underimagined, and clouded by a dearth of hope, resistance, and possibility. Yet urban schools are not characterized only by the challenges that beset them. Restoring city school systems require a critical rethinking and reframing. Imagining the possibility of urban schools for social change involves framing notions and descriptions of resilience to describe the perseverance of poor urban students and their communities. This means reframing the ways people view the urban, developing new forms of consciousness that help students and their communities invent new ways of looking at their lives, and generating approaches that help them succeed amidst the sterile typologies of urban school reform (Mirón & St. John, 2003b). What critical educators and teachers, like Kincheloe, have done in these urban spaces is invent restorative methods, pedagogies, and strategies for the students and teachers who occupy these schools and for the parents and community members who reside in their neighborhoods. To create a vision for urban educational evaluation, the same would need to occur for evaluators whose focus is on urban schools and urban settings. Michele Foster’s (1995) discussion of excellent African American teachers and her focus on culturally relevant pedagogy suggests how and why incorporating culturally compatible communicative patterns and recognizing familial cultural patterns are helpful aids. To address the oft-cited cultural mismatch, conflict, and discontinuity hypotheses that exist in urban schooling (e.g., Ogbu, 1982; Trumbull, Rothstein-Fisch, & Greenfield, 2000), Foster contends that cultural solidarity and connectedness are important beliefs and practices that resonate among effective African-American teachers who develop strong intergenerational attachments to the Black community through caring relationships, use fictive kin relationships to promote parental social roles, and simultaneously command respect and require students to meet high academic and behavioral standards. The emphasis on reframing teaching and learning in urban school contexts intersects with the role innovations educational researchers, scholars, and practitioners have made
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in learning styles research. Jackie Jordan Irvine (1995) counters the tendency to overlook variables, such as cultural forms, behaviors, a group’s history, language, values, norms, rituals, and symbols. She argues instead that effective teachers of urban students do not only attend to individual students’ learning styles, but they are also both self-reflective and critical of “their own actions, instructional goals, methods, and materials as they relate to their students’ cultural experiences and preferred learning environment” (p. 494). This work of Irvine’s extends others’ work that identifies unique learning patterns among various ethnic and cultural groups (Gay, 1988; Pewewardy, 1999) and helps safeguard the mislabeling, misplacement, misassessment, and mistreatment of these children in urban schooling settings (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Solano-Flores & NelsonBarber, 2001) or the misappropriation of theoretical and conceptual models that purport to explain academic achievement and failure of urban children of color in terms disconnected with the rhythms and meanings of daily urban life (Gordon, Miller, & Rollock, 1990; Leacock, 1977; Slaughter-Defoe, Nakagawa, Takanishi, & Johnson, 1990). Inherent in this discussion of reframing innovations and strategies in the urban are inevitable discussions of how particular forms of knowledge are privileged over local and cultural forms. Few scholars review how dominant cultural productions manifest in the study of education and reify themselves in classroom practices. Hilliard (1977), for one, suggests that beneath a discussion that addresses pervasive educational issues in urban settings is a need to more critically illuminate hidden problems and question fundamental assumptions in the field. He contends, “instead of confining our analyses of classroom processes to student behavior alone … we must look for evidence of conscious or unconscious reinforcement of patterns of domination within the educational institution as a whole” (p. 120). In simple terms, envisioning urban education considers wider processes of stratification, power, and globalization, even as it honors the local, cultural contexts of resilience and hope that pervade these places.
Evaluation in Urban Educational and Community Settings: Lessons and Experiences from the Field This section provides experiences and insights learned from urban educational evaluation in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois. In providing these lessons learned, the section reinforces the major commitments inherent in doing urban educational evaluation and the challenges that beset in these efforts. Situating community engagement and social capital in Pittsburgh, PA: Making spaces for dialogue The realities of increasing diversity, cleavages among the increasing wealthy and increasing poor, and environmental shifts and changes over the last 20 plus years have had important personal and social implications for our global citizenry, especially in the United States. Amidst the rapidly changing social context and social fabric of our global communities, some question whether our communities are becoming more isolated and divided over these same social and political realities. Robert Putnam’s seminal study in the U.S. (2000) attests to the declining civic engagement and social cohesion over the last third of the twentieth century. Characterizing the
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diminution of social capital in community life from the 1960s, Putnam describes how Americans began to “join less, trust less, give less, vote less, and schmooze less,” with evidence from trends in civic engagement (e.g., membership records of diverse community and educational organizations, national and social surveys, and measures of collective participation). The Greater Pittsburgh region in southwestern Pennsylvania is not unlike the communities in the country who are feeling the effects of socioeconomic shifts at neighborhood, town or city, and regional levels. The decreasing social capital in the U.S. is reflected in the regional realities and socioeconomic changes due to declining steel and industry markets and economic interest in the region. Current trends and patterns at the statewide and federal levels in the U.S. call for increased attention to knowing whether services and programs offered are both effective and having intended impact. Philanthropic, civic, religious, non-profit, educational, and other organizations and agencies must all find themselves addressing questions about evaluation, accountability, and worth in programs and services they provide. In particular, efforts in southwestern Pennsylvania as indicated by the recent regional sustainability indicators report signal need to have a better picture of the longterm goals for the region and corresponding measures of success, all the while building levels of civic action (Sustainable Pittsburgh, 2002). The main purpose of the evaluation study was to assess the character and impact of a social program that attempted to evoke a heightened concern for community involvement and development through weekly gatherings over dinner. Guiding questions of the evaluation study included: (1) What happens in dialogue that connects one person with another and evokes concern for him/her and the broader social context?, and (2) How do practices of ethical reflection and “shared looking” in a diverse setting make a difference? The evaluation used an ethnographic methodology.
Introduction to Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA) The social program, Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA),2 is a 7 week long program that brings together 4–10 individuals per conversation from differing race, gender, ethnic, religious, occupational, and educational backgrounds for weekly conversations. The conversations feature poems, music, photographs, art and ordinary human voices as focal points for connection, self-reflection, and the practice of a new civic language. The series of seven sessions begins with hopes, moves on to the challenges of diversity, economic disparity, the environment and materialism, and concludes with communities of challenge and support. Leading up to their final sessions, participants are invited to make specific commitments to the common good and to support each others’ commitments over time (St. John, 2004). Since its inception over 2 years, DCA has conducted 12 rounds of Dialogues, each with its own group identity and dynamic, connected through the weekly sessions located at the Urban House in the northside of Pittsburgh. Now at the end of its second year, over 100 people of varied ethnic and social groups have participated, with each participant averaging 5.6-sessions per 7-session round. Upon completion of their 7-session round, participants have the opportunity to participate in “Continued Dialogues,” a similar follow-up round with experienced participants.
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Of the total number of DCA participants, the majority have been white, one-quarter have been African-American, 5% have been of Middle Eastern origin, and an additional 3% have been of Asian or Latino background. Slightly over half of the DCA participants (52%) have been female. Incomes have ranged from under $15,000 to over $75,000, with the bulk in the middle income range, half (50%) from two-income households. Most of the participants possess college degrees and some have done post-graduate work, though less than 10% have had only modest formal education. There has been one participant with a mental handicap.
Evaluation, dialogue, and conversations that matter By nearly all accounts, the DCA program promotes civic action and engagement according to the ethnographic evaluative inquiry employed in the study. Based upon participant observations, it is evident that the program offers a space for participants to explore their concerns about social issues and concurrently mobilize toward engaging in civic action. Mobilization toward further civic action was evidenced in participants’ discussion and recognition of their own existing resources and the value of being in the company of others who they considered to share similar investments with respect to social action. In situ interviews revealed how the program impacted the participants’ personal histories and informed their future directions. The preliminary ethnographic findings from the focus groups, participantobservations, and telephone interviews suggest that DCA retains participants who, for the most part are already involved in similar social initiatives or activities, feel downtrodden by existing work in the civic arena, are familiar with the setting or the facilitator, or curious about the use of art for motivating civic engagement. Participants’ reactions to the program ranged from resistance, to commitment to civic change, to increased engagement and commitment to issues surrounding social equality. Participants noted a difficulty in specifying identifiable change as a result of the conversations, but noted subtle differences in the manner in which they presently engage the issues discussed in DCA. Of the specified core practices of DCA – diverse groups, mutual learning, facilitated discussion, sustained meetings, and engaged reflection via art media – participants reported as most significant the diversity of participants in the group and the perspectives emerging from the art media. These were experienced as allowing for deeper relationships with fellow participants and novel engagement with the issues discussed in the program. Participants further noted that more open-ended discussion may have aided to further build relationships and explore multiple issues pertaining to civic engagement. And the challenges that surfaced in the evaluation? What sounds like a model program for a form of, what Putnam refers to as, “bridging” social capital is clearly not. It is not entirely clear that the tension of a reinforced homogeneity or like-mindedness among participants who have completed the CCW program does not exclude those who do not complete. To Baron et al. this is Putnam’s classic tension between “bridging” and “bonding” forms of social capital, but it is still uncertain why some participants complete and continue, while others complete and do not continue, and
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why still others do not complete the program at all. The findings illustrate most clearly that there is a group of participants who complete a social program designed to encourage investment in civic engagement and action but questions remain why those who do not complete the program and what this reveals about their own social action, civic engagement, or social exclusion.
Characteristics of evaluation used in study of CCW Evaluation methodology in the CCW study was reframed in order to better capture the nuances occurring in the program processes. In particular, the evaluation team attempted to effectively study how the program was sensitive to interpersonal dynamics and communicative processes, and whether such practices lead to commitment to civic engagement. This evaluation framework is founded on an intersection of theories within evaluation research, community psychology, and critical theory, which draw attention to the significance of investigating multiple dynamics within the evaluation field and the relative effects evaluation findings have on more vulnerable stakeholders and the community at large. Using the evaluation framework, four dimensions of analysis were identified: evaluation approach, program impact, evaluation use, and evaluator roles. ●
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Evaluation approach. Contributions from democratic and culturally responsive evaluation approaches specify how evaluations are politically located within a sociocultural context, thus influenced by power dynamics and value systems (Greene, Millett, & Hopson, 2004; Hopson, 2001; SenGupta, Hopson, & ThompsonRobinson, 2004). Both approaches make explicit the importance of including all significant stakeholders in the evaluation process, and the use of engaged, reflexive practices, which are directed toward further social and ethical learning and action. To address these concerns, the evaluation team made explicit the theoretical assumptions embedded in the program’s mission in order to understand which populations and civic issues the program intended to address and deliberately built an approach that was responsive to the program goals. The evaluation team first reviewed the program’s mission in order to understand how CCW differed from other community initiatives, and what elements distinguished it as a “complex, embedded, learning system.” Evaluation impact. The evaluation team’s approach was informed by Isaac Prilleltensky’s study of community systems and Paulo Friere’s theory of libratory change. According to Prilleltensky, social change impacts power dynamics on individual, relational, and collective levels by calling attention to ongoing oppressive socio-political practices, and then engaging in sustained action to change it (1997). Friere’s theory of libratory change highlights the dehumanizing social contexts in which we exist and manner in which we may engage one another. He argues for providing a space for a person to work toward acknowledging the social situation in which they exist and working toward libratory change. The evaluation team was concerned with the relational and collective levels of impact that the program had on the community agencies with which it collaborated. The evaluative assumptions included that the community agencies would
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(1) have the ability to develop new communities of conversation participants in different contexts and structures, and (2) provide an opportunity for the program staff at the collaborating agency to identify “lessons learned” for implications to the broader community. The evaluation team constructed two interview guides: one for key contacts in the community agencies and another for members in the agencies who participated in CCW. Evaluation use. The evaluation team met with the Program Director and Advisory Board to share developments in the evaluation process in order to continually re-assess the relevance and applicability of the evaluation methods, and potential uses of the evaluation findings. The approach was informed by Patton’s theory of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, which specifies the significance of identifying the intended users of the evaluation findings and then involving them in the process so that appropriate evaluation methods are employed and that what is learned from evaluation findings is applied effectively (1997). Over the course of the evaluation, the Program Director’s role as CCW meeting facilitator became more salient. Since he facilitated all of the program meetings, he had a direct impact on participant involvement in the program. So, the evaluation team regarded his role as another distinct evaluation participant. Evaluators held regular debriefing meetings with the Program Director following each participant-observation of program meetings. The evaluation team also met with him periodically to report findings. In this way, the evaluation methods evolved to be responsive to the needs of the CCW leadership; this meeting process allowed for periodic review of the relevance of the evaluation approaches. Evaluator roles. Early on in the evaluation process, the team noticed that the coordination of the evaluation activities was beginning to mimic the conversational process of the CCW meetings. The team critiqued the original evaluation model as not adequately addressing the program’s key goals. Over the course of the evaluation, the team met regularly to continually reassess the evaluation model, discuss and interpret findings, and to consider how CCW’s processes were affecting multiple levels of stakeholders. As the evaluation continued, the team began to reflect on its role as evaluators – how research practices had been shifted in order to respond to the nuances of the program design and key stakeholders. The evaluation approach morphed into a reflexive analysis, which informed data analysis. Reflexivity involves efforts to account for the evaluators’ impact on the evaluation. Evaluators’ reactions to program processes inform data analysis and alterations in evaluation activities (Mathison, 2005). Discussion of evaluation findings, our reactions to the data, interventions and suppositions regarding program processes not only tracked the effect of our involvement, it informed how we were impacted by the process, a key element to the study. Proceedings from evaluation team meetings were recorded and referenced over the course of the evaluation process.
Understanding community voice in Trenton, New Jersey: Giving voice to the voiceless One of the issues facing inner city urban schools is being understood as a unique entity that cannot be evaluated based upon an external standard that is largely unapplicable
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due to context and environmental factors. Given this challenge, traditional methods are not likely to develop a meaningful understanding of the context in which urban schools operate. Instead, the use of methods that allow the collection of appropriate information but also provide an opportunity to “give voice,” as Mertens (2005) would say, to those who otherwise would not be heard, might result in more informative and “truthful” data. For example, work to prevent obesity among ethnic communities in Trenton, NJ has been conducted with urban youth. The project is focused on developing culturally appropriate strategies to help address the issue of health and nutrition within a cultural setting most familiar to the students and their families that would not only be used by youth but also be sanctioned and supported by the surrounding community. When the evaluation was initiated by the school, it was originally conceptualized based upon a traditional scientific methodology. However, it became clear to the team that there seemed to be a disconnect between the cultural value and understanding of obesity of the school officials (all White), and the student body which they hoped to affect (predominately Black and Latino). Thus, the team set out to meet with students via interviews and focus groups to gain and understanding of their understanding and interpretation of health, obesity, and nutritional well-being within their respective communities. These conversations have helped to shape much of the evaluation, as well as the development of the programming. Specifically the use of unstructured interviews has been useful in ascertaining the kinds of stressors students in a socioeconomically challenged urban area face, as well as ascertaining the types of program to which strategies they will respond. One of the outcomes of an inclusive evaluation has been more community and organization buy-in. For instance, parents have become engaged in better understanding the intersect between culture, health, and nutrition. Indeed, some now provide more information on their student nutritional eating habits. Although some traditional evaluative methods, such as behavioral measures (e.g., how often they eat certain foods), and physical measures, (such as body weight) have yielded interesting data, the team found it relatively incomplete. This was partially due to the fact that students did not always want to cooperate with many of the physical measures, and surveys that were supposed to be culturally validated were sometimes considered insulting and biased [one student noted that measures used were “mono-cultural”]. The team began to consider the evaluation as a holistic endeavor, one that considered aspects such as environment and community contributions to the general milieu of the students (and by extension their family’s) view of health and nutrition. Thus, the use of non-traditional approaches, such as community mapping programs (e.g., Geographical Information Systems) allowed the team view and understand the types of food establishments available to students, their families, and to the community at large. By understanding their contributions to the general community nutritional health, it is hoped that that establishments can be involved in the crusade to establish healthy nutritional habits by accessing and advertising on a geographical system that not only maps out where these establishments are, but also allows for posting of community recipes, specials, etc. that are considered healthy. Thus, using a mapping system to collect data was not only a way to assess the issues facing the community,
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but it was also a way to instigate change. The use of participatory and collaborative evaluation techniques not only has helped to understand the background of the program, such use has provided a paticipatory outlet for community members. Construyendo Nuevos Caminos: Building New Paths for Latino College Students in Chicago, Illinois In the midst of a controversial national debate over immigration reform (HR 4437)3 that could yield positive or adverse effects for an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants, the future of a largely Latino immigrant population remains uncertain. As issues over immigration continue to be contested, it is difficult to believe that “a national dialogue” can take effect, as recently encouraged by President George W. Bush in his remarks on immigration reform. Given that President Bush fully supports building at least 700 miles of a triple-layer wall along the U.S. – Mexico border, declaring English as the official U.S. language, and sending National Guard troops to assist the U.S. Border Patrol prevent the influx of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, a democratic, inclusive and reasonable dialogue sounds more like a monologue. In spite of the posed threats to their future and the negative portrayal of mainly Latino, specifically Mexican immigrants, immigrants have not been silent and have taken to the streets to claim a voice that has often been silenced and neglected. Undoubtedly, the events of May first of this year (2006) have sent out a clear and loud message, that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are not passive, that they are no longer willing to live in the shadows or margins of American society. Their voice is claiming justice and rights for a better life, for better educational opportunities, and for the opportunity to be integrated into the fabric of American life, as people and as citizens,; rather than be seen only as a source of cheap and disposable labor. It is important to understand how these national debates on immigration play out in the local context, specifically in the state of Illinois at an urban community college that enrolls approximately 50% Latino students. Most of these Latino students, however, are in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program, and few are enrolled in college-credit programs. In counterpoint to these patterns, the Transitional Bilingual Learning Community (TBLC) program aims to address some of the institutional, cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers that Latino immigrants face when trying to access higher education, particularly through the community college system. In this program, Latino students can earn college credit while learning English. The Transitional Bilingual Learning Community Program offers first-generation college-aged immigrant Latino4 students who are learning English an opportunity to earn more college credits than are usually available to them in a traditional program. Unlike other programs (General Education Development , Adult Learning, ESL) at the City College,5 TBLC students receive full college-credit for the majority of the courses taken while enrolled in the TBLC program. Except in the English class, Spanish is the primary language of instruction at the onset of the program. Spanish language instruction gradually diminishes during the second semester of this 1-year program. The goal is for students to be able to undertake English-credit courses by the time they complete the program. In essence, TBLC seeks to provide new venues, nuevos caminos, for
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non-traditional Latino college students as they transition from high school to college and from Spanish to English, as a way to increase Latino enrollment, retention and transfer to 4-year institutions.
TBLC Student Demographic Characteristics There have been 103 participants in the program, a total of four cohorts (2002–2005). In general, these students arrived in the U.S. during their high school years, close to completion of their academic high school requirements, but have not had enough time to master English. Most of the TBLC applicants have been female. The majority of students have come from Mexico, although there are a few students from other parts of Latin America. The majority of the students have come to the U.S. within the past 4–5 years and are undocumented. A few of them hold green cards or are in the process of becoming naturalized U.S. residents and/or citizens.
TBLC evaluation To provide the TBLC staff and foundation funders with useful information about the quality of the program experience and the effects of the program on the lives of students a 3-year, culturally responsive evaluation was initiated in January 2005. This evaluation also sought to provide some leverage for the program within the administrative structures at the City College. In efforts to be responsive to the TBLC faculty and staff, the evaluation team met with them to better understand their evaluation needs. Collectively, they supported the following evaluation questions: In what ways is the TBLC program supporting the educational efforts and experiences of Latina/o immigrant students pursuing higher education? And what are some specific aspects and attributes of the TBLC program, particularly in terms of cultural relevancy? The evaluation combines a goal-oriented and a culturally-responsive approach, whereby the context, culture, and history of the program are critically examined. In addition to examining the ways in which student services, career guidance. and financial aid availability contribute to the educational experiences of college-aged Latino English Learners at the Community College level, we are also attempting to understand in some depth the bilingual nature of the program and its emphasis on contextual learning in community. The evaluation plan and measures that drove the initial phase of the evaluation were developed with input from the TBLC faculty and staff during a meeting in December 2003. Interviews with current and former TBLC students were conducted in Spanish. In addition to interviews, surveys were administered to participants completing the 1-year program. We also conducted classroom observations and document analysis, as well as attended faculty team meetings and events organized by one of the Latina/o student organizations. In particular, one of the evaluators “hung-out” with TBLC students at the cafeteria or in nearby locations, and had lunch with some of them during the visits.
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Benefits of having a shared lived experience For this evaluator (TMV), more than just a project, this was very personal because of her own experiences as an undocumented immigrant. The TBLC students and the evaluator shared a common thread, their immigrant experiences as students learning a new language and crossing different borders on a daily basis. In this way, as Hopson suggests, “The social location of the evaluator also can have an impact on how knowledgeable the evaluator is about the meanings and issues of race and culture” (2003, p. 12). By social location, Hopson refers to “An evaluator’s ‘lived experiences,’ as determined by his or her class background, racial and ethnic identity, educational background … [which] help to shape the assumptions and frames of reference that he or she brings to the evaluation process” (2003). In this light, “hanging-out” meant being present with the students, engaging with them in conversations, listening to their daily struggles and successes as they juggled work and academics simultaneously and navigated an often unwelcoming environment. Being aware of some of the language, socio-cultural and economic barriers that Latino immigrant students encounter at community colleges was extremely helpful to the evaluator in establishing rapport, understanding their worlds, and learning about ways to continue to support their efforts. Similarly, students are learning to navigate a new and at times complicated educational system. Typically, the majority of these students have not mastered English as a second language; they face family obligations in the U.S. or in their countries of origin; and they are overworked for minimum wages, and face financial hardships and citizenship problems. Moreover, outside of the institution, students face other issues, like trying to redefine their identities in a place that can feel unwelcoming and unreceptive to their language and culture. In this way, as Hazel Symonette has suggested, the evaluator was able to see and understand the significance of using “self-as-instrument by tapping into her personal experiences to critically examine her practice.” In the words of Rager (2005), “I consider myself fortunate that I was aware at some level of the emotional and intellectual challenges of undertaking such a study” ( p. 23). Similarly, this work was guided by the words of Stafford Hood (2001) who suggests that “to be responsive fundamentally means to attend substantively and politically to issues of culture and race in evaluation practice” ( p. 2). And I would also add that for my project, issues of language were equally important, considering the population that I work with. Similarly, Hood also argues that “shared lived experience is key facet of effective responsive evaluation” ( p. 2). In this context, personal stories from the students have been filled with emotions of passion, frustration and hope. As explained by other researchers and Rager (2005, p. 24) “Qualitative inquiry is not a purely intellectual exercise but rather one for which researchers enter the world of their participants and, at least for a time, see life through their eyes.” Hence, this culturally-responsive evaluation that aimed to address issues or culture, language, and citizenship status serve to shed light on the unique circumstances that Latino immigrants face, particularly when xenophobic sentiment is at its peak and threatens to eliminate the very same programs that would make it possible for students like those enrolled in the TBLC to continue pursuing an education.
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A Vision of Evaluation in Urban Educational Settings Properly conceived and facilitated …, evaluation becomes a process and mechanism for interaction and interface among those with different perspectives and locations in society. (Patton, 2002, p. 20) Current evaluation practice Like most evaluation in most other settings concerned with public policies and programs today, contemporary evaluation in urban educational settings characteristically serves to reinforce the status quo and thereby to perpetuate damaging misunderstandings about urban people and urban life. Urban educational evaluation is usually conducted in service of decision makers, using structured, “objective,” and distanced methods that emphasize achievement outcomes and that offer relatively simple (simplistic) accounts of teaching and learning in urban schools. Evaluation, that is, is positioned on the sidelines of conflict and controversy, in a “neutral” location so that it can inform the educational decision making process without methodological bias or ideological prejudice. While critiques of such a positioning of evaluation – in urban education and elsewhere – are common (see Ian Stronach, Michelle Fine, Tom Schwandt, Jennifer Greene, Stafford Hood, and others), this remains the dominant approach to evaluation in the public sector in North America, including education. Probably most dramatically, the demands for accountability currently imposed on urban schools (and all other public institutions in western countries today) structure a punitive evaluation system that leaves little space for restoration or meaningful engagement with the creative rhythms and dynamics of urban spaces. In the U.S. this educational accountability is promoted via the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation, as described above. More broadly, the contemporary discourse of educational inquiry as objective science is indicative of the strict father moral authority being espoused in current federal and state education programs that proclaim “gold standards,” “best practices,” and “guiding principles” in the name of scientifically-based education reform. So, evaluation models that speak to this same conservative agenda have considerable currency in educational settings. These models include what Daniel Stufflebeam (2001) labels as questions- and methods-oriented evaluation approaches that address only a narrow set of questions derived from the program’s behavioral objectives or only the accountability requirements of a funding agent, or that employ particular designs centered only on technical quality and methodological sophistication, often from the experimental family. While narrow in both substance and methodology, these models of evaluation are often approaches of choice in this era of accountability. The tenets, assumptions, and stances of the current accountability culture, that is, are embedded in models currently used to evaluate urban education. Ernie House calls the authoritarian attitude that pervades the thinking about educational research and evaluation in the Bush presidential administration “methodological fundamentalism,” which he describes as follows: Some government agencies demand that all evaluations must be randomized experiments. Other ways of producing evidence are not scientific and not acceptable.
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There is one method for discovering the truth and one method only – the randomized experiment. If we employ randomized experiments, they will lead us to a Golden Age in education and social services. Such is the revelatory vision. There are sacred figures from the past and sacred texts. Core believers are absolutely certain they are right, that randomized experiments reveal the truth. They do not listen to critics, and they do not comprehend the arguments against the method. A mandate for randomized trials has been written into legislation without discussion with professional communities. Avoiding contrary ideas is part of the orientation, and of course, the policy is enforced by government edict. (House, 2004, p. 4). Methodological fundamentalism offers just one source of truth and is thereby congruent with a strict father ideology. Methodological fundamentalism, that is, denies, ignores – or perhaps even aspires to eliminate – the cultural and socio-political pluralism and dynamic creativity that vitally define North American cities. Evaluation approaches anchored in methodological fundamentalism thus make no sense for the urban school systems of today. We next offer our vision of urban educational evaluation as a critically important alternative. An alternative vision of urban educational evaluation Our vision of urban educational evaluation builds on Jennifer Greene’s (2005) attention to political positioning of the evaluation in society and the relational positioning of the evaluator within the inquiry. Her work eschews the possibility of a politically neutral evaluation practice, arguing instead that all evaluations serve some interests and not others, and that evaluators therefore need to explicitly state and defend the political location of their evaluation study. Moreover, it is most importantly in the social relations that evaluators establish and foster in a study (Abma, 2006) that political commitments are enacted. Our urban educational evaluation approach aspires to be restorative and generative, to contribute in consequential ways to the rebuilding and revitalization of North American urban schools. Instead of an evaluation approach that “grades” schools and punishes those that “fail,” we envision an evaluation practice that helps schools not only be centers of educational excellence but also resume their role as the heartbeat of their communities, as stewards of the community’s well being, as places of opportunity, hope, legitimization, and transformation. We envision an evaluation approach that celebrates the multifaceted diversity that defines our twenty-first century cities and that embraces the creative and generative dynamics of this diversity as enacted in educational settings. And we envision an evaluation approach that legitimizes and honors the strengths, commitments, and resiliency of urban residents – school children, teachers, and administrators alike – who “show up” every day for a life filled with unpredictability, randomness, and marginalization. How is such a vision to be enacted? We advance three key strands of evaluation practice that address the relational positioning of the evaluator within the inquiry and thus offer ideas for how to enact this vision. First, this approach to evaluation is culturally respectful, responsive, and smart. Culture in this context refers (anthropologically) to the customary ways people have of interacting with one another and
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making meaning from these interactions. Culture includes social norms, family relationships, language, music, food, and much more. Any evaluation in today’s urban centers must be culturally respectful as a defining characteristic in our cities today is their cultural diversity. Ideas for how to be culturally respectful and responsive are becoming part of evaluation conversations, so we are acquiring resources for this challenge (Hood, 2001; Symonette, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Thompson-Robinson, Hopson, & Sengupta, 2004). Evaluators using the approach we are advancing must also be culturally smart, meaning they have the ability to make the evaluation an activity of some salience and importance in the context at hand. This meaning of culture includes understanding of the culture and norms of the schools participating in the evaluation. Second, this evaluation approach is dialogic, interactive, and communicative. In this approach, the processes of question-identification, data gathering and analysis, and meaning making are not conducted as isolated or technical activities but rather as opportunities for meaningful dialogue among members of the setting being evaluated. Dialogue has considerable potential to catalyze understanding and action (see the work of Tineke Abma, Nicholas Burbules, and others). Moreover, the infusion of dialogue into the evaluation process highlights its communicative, relational, and valuesengaged dimensions, in addition to its technical and methodological dimensions. In this approach, evaluation is fundamentally communicative (see the work of Chris Kemmis & Robin McTaggart and others). Third, this evaluation approach is critical and reflexive (see the work of Wanda Pillow and others). Many urban educational reforms are offered or even imposed from the outside – as programs with “demonstrated” records of success. Such a strategy rests on numerous questionable assumptions – about pedagogy, curriculum, and development. This evaluation approach seeks to engage such assumptions and critically examine their legitimacy. This evaluation approach seeks to challenge mislabeling, misplacement, misassessment, and mistreatment of urban school children, as well as the misappropriation of theoretical and conceptual models that purportedly explain the academic accomplishments of urban children, or the inaccurate depiction of urban educational and community settings as morally, civically, or socially bankrupt.
Acknowledgements The authors have benefited from the thorough editorial comments and guidance from Michele Foster. Additionally, Joseph Flessa, Diane Ketelle, and the handbook general editors provided useful commentary to earlier drafts of this paper.
Notes 1.
Carol Camp Yeakey, Richardson, and Brooks-Buck (2006) suggest, for instance, that our common American cultural understanding of the poor, based on the work of Michael Katz (1989), makes distinctions between an undeserving poor and a deserving poor. While this conception of the poor is rooted in seventeenth century England according to Yeakey et al. (2006). Lakoff extends this to distinctions between undeserving poor and deserving wealthy where this division of wealth “serves the public good, which is to reward the disciplined and let the undisciplined be forced to learn discipline or struggle” (2004, p. 83).
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2. A pseudonym. 3. House Resolution 4437 (The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005) was passed by the United House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 by a vote of 239 to 182. 4. For purposes of this paper, Latino is defined as a person of Mexican or Latin American descent. 5. Pseudonym.
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48 URBAN EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty† * †
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K. Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
For over 100 years researchers have pointed to the damaging effects on education of the particular combinations and concentrations of social and economic disadvantage experienced in urban contexts. However, urban education studies as a specific field of inquiry emerged in the United Kingdom (UK) during the late 1960s. It was partly influenced by the developing field in the United States and the perceived “crisis” of education in cities, but also framed to a greater degree than in the United States by critical perspectives drawn from the emerging “new sociology of education” (Young, 1971). The contributions to this section of the Handbook explore the perception, interpretation and implications of the current urban education “crisis” and the assumptions underlying it. They seek to engage critically and constructively with the pressing research and policy agenda, but in a manner which questions “present crisis” and “quick fix” solutions (Reeder, 1992). This is consistent with Grace’s (1984) “critical scholarship” approach, involving “empirical enquiry in urban education which, at its best, is historically and theoretically situated on the one hand and generative of critical action on the other.” This he contrasted with other approaches that tend to “provide only a contextual rhetoric of the urban rather than a substantive emphasis upon it” and to produce “school-centred solutions with no sense of the structural, the political and the historical as constraints” (Grace, 1984, p. xii).
A United Kingdom? Discussions about UK urban education have generally been strongly influenced by broader national policy debates and developments. Nevertheless, as Johnson’s contribution in particular makes clear, there are different policy nuances in different parts of the UK. The UK is actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and each of its component countries – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – has its own education system. Scotland and Northern Ireland have long had their own 929 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 929–942. © 2007 Springer.
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school systems, while England and Wales have begun to diverge significantly since a Welsh Assembly was granted devolved powers over education in 1999. Differences between the jurisdictions are particularly evident in matters, such as academic selection, school choice, curricula and testing. Furthermore, in England alone, there are currently 150 separate local authorities with responsibility for local schools. Since 1944, its educational system has been regarded as a national service locally administered and there have often been significant differences in the funding, structure and character of schooling in different areas. However, these differences have been much reduced by successive national governments following the 1988 Education Reform Act, which gave greater powers to central government and individual schools at the expense of those of local education authorities (Ball, 1990; Whitty, 1990). In particular, local discretion over curricula, testing, and school inspection has been drastically reduced by national requirements. Meanwhile, local authority powers over individual school budgets and management have been diminished by policies of devolution, diversity and choice, leading to the creation of quasi-markets among local schools and the potential for the atomisation of urban education (Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998). Even so, local authorities retain some key strategic responsibilities, some of which have been strengthened under the 2006 Education and Inspections Bill.
Definitions of the “Urban” in Urban Education It is also important to note that the concept of specifically urban education is considered by some in the UK to be problematic in both empirical and conceptual terms. Pointing out that eight out of ten people in the UK live in urban areas and that one in six of all schools in England are in Greater London, Johnson (2007) argues that, as the majority of schools in the UK are urban, national education policy is effectively urban education policy. McCulloch, on the other hand, suggests that over the past 30 years, “urban educational reform has been absorbed and assimilated into national state policy more than it has set out to provide a distinctive and contradictory approach.” However, the concentration of opinion leaders in London also means that education policy is dominated by specifically urban – or metropolitan – concerns. This may suggest that, rather than urban education policy having been subsumed under national policy, the reverse may have been the case. For some commentators, whether there is a distinctively “urban” education also depends on the definitions and conceptualisations of the “urban” on which educationists draw from the literature of urban studies and social policy. Definitions of the “urban” in these fields include: ● ●
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Physical or ecological spaces (e.g., Park & Burgess, 1967); Arenas for bureaucratic interventions and for conflict over scarce resources, such as authority, cultural, and material resources (e.g., Pahl, 1975; Rex & Moore, 1967); Arenas where the economic, social and ideological contradictions created by conditions of capitalism become most concentrated and apparent (e.g., Castells, 1977, 1978, 1980; Harvey, 1973);
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Areas where aggregates of individuals form “communities,” either characterized by common interests and experiences (e.g., Keating, 1991) or by diversity and disconnectedness (see Fantini & Weinstein, 1973).
If we take structural definitions of the urban, as in Castells’ early work on collective consumption, then all state education is the UK is effectively urban. If we take spatial definitions, however, there are clearly differences between education in, say, inner city Birmingham and that in the Outer Hebrides. Furthermore, there are also some necessary but problematic distinctions to be made within urban areas spatially defined. On the one hand, the diversity of urban contexts, distinctions between inner-cities and other urban areas, and the variety of educational experiences in cities makes broad definitions of generic characteristics of urban education inadequate; on the other hand, many of the features of “urban” education relate to broader educational, social and economic concerns, which extend beyond the urban context (see Whitty, 1986). Conceptions of urban spaces and connections to social and economic systems may anyway require further consideration in light of the “rise of the network society” (Castells, 2000) in which informationalism, globalization and networking have implications for the transformation of cities and their education systems. Such issues about the histories, definitions and conceptualisations of “urban” and “urban education” are addressed directly in the chapters by McCulloch and Grace. Other chapters take a variety of different stances on definitions of the urban and on the extent to which there are distinctly urban educational issues as opposed to generic ones. Nevertheless, in most cases, the writers adopt the rather pragmatic definitions of the urban favoured in UK policy discussions. Most frequently, the term urban is used as a proxy for “inner city” education, defined either spatially or sociologically. The sociological definition enables the term to include education in the sprawling postWorld War II housing estates that surround cities, such as Bristol, and contain levels of social disadvantage comparable to geographically central areas, such as St. Paul’s in that same city. Suburban education, although sometimes included in the definition, is generally regarded as mainstream education and less likely than inner city education to require specific interventions. Thus the dominant notion of urban education in the UK is concerned with the complexities and contradictions of experience associated with the concentration of economic, social, racial and cultural conditions in, and surrounding, inner city schools. This policy focus is broadly consistent with Grace’s view that “the analytical focus is upon the city as providing the most dramatic contexts in which conflicts become visible” (1984, p. 34).
Responses to the “Crisis” in Urban Education This inner city focus has also been strongly associated with perceptions of a “crisis” in urban education from the 1960s onwards (see Whitty, 1986). For example, when launching Excellence in Cities Prime Minister Tony Blair stated: It is clear that schools in our inner cities demand urgent attention. (DfEE, 1999)
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The response to this perceived “crisis” has varied, with shifting interpretations as to whether the issues are “problems” with urban students and their communities, the nature of urban schooling and teaching, or wider social and economic forces which can have a particular combination and concentration in urban contexts. Different solutions have been proposed to “fix” (Hill, 1998) “failing” students, schools and/or cities (Johnson, 1999), with recent research suggesting that urban reform initiatives themselves have contributed to the sense of “crisis” (Miron & St. John, 2003). There had been some movement away from a focus on urban education in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of a policy focus on within school factors and the potential of school improvement strategies to remedy educational disadvantage (as discussed in MacGilchrist’s chapter). Even for the New Labour government of the late 1990s, as Fullick and Brighouse’s chapter suggests, the negative images of “urban problem” and “crisis” may have been politically unpopular when the driving emphasis and language of the government was on positive improvement. Nevertheless, as those authors discuss, urban education is now firmly back on the agenda on the UK. A key factor in this renewed focus in urban education has been the growing recognition that, despite previous reform efforts and research evidence about the needs and challenges of urban communities and schooling, improvement remained uneven with many urban children still not being fully supported to achieve educational success. Reviewing a decade since the first publication by the Office for Standards in Education of Access and Achievement in Urban Education (Ofsted, 1993), Her Majesty’s former Chief Inspector of Schools for England, David Bell, observed: The report was stark in its conclusions. It painted a bleak picture of the quality of education received by the overwhelming majority of children and young people. Their achievement was not good enough; the cycle of under achievement in many schools was replicated at home and in the wider community; the chain of educational provision was weak in its links across the age groups. The report concluded, in a memorable phase, that “the rising tide of educational change is not lifting these boats.” Then, citing an updated version of Access and Achievement in Urban Education, drawing upon current (2003) inspection evidence, he went on: The evidence leads me to say that there has been improvement, but not enough. We must look again, urgently, at how to close the gap in achievement between youngsters in the most deprived areas and elsewhere. (Bell, 2003)
Current Issues in Urban Education Increasingly there has been a recognition that, while urban areas should benefit from generic policies, they also need specific interventions if they are to perform at the levels generally expected. The interplay of “race,” ethnicity, gender and social class and the concentration of educational, economic and social disadvantage in cities poses particular
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challenges in terms of educational attainment for individuals and standards for schools (Lupton, 2004, 2005). Thus, in recent years, urban schools have experienced: ●
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National education policies intended to bring about overall reforms and improvements, particularly in raising the students’ attainment on assessment results. Initiatives targeted at urban schooling, such as Education Action Zones and Excellence in Cities in England. Strategies focused on specific cities, or parts of cities, intended to transform educational opportunities and outcomes, for example, The London Challenge. Urban regeneration initiatives including an education component, for example, New Deal for Communities. Attempts to co-ordinate policies across education, heath, and social welfare, as in Sure Start and Every Child Matters.
Despite such attention, it remains evident (as indicated in David Bell’s report quoted above) that inequalities in urban education persist. During the past decade, UK education has undergone phenomenal reform and, indeed, improved national standards have been achieved with more students achieving at higher attainment levels and more schools demonstrating year-on-year improvement in educational results. Nevertheless, the rate and level of improvement has not been equal for all student groups, as Johnson’s and Gillborn’s chapters, in particular, demonstrate. The New Labour government has recently admitted that its own research demonstrates its limited impact on this achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. It shows that, although educational standards have risen overall during its term of office, the relative performance of children from poor socio-economic backgrounds has not improved (Kelly, 2005). This is despite the fact that its urban policies had been expected to counter the social inequities that had arisen from the policies of their Conservative predecessors. This news did not come as a complete surprise to some academic researchers; as early as 1997 Mortimore and Whitty (1997) had warned that research indicated how the sort of school improvement policies then being advocated by New Labour might well have this effect, unless much stronger measures of positive discrimination were introduced. The government has now accepted the need for more support to be given to individual disadvantaged students, particularly in the early years of schooling, through intensive programs, such as early reading interventions. Whether or not the levels of funding necessary to sustain such initiatives or drastically to reduce class sizes for disadvantaged students will be forthcoming remains to be seen. At the system level, some studies suggest that current educational policies, such as those enabling parents to select schools and for schools to compete for students (particularly the more academically able, have exacerbated inequalities and resulted in increased social polarisation and stratification of schools (Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995). This is especially so in urban settings where parents who succeed in exercising choice (generally “middle class” parents with more educational, social and cultural capital) effectively exclude opportunities for choice for other (frequently less advantaged) parents and children, as discussed here particularly by Woods. Despite these claims that current policies exacerbate social and academic segregration in urban areas (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2006), the government
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has until recently been reluctant to make equitable admissions guidelines mandatory or even to monitor the implementation of the present ones. However, the concern is not just with access to urban schools, it is also about equity of participation within urban schools. Gillborn’s chapter highlights the exclusionary and biased processes that can occur within schools and the evidence suggesting that the “achievement gap” between groups of students can actually increase over time, for example, as measured at age 11 and 16.
Future Prospects There are, nevertheless, some positive opportunities for urban education in the UK at the present time. As Gerald Grace urges in his chapter, there is a need to develop “complex hope” which recognises the structural challenges present in cities, but also the scope for agency and collective action. There is now a government focus specifically on London through its London Challenge (DfES, 2003), intended to transform education in the capital city. It is not only about challenging under-achievement but also celebrating the range of opportunities, resources and rich diversity of teaching and learning in London schools and working with local communities. There is already some evidence of progress in London schools that is greater than elsewhere. Recent Ofsted (2003) evidence also indicates that, compared to schools nationally, higherattaining urban schools are better led and managed, and more effective. Successful urban schools can offer models of best practice in teaching and learning (Ofsted, 2000) and play a key role in challenging the link between social disadvantage and educational under-achievement. However, what is evident is that high-profile policies do not necessarily lead to sustained progress, nor are they always equally applicable to all urban contexts. In developing the research agenda and evidence for urban education, there is a need to recognise the complexity of urban education, with variations within and between urban areas, and to extend debate about the reality of differential experiences for students and schools. Context is crucially important to our understanding of the challenges facing urban schools (Lupton, 2004). As Pat Thomson and Richard Riddell argue, many conventional approaches to reforming “urban education” are inadequate in their understanding of the influence of urban contexts on schools. One key element in future progress will be multi-agency work of the sort discussed in the chapter by Tett, as a policy of “education, education, education” alone will not be sufficient to transform urban education unless some of the wider causes of differential school and student performance are addressed by concerted action to reduce material and social disadvantage. This is beginning to be recognised in the so-called “children’s agenda” that is informing policy in various ways throughout the UK. With the resurgence in policy proposals for urban education, it is now important to hold a wider debate involving academic researchers, policy-makers and professionals to inform the development of new understandings in urban education in the UK and beyond. The work presented here provides an excellent basis for that debate.
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Outline of the Chapters In the chapter, “History of Urban Education in the United Kingdom,” Gary McCulloch traces the development of the history of urban education in the UK, noting that this has developed both “slowly and somewhat patchily.” McCulloch emphasises the importance of the interplay of historical, social, political and economic contextualisation and interpretation in the study of urban education. He notes both the importance of discontinuities and continuities in the development of urban education as persistent issues of social, economic and educational disadvantage continue to underpin questions about and for urban education. McCulloch notes both limitations and challenges to the historical and current status of urban education in the UK. He suggests that urban educational reform has been increasingly “absorbed and assimilated into national state policy” rather than providing a “distinctive and contradictory approach.” He argues for the importance of continuing to foster study of the history of urban education and for this to be more closely and systematically integrated with the field of urban education. Gerald Grace calls for further development of the study of urban education in the UK in his chapter, “Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question to End of Millenium.” Grace traces his personal “struggles” to “make sense of the urban” and those of educators and students in the UK. Like McCulloch, Grace argues for the importance of situating urban education theory within a thorough understanding of the complex interplay of historical, social, cultural, economic and political relations in society. Grace comments on the range of ways of “articulating and theorising the urban problematic” and traces some of the key theoretical developments impacting on the study of urban education in the UK, particularly in terms of concerns about urban conflict, contradictions, social justice and structural change. Like McCulloch’s analysis of the history of urban education, Grace suggests also that the theoretical development of urban education in the UK remains relatively under-developed and requiring further attention to contemporary conditions and the current realities of educational, social, economic and cultural change including the role of information technologies and social movements associated with faith communities. Grace points also to an “atomization” and individualisation of urban education where individual schools and their staff are isolated for praise or failure. Drawing on Castells’ work, Grace argues that fundamentally urban education is inherently political. He argues for the need to balance a form of “pessimism of the intellect” (facing theories and facts) and an “optimism of the will” (resisting structural determinism and recognising the power of agency) to give rise to a “complex hope” which recognises historical and structural difficulties but seeks also to identify and pursue ways to overcome these. In “Combating Racism in Schooling: A Critical Perspective on Contemporary Policy and Practice,” David Gillborn focuses on race inequality and racism in urban education. While race inequality and racism are not unique features of urban education only, current demographic data and projections in the UK indicate a growing minority ethnic population, particularly for the younger population, and that this population tends to be concentrated in cities. Gillborn warns of the dangers of over-simplification and stereotyping associated with overarching statements about the achievement of
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different racial or ethnic groups, as differences between individuals within groups can be pronounced. As Gillborn comments, “the pattern of attainment by minority ethnic students is considerably more complex than is widely recognised.” In his chapter, differences within and between racial, ethnic, gender and social class groups are explored. Gillborn highlights the contradiction between a legal duty in the UK to pursue race equity and the persisting and, in some cases, growing inequity in student outcomes from schooling. While there has been substantial improvement in overall educational achievement in the UK over the past decade, this improvement has not been experienced uniformly by all groups of students. Of particular concern is evidence suggesting that for some students there is growing inequity over their period of schooling, that is the gap in performance is higher in the secondary/high school sector than in the primary/elementary school sector. Gillborn investigates some of the process and factors at play within urban schools and society at large that contribute to processes of racism. He points to the immense importance of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of both the intended and unintended acts and consequences of racism within urban education. The issue of overall improvement in educational standards is taken up also in the chapter by Martin Johnson, “Reforming Urban Education Systems,” with a particular focus on the interplay of social class, economic disadvantage and educational outcomes. Reviewing shifts in education policy over the last couple of decades in the UK, Johnson suggests that there have been three major phases of reform: first, the system or national level, second, the school level and, third, the classroom level. Although these particular levels of foci are not specifically urban, Johnson argues that as the UK population is predominantly based in urban areas, national education policy has in effect been concerned with urban education. Furthermore, in terms of reforming urban schools, the capital city of London has been particularly influential (a point noted also by Grace and by Fullick and Brighouse). Johnson explains that recent and current education policy in the UK has had a “consistent and simple” focus on one overriding purpose, to raise levels of student attainment. Johnson explores the relative effectiveness of strategies put in place indicating, as does Gillborn, that while attainment levels have improved there remains considerable under-achievement. In particular, differential effects for students in lower social class groupings persist, although the policy debate now talks of “socio-economic status” and the power of individual school effectiveness. Johnson questions propositions that poverty is not an excuse for educational inequality suggesting instead the need for further attention to issues of child poverty and deepseated questions about the distribution of wealth and income in the UK. Rather than the sometime individualistic focus of school improvement reforms, Johnson proposes the need to view schools as social institutions integrally connected to community building. For Richard Riddell, in his chapter “Urban Learning and The Need for Varied Urban Curricula and Pedagogies,” the combination of social, material and learning disadvantage are particularly important for urban schools and their students. He suggests it is important to recognise the dramatic differences between urban schools particularly exacerbated by parental choice policies and residential location, which may results in an increasing stratification and polarisation of the intake of urban schools. Riddell suggests that the outcome is the formation of a “bottom strata” of schools, particularly
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secondary schools, with the most concentrated social and material disadvantage and with implications for the learning experiences of students. Riddell explains, “the contexts of schools are therefore by no means the same and in urban areas they differ markedly from each other.” Furthermore, Riddell argues that “learning is completely bound up with the context in which it takes place” and, therefore, differences in community contexts and student intakes to schools also affect teaching and learning processes within classrooms and beyond. Hence, each classroom is unique in its particular socio-cultural context and it is not, therefore, possible to propose a single urban pedagogy but rather the need for ongoing and vigilant attention to the learning needs, stances and strategies of individual students and connections between school, home and community learning and environments. It is in such contexts that learning disadvantage becomes cumulative and recycled. Such learning disadvantage is not simply about poverty but rather about individual learners’ prior learning, experiences and expectations for learning, connections to learning beyond school and self-confidence as a learner. Teachers therefore need to acknowledge and strive to support connections between students’ learning in the classroom and their learning at home and in the community. This requires attention to the capacity of urban schools and teachers to collaborate with parents, communities, other schools and local agencies. Pat Thomson’s chapter, “Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighbourhoods: the National College for School Leadership and Beyond,” explores the experiences of urban school leaders. Thomson argues that there is an “impoverished discourse” concerning urban schools and contexts in the UK. She argues for the need for improved research in the area of urban leadership and in factors relating to urban schools and their communities. For example, Thomson notes a lack of evidence about school leaders connecting with working class parents. Like Riddell, she proposes the need to consider homeschool connections and the implications for classroom pedagogies. The relationship between school “context” and school improvement in current policy discourses and reform strategies is problematic for Thomson. The policy language of “schools facing challenging contexts” implies to Thomson that “challenge” is perceived as external to the school with a lack of explanation as to how contextual circumstances actually impact student achievement. The focus on school-level improvement emphasises educational solutions, rather than a wider consideration of the social, economic and political contextual factors that also affect school leaders and students. Barbara MacGilchrist provides a comprehensive overview of the development of school improvement reforms and research in the UK in her chapter, “Urban School Improvement.” She explains that urban school improvement is a complex issue. She reviews research both in the UK and internationally which indicates that there are “no quick fixes” for school improvement and that the historic link between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes remains a central challenge. MacGilchrist examines the development of school effectiveness research since the 1960s, school improvement research since the 1970s and the more recent coming together of both approaches in policy and research in the UK. Although there has been considerable development over this time and increasingly sophisticated approaches to understanding student progress, school improvement and school effects, MacGilchrist argues that current approaches to school improvement in urban settings need a radical rethink as
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does the current definition of an effective school. Part of this rethinking involves further examination of the balance and relationship of school effects and external/background effects. We need to consider contextual factors both within and outside of schools, the precarious nature of continuous and sustained improvement in disadvantaged urban contexts, and pursue a more holistic approach to student learning and development that combines within-school and beyond-school building blocks. MacGilchrist comments on a range of policy initiatives in the UK that have attempted to address the twin goals of improved educational standards and reduced socio-economic disadvantage. However, while school improvement and effectiveness research can point to important factors for improvement and evidence that schools make a difference and can succeed against the odds, it is apparent also that there is no one-size fits all model for urban schooling and that schools alone cannot be the only focus for improved outcomes for young people. Philip A. Woods’ chapter, “Urban Schools: Performance, Competition and Collaboration,” reviews the continuities and disjunctures in urban education policy over the past 25 years. The 1980s witnessed the introduction of (quasi) market forces in education with an emphasis on parental choice, devolved management and funding arrangements, and increased school autonomy. At the same time there was also increased central prescription and regulation through the introduction of a national curriculum and national assessments and later a national inspection agency and framework. This has resulted in a somewhat paradoxical development of both increased centralization and decentralization which “collide and intermingle” in education policy and school practice. Woods situates these developments within wide economic and social developments both within the UK and internationally that have placed increased emphasis on private market solutions to public policy problems. These policy directions have remained essentially intact during the twenty-first century, although there have been changes in national political control. From 1997, the New Labour government has sought to introduce a “third way” bringing together private, public and voluntary sectors. In policy terms for education, there has been a continuation of policies of competition between schools but co-existing with this has been the rise of emphasis on partnerships and collaboration. Woods refers to the existence of “co-operation” involving multiple initiatives and interweaving of both competition and collaboration. The chapter reviews the evidence of changes in educational processes suggesting that both competition and collaboration exist in practice but may be associated also with a growing social segregation between schools (as also noted by Riddell). Woods notes, however, that the move to collaboration may bring with it a concern for systemic change rather than a focus simply on individual school improvement. Woods notes, however, that the move to collaboration may bring with it a concern for systemic change rather than a focus simply on individual school improvement. He proposes that such policy developments raise fundamental questions about the organizing principles of urban education and in particular whether this is primarily based on market or local democratic principles. He advocates fostering a new public entrepreneurialism which encompasses a duality of both democratic commitment to the public good and an individualistic dimension. Woods closes his chapter by arguing for the need to ask fundamental educational questions
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about urban schooling, including the appropriate governance of school systems through local democratic means and the importance of considering what constitutes valued learning for today’s students and tomorrow’s society. Debates and evidence about the governance of education are explored further in Caral Campbell and Geoff Whitty’s chapter “The Governance of Urban Education in the UK: A Public, Private or Partnership Future?” are explored further in Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty’s chapter. They outline approaches to conceptualising privatization in the UK by examining definitions which emphasise sources of funding, provision and, more recently, decision-making. However, it is important to note also the extent of blurring of conventional notions of private and public sector in current policy and practice and the rise of new partnership arrangements. Campbell and Whitty question whether private sector solutions to perceived public sector problems are desirable or sustainable, particularly in light of evidence suggesting difficulties for long-term private sector solutions when confronted with educational, economic and practical realities. There are also more fundamental ideological and democratic principles to be considered in attempts to ensure educational solutions for the public good. Campbell and Whitty take the particular case of the role of local authorities as the “middle tier” in educational governance working to connect central government direction and local school improvement. While the role of local authorities has been reduced in recent years by successive government policies, there is evidence also of the important potential contribution of such a “middle tier” for both pragmatic and democratic reasons. The chapter outlines a range of approaches tried within the UK for transforming perceived “failing” local authorities, with particular attention to whether the emphasis of reform is service delivery or strategic capacity and whether solutions are considered to be primarily through external or internal means. The chapter contrasts reform approaches which effectively replace local capacity by outsourcing local services with approaches that seek to rebuild local capacity through new forms of partnership working. The prospects of governing through new public partnerships in urban education are explored. They argue that new partnership working requires a renewal of urban education governance which transforms, rather than maintains or replaces, local and central relationships and that such movements are inherently informed by political processes. The development of partnership working is also a central feature of Lyn Tett’s chapter, “Multi-Agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice.” Tett outlines the policy commitment to joined-up government and multi-agency working promoted by the New Labour government in the UK since 1997. Such multi-agency working, in and through which education works with a range of other professional and community partners, is intended to promote social justice by reducing social exclusion. As Tett explains, social exclusion is considered not just in terms of material disadvantage and poverty but also in terms of social networks and cultural resources. Schools are considered to have a key role in promoting collaboration with other services and having a dual function of both preventing social exclusion occurring in the first place and remedying existing social exclusion by reaching out to affected individuals and communities. Tett presents a conceptual schema for interpreting multi-agency working in urban education along two dimensions. One dimension is the extent to which institutional and professional boundaries are open or closed. The second dimension is whether the intended pedagogic purpose is particularistic
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(focused on individual development) or holistic (focused on community development). Tett develops her analysis by examining evidence concerning two specific policy initiatives: Integrated Community Schools and initiatives for involving community groups. She highlights the difficulties in practice of reconciling the sometimes idealistic policy language about “partnerships” with the realities of professional boundaries, power inequities, and historical structural differences. Nevertheless, evidence points to the determination of individuals and communities to also overcome some of these barriers. Tett stresses, as have Riddell and MacGilchrist, the importance of multi-agency working to create purposeful partnerships between schools and communities for the benefits of those involved. A key challenge is to enable professionals to consider, and act on, such developments as opportunities rather than threats to their work. In the final chapter, Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse comment on “Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK.” They suggest that the future for improvement in urban education is a “mixed picture,” but that there is an important focus within the UK for “renewing and developing a new commitment to urban education in the twenty-first century.” They suggest that urban education is very much part of current policy discourse and a concern for urban school improvement is being translated into practice. Such conditions have helped to create opportunities for “a new theoretical and policy discourse based upon our growing knowledge of what is working and why in current approaches, and how certain policies need to be taken forward.” Tracing recent policy developments, Fullick and Brighouse point to the increasing focus on neighbourhoods under the New Labour government from the late 1990s onwards and the renewed emphasis on area-based urban policies. Signals of hope for future urban education include what Brighouse and Fullick identify as a commitment to “successful outcomes for all pupils” with an emphasis on student learning and development rather than simply on test scores. They point also to the potential of information and communication technologies to support new learning, although noting the existence of a “digital divide” for students. They suggest that the “next breakthrough in urban education should centre on the full range of experiences that young people need to have access to.” This needs to be based upon “a richer definition of what counts as an educated person for the twenty-first century, and encompass not only knowledge and understanding but also qualities, attributes, social competencies and development of interests.” In such a scenario, cities become not only a context in which learning takes place but also a source for such learning through their rich diversity of cultural, social, and educational resources. Brighouse and Fullick point also to the importance of “looking beyond the school day” and the prospects for inter-agency working, something discussed more fully by Tett. However, alongside optimism about the potential future of urban education, there are also concerns about current realities and future prospects, particularly in relation to persisting inequalities for different groups of students, especially minority ethnic students, the negative consequences of current choice policies for social segregation and polarisation of student and school experiences, and the need for further attention to the educational, social and economic opportunities and choices available to young people at the later stages of schooling and beyond. They conclude that the future of urban education in the UK involves “fully understanding and finding ways of building on the gains to date” and furthermore identifying and addressing the “losses” and persistent inequities that remain.
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References Ball, S. J. (1990). Politics and policy making in education. London: Routledge. Bell, D. (2003). Access and achievement in urban education: Ten years on, keynote speech by David Bell, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Fabian Society, London. Castells, M. (1978). City, class and power. London: MacMillan. Castells, M. (1980). The economic crisis and the American city. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Castells, M. (1997). The Urban question: A Marxist approach. London: Edward Arnold. Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell. Department for Education and Employment. (1999). Excellence in Cities. London: DfEE. Department for Education and Skills. (2003). The London Challenge: Transforming London secondary schools. Nottingham: DfES. Fantini, M. D., & Weinstein, G. (1973). “What is urban about an urban school?” In J. Raynor, & J. Harden (Eds.), Equality and city schools (pp.150–161). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. J., & Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, choice and equity in education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Grace, G. (1984). Education and the City: Theory, history and contemporary practice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Harvey, D. (1973). Social justice and the city. London: Edward Arnold. Hill, P. T. (1998). Fixing urban schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. House of Commons Education and Skills Committee. (2006). The schools White Paper: Higher standards, better schools for all. First Report of Session 2005–2006. London: The Stationery Office. Johnson, M. (1999). Failing school, failing city: The reality of inner city education. Charlbury: Jon Carpenter. Keating, M. (1991). Comparative Urban Politics. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, Harvey. Kelly, R. (2005). Education and Social Progress. Keynote speech by Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Institute for Public Policy Research, London. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/speeches/ speech.cfm?SpeechID=242
Lupton, R. (2004). Schools in disadvantaged areas: Recognising context and raising quality, CASE Paper 76. London: London School of Economics. Lupton, R. (2005). Social justice and school improvement: Improving the quality of schooling in the poorest neighbourhoods. British Educational Research Journal, 31(5), 589–604. Miron, L. F., & St. John, E. P. (Eds.). (2003). Reinterpreting urban school reform. Albany: State University of New York Press. Mortimore, P., & Whitty, G. (1997). Can school improvement overcome the effects of disadvantage? London: Institute of Education, University of London. Office for Standards in Education. (1993). Access and achievement in urban education. London: Ofsted. Office for Standards in Education. (2000). Improving City Schools. http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/assets/555.pdf Office for Standards in Education. (2003). Access and achievement in urban education: Ten year anniversary. London: Ofsted. Pahl, R. E. (1975). Whose city? Harmondsworth: Penguin. Park, R., & Burgess, E. (1967). The city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reeder, D. A. (1992). “History, education and the city: A review of trends in Britain.” In R. K. Goodenow, & W. E. Marsden (Eds.), The city and education in four nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rex, J., & Moore, R. (1967). Race, community and conflict: A study of Sparkbrook. London: Open University Press. Whitty, G. (1986). “Education Policy and the Inner Cities”. In P. Lawless, & C. Raban (Eds.), The contemporary british city. London: Harper & Row. Whitty, G. (1990). “The New Right and the National Curriculum: State Control or Market Forces?” In M. Flude, & M. Hammer (Eds.), The Education Reform Act 1988. London: Falmer Press. Whitty, G., Power, S., & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education: The school, the state and the market. Buckingham: Open University Press. Young, M. F. D. (Ed.). (1971). Knowledge and control: New directions for the sociology of education. London: Collier-Macmillan.
49 HISTORY OF URBAN EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Gary McCulloch Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
This chapter will review the history of urban education in the UK, discussing the major strengths and limitations of literature in the field, and offering suggestions as to its further development. First, it will investigate briefly the development of the field of the history of urban education in the UK over the past 30 years. It will then analyze in greater detail the relationship between urban society and educational provision, evidenced for example in research on education and social class, the historical geography of education and literacy, and the experience of education among city children. Third, it will examine the historical characteristics of educational reform in a number of different urban contexts, including the highly significant and distinctive case of London, and the more recent attempts to promote educational change through urban-based initiatives such as city technology colleges and the Education Action Zones.
Development of the Field The study of urban history in general has developed strongly in Britain since the 1960s. This has facilitated the growth of a rich literature on a wide range of topics, and also an infrastructure of resources and major texts. The early development of writing on British urban history was influenced strongly by H. J. Dyos and the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester (Cannadine, 1982). Dyos himself, the first professor of urban history in the country from 1971 until his death in 1978, founded the Centre for Urban History and also the Urban History Yearbook which was published from 1974. Dyos’s own work examined the dynamics of the Victorian city as it developed during the nineteenth century (see, e.g., Dyos & Wolff, 1973), a theme that was taken up by other writers such as Derek Fraser (1976, 1979) and R. J. Morris (Morris, 1986; Morris & Rodger, 1993). In 2000–2001, a major three-volume Cambridge urban history of Britain was published, arranged in chronological order with the first volume mapping out urban 943 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 943–958. © 2007 Springer.
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developments from 600 AD to 1540, the second from 1540 to 1840, and the third from 1840 to 1950 (Clark, 2000–2001). The recent development of the general field is well represented in the book series “Historical urban studies,” published by Ashgate, under the editorship of Jean-Luc Pinol and Richard Rodger (e.g., Colls & Rodger, 2004). At the same time, the more specific field of the history of urban education in Britain has developed slowly and somewhat patchily. It is notable, first, that it became a focus for discussion rather later than in some countries. In the United States, for example, Michael Katz edited a special issue of the journal History of Education Quarterly as early as 1969 on the theme of urban education. This included major studies by leading historians of education on education and race, perspectives on the history of education in Northern ghettoes, urban school reform, the urban child, and the city as teacher (History of Education Quarterly, 1969). Katz was able to derive a number of common issues from this collection. In particular, he emphasized the importance of relating historical study to the contemporary problems of urban schools and schooling. According to Katz, indeed, “hard-nosed historical assessment of the comparative impact of schooling and environment as educative forces and of the outcomes of school reform bears directly upon an understanding of the origins and scope of the urban school culture today” (Katz, 1969, p. 326). Such historical work, he concluded, “links up with, and contributes to, the larger critical contemporary reappraisal of American life and institutions,” in which lay its major significance (Katz, 1969, p. 328). At the same time, he observed the need for more historical work, which would in turn provide “detailed, empirical knowledge about schools and their clientele, knowledge which we do not yet have in anything like sufficient quantity” (Katz, 1969, p. 326). This was soon followed by a number of major historical studies into the characteristics and outcomes of urban education in the America city, as well as on the similarities and differences between particular American cities (e.g., Goodenow & Ravitch, 1983; Tyack, 1974). Such treatment was much more focused and comprehensive than was to be the case in Britain. In the British context, similar calls for a closer connection between historical study and contemporary policy in urban education have been made from time to time over the past 30 years. These have asserted the importance of historical understanding for urban educational policy, and often the need for historians of urban education to relate their work to contemporary concerns. An awareness of the inchoate and piecemeal nature of the development of the history of urban education in the UK has also been a common theme of commentators in this area. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a general lack of historical perspective in discussions about the character and prospects of urban education in the UK. The World Year Book of Education in 1970, devoted to the theme of education in cities (Lauwerys & Scanlon, 1970), included chapters on planning schools for new communities in England and Wales (Smith, 1970), the new town of Milton Keynes (Harding, 1970), and the established industrial city of Nottingham (Newson & Lowinger, 1970), but none of these developed a clear historical dimension to the issues raised. They concentrated instead on future plans for development. Over the following two decades, major problems were identified that had a particular relevance to the development of urban education in Britain. Increasing attention was given to vocational and technical
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education, especially as a result of increasing youth unemployment and economic difficulties in urban districts. The problems of individual schools in urban areas such as William Tyndale School in 1975 also focused concern on the lack of accountability of schools to parents and the local community, and the failings of local education authorities (LEAs). Such concern was eventually to culminate in the Education Reform Act of 1988, which increased accountability to parents and abolished the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Yet there was little historical awareness about the urban tensions that underlay these developments. In 1976, when the Labor prime minister James Callaghan launched the so-called “Great Debate,” the historian David Reeder complained that current concerns about urban schooling failed to take account of longer term historical factors, to the extent that historians were virtually excluded from the contemporary analysis of urban education (Reeder, 1977a, p. 2). By the early 1980s, as the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher began to give an increasing emphasis to educational issues, the sociologist Gerald Grace could elaborate on the importance of “recovering a sense of the historical.” As he observed, urban school systems “arose in particular historical conditions and as the outcome of a complex of forces.” The outcomes of particular forces, he suggested, varied over time and in relation to the dynamics of the society involved. Therefore, a serious study of urban education was obliged to engage with such issues, even if its major concern was with the problems of contemporary urban schooling. Grace concluded that students of urban education should “locate their contemporary discussions in a framework which is sensitive to issues of continuity and change,” and that the recovery of a historical dimension was a precondition of the development of what he called “critical scholarship” in the field (Grace, 1984a, pp. 35–37). One section of this collection dealt in more depth with the historical location of urban education, with a contribution on the history of urban education in America, another on university settlements, class relations and the city, and a third on the urban, the domestic and education for girls (Grace, 1984b, Part II). Two international collections on urban education, both published in 1992, shed light in different ways on the development of the history of urban education in the United Kingdom. On the one hand, its relevance to current issues in urban education was held to be open to question. On the other, the coherence of its contribution to an understanding of historical issues was also challenged. The first of these works, the World Year Book of Education of 1992, offered a number of reflections on historical approaches (Coulby, Jones, & Harris, 1992). It suggested that in the UK, and even more in the United States, much of the work produced by urban educationists was historical in its approach. It pointed out the existence of a large number of studies of this type on individual schools and localities. However, it commented that historical perspectives often tended to be remote from the “struggles of the present” (Coulby & Jones, 1992, p. 5). For this reason, it proposed, they needed to be combined with approaches that emphasized social, political and economic contextualization, and the role of discontinuities as well as continuities in the development of urban education. These observations pointed to the potential linkages between historical, sociological and international approaches to urban education, although they appeared to regard history as a junior partner and a specifically national focus as unduly parochial.
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The second major collection published in 1992 was more historical in its emphasis, and adopted a critical stance towards the contribution of previous histories of urban schooling to the historical literature. According to David Reeder, although there were numerous accounts of the history of urban schools and schooling, there remained “no distinct genre of urban educational history in Britain” (Reeder, 1992, p. 13). Such studies, he argued, had proliferated in “an almost adventitious way,” with the result that “the city has entered into the educational story mainly as a backdrop, with few questions asked about the interconnections between educational development and processes of urban or social change” (Reeder, 1992, p. 13). He complained also that current policy debates on urban education tended to neglect the potential contribution of historical perspectives. In another contribution to this volume, David Coulby repeated the criticisms that he and Jones had advanced in the World Yearbook of Education (Coulby, 1992). The challenge for the history of urban educational history in Britain, therefore, seems to be to demonstrate its value to social, political, economic and cultural history in general, at the same time that it reveals a relevance to understanding and addressing the problems of today. The history of education, on the one hand, and urban education on the other need still to be brought together more fully and systematically in the context of the UK. And yet there is already a significant body of research available in this area that should be recognized and built on further over the coming generation. The next section will assess the contribution made towards historical studies of urban society in the history of urban education in Britain that has been produced over the past 20 years. The following section will address the characteristics of educational reform in a range of different urban settings within the UK.
Urban Society and Educational Provision The history of urban education has contributed to the historical study of urban society in Britain in a number of key ways. First, it has emphasized the role and nature of social class provision of education in urban centers, especially for the working class. Second, it has demonstrated the significance of the social geography and ecology of the city, town and suburb when addressing the historical characteristics of education, especially through the work of W. E. Marsden. Third, it has begun to pursue a number of themes such as ethnicity in urban contexts, the experience of urban education, and the nature of literacy. The framework of urban history in the UK over the past two centuries is without doubt one of unprecedented growth. According to David Cannadine (1980, preface), “It is arguable that the most fundamental changes to have occurred in Britain during the last two centuries concern the decline of the hereditary, aristocratic elite on the one hand, and the rise of a new, industrialized, urban society on the other.” The majority of the British population were classified as being urban only in 1851, and then only on the basis of living in a place with at least 2,000 inhabitants. A century later, over half of the population lived in urban areas of more than 100,000 people. In 1801, there were no towns in Britain, apart from London, with over 100,000 inhabitants. By 1831, there
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were seven of these (Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol). By 1901, nearly 40 towns had reached this level. Moreover, during this period of massive urban growth, London retained its already established preeminence in size (Thompson, 1988, Chapter 1). By 1911, out of a total population of 45 million, 40% lived in towns of over 100,000 people (over 50% in England and Wales). Seven million people lived in London, and fourteen provincial cities had over a quarter of a million (Harris, 1993, p. 42). Each of these burgeoning towns and cities had specific characteristics of their own, in terms of industrial, social and cultural developments. All demanded increasing levels of social services, including education. The ways in which educational services were provided were strongly marked by differences of social class, amplified and deepened by the pressures of urban society. Social class has indeed been a key theme in the history of urban education, as for the history of education in general in the British context. The work of Brian Simon has emphasized the importance of social class conflict in determining the characteristics of the education system as it has developed over the past two centuries, with the growth of large industrial towns and cities a potent factor in this (e.g., Simon, 1974; see also McCulloch, 2003). Literature in the history of urban education has developed this further, often drawing on the findings of detailed sociological studies, and tending to emphasize the nature and problems of the urban working class. Dennis Smith’s research is one major instance in which education in the urban configurations of Birmingham and Sheffield is related to the political and social challenges of containing potentially unruly urban populations (Smith, 1977, 1981). An interesting example of a historical study that focused on urban working class education is that of Humphries (1981). This was an oral history that engaged with theories of mass culture involving ambivalent and antagonistic working class responses to urbanization and industrialization. He suggested that the fundamental contradictions of a capitalist economy could be viewed as problems stemming from industrialization, leading to state intervention to educate and regulate the lives of working class youth, and to protect them from the influences of city life. Humphries sought in his work to demonstrate that city children resisted the educational structures and values imposed on them, as well as the inequalities that they experienced in their everyday lives, leading many to join street gangs or turn to crime. There has been some further debate engendered by this general view. In particular, Jonathan Rose has questioned the idea that urban working class children resented or resisted their schooling experiences. He demonstrates (1993) that a large proportion of working class children enjoyed their compulsory schooling. Rose’s more recent work (2001) has expanded this thesis into a broader synthesis arguing that working class people drew on a range of learning experiences inside and outside school to enhance their position in society and their cultural improvement. Nevertheless, the deep-seated problems of education in slum districts of the major cities has attracted attention from historians as well as sociologists of education. Reeder (1977b) explored what he called the “predicaments of city children,” especially in terms of the arguments put forward by educational reformers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “in the context of a consciousness of the city in which images of the corrupting, degenerative and irrational forces in urban life had been
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transmuted into new and more sinister forms” (1977c, p. 77; see also Davin, 1996 on the case of London). McCulloch (2003, especially Chapter 6) also examined the urban phenomenon of “slum schools,” in this case the secondary modern schools of squalid and neglected working class districts in the major towns and cities in the 1940s and 1950s. Many secondary modern schools, catering mainly for working class pupils, were housed in out of date and unsuitable buildings that dated from the Victorian era or earlier in the century. These were standing reminders of the social origins of these schools as elementary education for the working class. The social environment of such schools and the home circumstances of the pupils were products of urban blight that developed in many areas around Britain, such as the Lea Hall Estate in Birmingham and the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff. This led in turn to increasing evidence of educational inequalities rooted in social class differences in the major urban centers. A number of sociologists in the postwar period had shown in graphic detail the implications of these deprived urban conditions for urban working class children and youth. John Barron Mays, for example, examined the character of the Crown Street area of Liverpool, basing this on the historical development of schooling in this local area, and leading him into a trenchant analysis of school subcultures, the home and the school, and schools in their wider social contexts (Mays, 1962). Similarly, M. P. Carter framed his sociological study of the education and employment of young people in Sheffield in a historical awareness of the urban context in which it was based (Carter, 1962). Such educational inequalities have been explained further in the British context through the extensive researches of W. E. Marsden into the historical and social geography of education. Marsden’s research has investigated in depth the reciprocal interaction between urban growth and educational provision. As he demonstrates, while a massive infusion of resources was provided to match the increase in demand for education, there remained an unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, both between and within towns and cities (Marsden, 1977, p. 50). For example, he points out, a growth in residential segregation from the late nineteenth century, by splintering towns and cities into distinctive social areas, became a major influence on attitudes towards education and on the character of the provision of educational facilities, as well as on other related aspects such as religion. Both for elementary schools and for secondary schools, according to Marsden, the development of a hierarchy of social respectability and selectiveness is largely accounted for through their location in the different social areas of towns and cities. Thus, there was a close correlation between the location of private schools and the social areas of the town, while secondary schools often responded to incipient social decline by the expedient of following their clientele. School fees were adjusted to social areas, and the actual buildings provided matched the perceived status of the locality (Marsden, 1983, p. 99). Such a framework of analysis facilitated an inter-disciplinary approach to the ways in which urban forms and relationships of schooling could be investigated in greater depth (Marsden, 1987). Marsden also documented in close detail the wide range of geographical factors operating in a local area such as Bootle in Merseyside (Marsden, 1989), as well as a case-study of a particularly successful elementary school in its local context, Fleet Road School in Hampstead (Marsden, 1991). These evident social differences in urban areas also encouraged attempts to “civilize” working class children and youth in a wide range of educational arenas. For example,
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Kevin Brehony portrays the advocates and organizers of the Children’s Happy Evenings Association, the Children’s Recreation School, Evening Play Centres, Vacation Schools, the Guild of Play and other play initiatives current in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in terms of play as “an antidote to a disease, the aetiology of which was held to be the city and the conditions of urban life in the areas labeled slums” (Brehony, 2003, p. 89). Other work has demonstrated the variety of levels of literacy in different urban locales. Notwithstanding that towns had established themselves as centers of education and literacy as early as the twelfth century AD (Barrow, 2000), in the nineteenth century they were highly diverse in their literacy levels between one part of the country and another, and between different types of urban communities (see, e.g., Stephens, 1987). On the other hand, while much of this research raised clear issues about the character of urban middle class schooling, this area of study has attracted much less attention from historians of urban education. This is in spite of a marked increase of interest in the middle classes among historians in general who are, as it has recently been claimed beginning to “put flesh on the bones of the modern British middle class,” especially in urban and suburban areas (Trainor, 2000, p. 673). Richard Trainor has suggested that a socially, occupationally and geographically diverse urban middle class developed in the late nineteenth century, with significant implications for the character of education. Perhaps most significantly, the upper middle class sent their sons, and less often their daughters, to preparatory schools and public schools, while the children of the lower middle classes went to day schools (Trainor, 2000, p. 697). These kinds of educational differences have nonetheless still to be mapped out in their full detail (see, e.g., McCulloch, 2006). The relationships between urban educational provision and the dimensions of ethnicity and gender have already begun to attract detailed historical attention. Immigration especially from Commonwealth countries has been a significant factor in population trends in many urban communities in Britain since World War II, with the precise nature and implications of these trends varying considerably in different towns and cities. Ian Grosvenor’s work, for example, has shown how the issue of racism has impacted on education in the case of Birmingham in the 1960s. As Grosvenor notes, in 1966 black settlers represented 4.2% of the total population of Birmingham, concentrated in the middle ring of the city, with a high concentration of pupils in some schools. This was soon identified as an educational problem in terms of assimilation into the broader society, and attempts to disperse black immigrants to a wider range of schools rapidly became evident. This led in turn to resistance on the part of a number of black ethnic minorities and organizations (Grosvenor, 1997, especially Chapters 3 and 4). Lorna Chessum has also examined the development of racialized conflict centering on education in the case of the African Caribbean community of Leicester in the same period (Chessum, 1997). Other historians have explored the character of gender-based inequalities as they have arisen in the urban environment. The general historical patterns of educational differences between boys and girls were initially identified during the 1980s by feminist historians such as June Purvis (see, e.g., Purvis, 1984). Further work has begun to analyze in depth the educational experiences of girls and women in towns and cities.
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Thus, for example, Joyce Goodman has examined the removal of children living in the brothels of Manchester, highlighting the social danger seen to be embodied in sexually active girls, and Manchester itself as a locus of social danger (Goodman, 2003). Stephanie Spencer has pursued aspects of the experiences of young girls and women living and working in the city in England in the late 1950s, with the city constructed as a “rite of passage” for girls on the brink of adulthood, a “physical space which facilitated independent living, studying and employment opportunities,” but also “an imagined educative space in which to form an adult female identity” (Spencer, 2003, p. 133). The gendered dimensions of teachers and teaching in urban contexts has also been addressed most notably by Dina Copelman on the women teachers of London (Copelman, 1996), building on earlier more rigidly class-based accounts of urban teachers by authors such as Grace (1978). Thus, there has already been a good deal of significant and promising research in the history of urban education in the United Kingdom that has shed new light on the dynamics of the relationship between educational provision and urban society over the longer term. Nevertheless, much still remains to be done in a number of areas, and the overall contribution can be said to be suggestive but uneven rather than systematic or comprehensive.
Urban Educational Reform In relation to discussion of urban educational reform, it is again possible to point to a substantial body of historical literature. This includes work on the role of specific local educational authorities over the past century, detailed examinations of the character of educational reforms in London, the foremost city in the UK, and the nature of the educational reform initiatives linked to national policy that have arisen since the 1980s. Local education authorities (LEAs) were established under the Education Act of 1902, and for more than a century they have been a key source of educational reform initiatives, often in concert with but at other times in opposition to the grain of national educational policies. The LEAs based in the major urban centers often had the resources to take a lead in developing particular approaches, although especially after the Education Reform Act of 1988 their powers and authority became significantly diminished (Brighouse, 2002; Sharp, 2002). In the period after World War II until the 1960s, however, a number of urban country boroughs took the lead in championing educational reforms including the development of comprehensive secondary schools intended for all abilities and aptitudes. In demonstrating the “uneven change” involved in the process of going comprehensive from the 1940s to the 1960s, Kerckhoff, Fogelman, Crook, and Reeder (1996) emphasize the urban vanguard of the movement represented in such cities as Manchester, Bristol and Leeds (Kerckhoff et al., 1996, especially Chapter 6). Crook (2002) pursues this theme further although he points out that despite their enthusiasm for such reform they were hampered by inadequate building stock, the need to consult with church authorities, and uncertainties about future relations with local selective and other schools (Crook, 2002). In Wales, Gareth Elwyn Jones has argued, there was
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a clear divide between more conservative rural county councils and urban LEAs in the south such as Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, and the county boroughs of Swansea, Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil. In Swansea in particular, a heated debate ensued over the plans of the Ministry of Education to insist on the development of different kinds of secondary schools as opposed to comprehensives (Jones, 1990, 2002). There were also a number of LEAs in the 1940s that supported the official line of the Ministry of Education, and developed a tripartite system of grammar, technical and modern schools in their areas. Although these have often been regarded as simply acquiescing in the dictates of the central authority, there is evidence that these too were making a principled choice to define the nature of educational provision in their areas, based on an assessment of their own demographic patterns and socio-economic needs. In Huddersfield and Barrow-in-Furness, for example, there was evident enthusiasm about the possibilities of a tripartite or at least a bipartite system designed to suit the particular characteristics of their urban communities. Sheffield LEA was also keen to move in this direction, taking the lead to champion such a policy from an early stage (McCulloch, 2002). Even before the introduction of the LEAs, urban authorities in the form of the local School Boards of the late nineteenth century had acquired a reputation for independent thinking and action that often cut across general priorities as defined by the State. This was the case, for example, in Bristol, where the School Board set out to improve the provision of elementary schools for which it was responsible, to the extent of developing more advanced education in higher grade schools for those pupils who proved capable of benefiting from it. One of these was in east Bristol, an industrial and strongly working class area of the city that was especially noted for the production of boots and shoes. Another was in a fast growing industrial suburb of Bristol, Bedminster, linked in particular to the Bristol coalfield and to the manufacture of paper bags and cardboxes. A third was created to serve the rapidly growing population to the north of the city centre. This advanced provision created a potential rivalry with the established local grammar schools that had served the needs of the middle classes, and it was abolished along with the School Boards themselves at the end of the century. Nonetheless, it constitutes a further significant case in which urban educational reform set itself up in a distinct and often contradictory fashion in relation to the dictates of the national State (see Vlaeminke, 2000, especially Chapters 3 and 4 for a detailed discussion on the rise and fall of the higher grade schools in Bristol). In this respect, the locus classicus was that of London itself, from the days of the London School Board in the late nineteenth century through to the London County Council (LCC) and then the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). A general historical survey on education in London provided by Stuart Maclure (1970), and more recently Margaret Bryant’s panoramic account of secondary education in London from the middle ages to the end of the nineteenth century (Bryant, 1986), remind us of the sheer scale of the enterprise of directing the educational development of this metropolis. As Bryant puts it, London’s “vitality and versatility,” while placing vast economic and social resources at the disposal of education, also created unique pressures on its “ramshackle and experimental” provision of schooling (Bryant, 1986, p. 410).
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The case of the London School Board (1870–1904) is a fascinating example of the issues involved in governing and reforming the educational provision of a major city. It was, as Jane Martin observes, “a flagship institution and played a vital role in setting the educational standards for other school boards to follow” (Martin, 2001, p. 167). It was a democratic institution in a number of respects, and provided significant opportunities for example for middle class women activists to become involved in the running of this expansive and influential institution, “the world’s largest educational parliament” (Martin, 1999, p. 32). Here it was that London, incomparably the largest urban community in the UK, struggled to come to terms with the diverse needs of its unruly, changing and still growing population. The distinctive educational role of the LCC over the 60 years of its existence has also attracted attention. For example, it was the power base of an exceptionally influential education officer, Robert Blair, from 1908 until 1924. Blair exploited the opportunities available to the LCC’s education committee in an era when the national Board of Education remained generally reticent and unwilling to intervene actively in local or urban educational reform. He favored the development of a coordinated but differentiated system of post-primary education for the capital (Thoms, 1980). This was not the view taken in the 1940s, in the face of the Ministry’s preference for a tripartite system of secondary schools. Under Sir Graham Savage, the LCC devised an alternative plan for the development of comprehensive schools, the self-styled London School Plan of 1947, that posed a potent challenge to the claims of the central authority at the same time that it set out to meet the demands of its own sprawling location (Kerckhoff et al., 1996, Chapter 4). The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was established in 1965 to take over the educational responsibilities of the LCC, which was replaced by the Greater London Council. This new authority soon emulated and even surpassed the independent reputation cultivated by its predecessors. It also became widely regarded as a key national and even international centre of educational expertise and authority in its own right. Moreover, it too enabled a wide range of local activists from different backgrounds to take part in urban educational reform, both in setting the agenda for social and political change and in putting it into practice at a grass roots level. It also made powerful and influential enemies, in particular national policy makers who often resented the independence and powers flaunted, so to speak, in their own back yard. When problems arose, the ILEA was exposed to damaging and undermining criticism. This was the context for the controversy over the William Tyndale Junior School in 1974–1975, when a public conflict developed over radical teaching methods promoted by the head teacher and the majority of the staff in this one school in Islington, north London. As John Davis notes, “The charge of extravagance was standard fare with ILEA’s Conservative critics, but the suggestion that the Authority’s precepts were funding chalk-face Trotskyists gave it added bite.” (Davis, 2002, p. 293). It struggled to survive after the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, and was eventually abolished along with the GLC itself (see also Morrell, 1987). Over the past 30 years, and increasingly in the early years of the twenty-first century, urban educational reform has been absorbed and assimilated into national state policy more than it has set out to provide a distinctive and contradictory approach.
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This was generally the case with the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative of the 1980s, for example, albeit that it also generated a number of interesting and innovative urban-based projects (Gleeson, 1987). It was also true with respect to two of the major initiatives promoted by the government to reform schooling in urban areas in the late 1980s and at the turn of the century, the city technology colleges (CTCs) and the Education Action Zones (EAZs). The CTCs were introduced by the Conservative government in 1986 to establish what were described as independent state schools in urban areas, bypassing the LEAs and designed to develop innovative approaches to the curriculum (see, e.g., Whitty, Edwards, & Gewirtz, 1993; McCulloch, 1994). The first CTC to be opened, in September 1988, was Kingshurst CTC in Solihull, Birmingham. This was not an inner city deprived area of the kind initially envisaged for the scheme, but a mixture of middle class affluence, suburban sprawl, and working class housing estates (Walford & Miller 1991, pp. 21–22). Kingshurst CTC was adapted for its new role on the existing premises of a former comprehensive school. It received equipment and sponsorship from the business community, including the multi-national Hanson Trust. However, insufficient financial support was forthcoming from local businesses and industries, and too few suitable inner city sites were available for development, with LEAs proving predictably reluctant to sell off disused schools to a rival organization. A number of ways were devised to salvage and revive the CTC project and the ideals of urban regeneration that partly underlay it, but by the mid-1990s it was quietly shelved (McCulloch, 1994). The EAZs were based on an initiative initiated by the new Labor government under the School Standards and Framework Act of 1998. They were to establish partnerships among schools, parents, business, community organizations, and the voluntary sector in clusters of schools located in areas of social and economic difficulty around the country. By the end of the Labor government’s first term in office, in 2001, there were 73 EAZs around Britain. Moreover, within a year of introducing its original EAZ program, the government put forward a further proposal for a number of smaller EAZs as part of its Excellence in Cities initiative for addressing low achievement in inner city schools, in this case funded and administered through the LEAs. Rather like the CTCs, however, they largely failed to win the active support of urban interests, and were soon “gone before you know it,” discarded and largely abandoned (Franklin & McCulloch, 2003; Franklin, 2005). Historical antecedents and issues help to contextualize and explain the continuing preoccupation with urban educational reform in the 1990s and early twentieth century. Despite this, the large number of prescriptions produced to solve the educational problems identified with the inner cities (see, e.g., Atkinson, 1994; Barber & Dann, 1996; Marland, 1980) by and large failed to draw out the implications of previous historical experience. Some historical insights were occasionally brought to bear, such as in the unusually radical proposal of the minister of state for schools, David Miliband, and the historian Tristram Hunt to “learn from the Victorians” in reviving the cities through the development of good schools (Miliband & Hunt, 2004). Yet there was little evident enthusiasm for re-establishing the School Boards, still less the London School Board or the ILEA. Deep-seated social problems in urban education continued to be exposed and were a continuing source of deep political and media concern, especially in London
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(e.g., The Independent 2003, Evening Standard 2005, Times Educational Supplement 2005). Substantial and lasting success in tackling them remained as troublingly elusive as 40 or even 100 years before.
Conclusion This chapter has reviewed the contribution made by the history of urban education in the United Kingdom, and has sketched the outlines of some of its most characteristic work. This has tended as we have seen to emphasize the historical dynamics of the relationships between education and urban society, and the longer term characteristics of urban educational reform. This research, although it has not been wholly coherent or systematic, should not be ignored either by urban historians in general or by educators seeking to address the urgent issues facing urban education in the twenty first century. As a dimension of urban history in general, it clearly provides key insights into a substantial and always prominent feature of urban life and services. As a contribution to urban education, it continues to provide an unmatched means, as Grace put it so simply and well more than 20 years ago, of locating our contemporary discussions in a framework which is sensitive to issues of continuity and change.
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Marland, M. (Ed.). (1980). Education for the inner City. London: Heinemann. Marsden, W. E. (1977). Education and the social geography of nineteenth-century towns and cities. In Reeder (Ed.), Urban education in the nineteenth century (pp. 49–73). London: Taylor and Francis Ltd. Marsden, W. E. (1983). Education and urbanisation in nineteenth-century Britain. Paedagogica Historica, 23(1), 65–124. Marsden, W. E. (1987). Unequal educational provision in England and Wales: The nineteenth century roots. London: Woburn. Marsden, W. E. (1989). Education: Late nineteenth-century disparities in provision. In R. Pope (Ed.), Atlas of British social and economic history since c. 1700. London: Routledge. Marsden, W. E. (1991). Educating the respectable: A study of Fleet road board school, Hampstead, 1879–1903. London: Woburn. Martin, J. (1999). Women and the politics of schooling in Victorian and Edwardian England. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Martin, J. (2001). To “blaise the trail for women to follow along”: Sex, gender and the politics of education on the London School Board (1870–1904). Gender and education, 12(2), 165–181; reprinted in G. McCulloch (Ed.). (2005). The RoutledgeFalmer reader in history of education, (pp. 118–135). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Mays, J. B. (1962). Education and the urban child. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. McCulloch, G. (1994). Technical fix: City technology colleges. Leeds: University of Leeds. McCulloch, G. (1998). Failing the ordinary child? The theory and practice of working class secondary education. Buckingham: Open University Press. McCulloch, G. (2002). Local education authorities and the organisation of secondary education, 1943–1950. Oxford review of education, 28(2–3), 235–246. McCulloch, G. (2003). Education, history and social change. London: Institute of Education. McCulloch, G. (2006). Middle-class education and the State: The case of the English grammar schools, 1868–1944. History of Education, 35(6), 689–704. Miliband, D., & Hunt, T. (2004). Learn from Victorians. The Guardian, 8, 23. Morrell, F. (1984). Policy for schools in inner London. In G. Grace (Ed.), Education and the city (pp. 195–208). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Morris, R. J. (Ed.). (1986). Class, power and social structure in British nineteenth-century towns. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Morris, R. J., & Rodger, R. (Eds.). (1993). The Victorian city: A reader in British urban history. London: Longman. Newson, J., & Lowinger, L. (1970). Nottingham. In J. A. Lauwerys, & D. G. Scanlon (Eds.), World yearbook of education 1970 (pp. 289–298). London: Evans Brothers. Palliser, D. M. (Ed.). (2000). The Cambridge urban history of Britain, Volume 1, 600–1540. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Purvis, J. (1984). The experience of schooling for working-class boys and girls in nineteenth-century England. In I. F. Goodson, & S. Ball (Eds.), Defining the curriculum: Histories and ethnographies, (pp. 89–115). London: Falmer. Reeder, D. (1977a). Introduction. In D. Reeder (Ed.), Urban education in the nineteenth century (pp. 3–10). London: Taylor and Francis Ltd. Reeder, D. (1977b). Predicaments of city children: Late Victorian and Edwardian perspectives on education and urban society. In D. Reeder (Ed.), Urban education in the nineteenth century (pp. 75–94). London: Taylor and Francis Ltd. Reeder, D. (Ed.) (1977c). Urban education in the nineteenth century. London: Taylor and Francis Ltd. Reeder, D. (1992). History, education and the city: A review of trends in Britain. In R. K. Goodenow, & W. E. Marsden (Eds.), The city and education in four nations (pp. 13–43). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, J. (1993). Willingly to school: The working-class response to elementary education in Britain, 1875–1918. Journal of British Studies, 32(2), 114–138. Rose, J. (2001). The intellectual life of the British working classes. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sharp, P. (2002). Surviving, not thriving: LEAs since the Education Reform Act of 1988. Oxford Review of Education, 23(2–3), 197–215.
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Simon, B. (1974). The two nations and the educational structure, 1780–1870. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Smith, R. (1970). England and Wales: Planning schools for new communities. In J. A. Lauwerys, & D. G. Scanlon (Eds.), World yearbook of education 1970 (pp. 240–250). London: Evans Brothers. Smith, D. (1977). Social conflict and urban education in the nineteenth century: A sociological approach to comparative analysis. In D. Reeder (Ed.), Urban education in the nineteenth century (pp. 95–114). London: Taylor and Francis Ltd. Smith, D. (1981). Conflict and compromise: Class formation in english society 1830–1914, A comparative study of Birmingham and Sheffield. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Spencer, S. (2003). Schoolgirl to career girl: The city as educative space. Paedagogica Historica, 39(1–2), 121–133. Stephens, W. B. (1987). Education, literacy and Society, 1830–1870. The geography of diversity in provincial England. Manchester: Manchester University Press. The Independent. (2003). Report, Minorities to outnumber whites in London’s schools, 3 December, p. 25. Thompson, F. M. L. (1988). The rise of respectable society: A social history of victorian Britain, 1830–1900. London: Fontana. Thoms, D. W. (1980). Policy-making in Britain: Robert Blair and the London county council, 1904–1924. Leeds: University of Leeds. Times Educational Supplement. (2005) report, Success in the city, 4 March, p. 18. Trainor, R. (2000). The middle class. In M. Daunton (Ed.), The Cambridge urban history of Britain (pp. 673–713). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tyack, D. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Vlaeminke, M. (2000). The English higher grade schools: A lost opportunity. London: Woburn. Walford, G., & Miller, H. (1991). City technology college. Buckingham: Open University Press. Whitty, G., Edwards, T., & Gewirtz, S. (1993). Specialisation and choice in urban education: The city technology college experiment. London: Routledge.
50 URBAN EDUCATION THEORY REVISITED: FROM THE URBAN QUESTION TO END OF MILLENNIUM Gerald Grace Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
In this chapter I want to consider the importance of theory in locating the challenges of urban education within a wider analytical framework, which I shall argue, is necessary for an in-depth understanding of the urban education problematic. I will attempt to do this by providing a personal, reflective account of my own struggles as an Urban Education researcher and university teacher to “make sense of the urban” in studies between the 1970s and 2004. I will also report the experience of students on an advanced program of Urban Education studies as they sought to make connections between urban theory and their day-to-day teaching in London’s inner-city schools. In 1976 I established the MA in Urban Education (with special reference to the inner-city) at King’s College, University of London. King’s College was itself located within the inner-city and the Faculty of Education had developed interests in the History of Education, Science Education and Religious Education but not in the systematic study of Urban Education. It seemed to me strange that a college which prepared its student-teachers to begin their professional careers in London’s inner-city schools had no programs of advanced study for their continuing professional development in the Urban Education field. The purpose of this program established in 1976 was to provide such opportunities, especially for teachers and school leaders in what was then known as the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). What struck me at the time was the structural urban contradiction that major cultural, financial, social and political institutions were located in the inner-city but were not, in any relational sense, of the inner-city. The absence of developed partnerships between these institutions and, for instance, the schools of the inner-city, seemed to me to be part of what was then being described as the “urban education crisis” in England and particularly in London. The inner-city was at one and the same time the location of great cultural, financial, social and political resource while the working class schools adjacent to these resources were said to be in a situation of crisis in cultural, educational and social terms. How was this possible? 959 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 959–978. © 2007 Springer.
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Urban Education: From Policy Science to Critical Scholarship To prepare material for the MA program I read all the available literature on the problems of urban education at that time. The main conclusion of this small exercise in the sociology of knowledge was that Urban Education Studies as then constituted, was a form of policy science, as defined by Fay (1975) in his seminal book, Social Theory and Political Practice: that set of procedures which enables one to determine the technical best course of action to adopt … . In this regard the policy scientist really is a type of social engineer who makes instrumental decisions on the basis of the various laws of science-in this instance social science, which are relevant to the problem at hand. The policy engineer … is one who seeks the most technically correct answer to political problems. (p. 14) In other words, the problem of the urban school had been constituted, by the lens of policy science, as a theoretical object in itself, abstracted from other contextual frameworks. It was, in this sense, a form of “abstracted empiricism” of the type which Wright Mills (1973) had identified as characteristic of the field of social pathology. My conclusion was, that whatever was presented as the contemporary problems of urban schooling, could not be properly understood unless those problems were located in the larger framework of historical, social, cultural, economic and political relations in any given society. I had also come to the view that urban education theory could not be constituted as a theoretical field in its own right but had to be related to theory in the larger fields of Urban Studies and Urban Sociology. The work of Manuel Castells in The Urban Question (1977) was published just as the MA (Urban Education) was launched at King’s College and it became a central text for the program because of its empirical richness and its critical challenges to theory. This chapter is an extended reflection upon Castells’ theorizing between the 1970s and the present day and upon its educational implications. I am convinced that the urban education problematic has to be related to forms of urban theorizing which are more complex than that derived from a policy science or social pathology paradigm. To advance this view and to provide a resource for graduate programs of Urban Education study, I edited a collection of papers under the title, Education and the City: theory, history and contemporary practice (1984). My own contribution to this collection consisted of two chapters, “Urban Education: Policy Science or Critical Scholarship?” and “Theorising the Urban: some approaches for students of Education.” In the first, I argued that Urban Education study must develop beyond the limitations and constraints of policy science to become a more comprehensive form of critical policy scholarship. This would involve: Theorising the nature of the urban and establishing a coherent rationale for urban education study; recovering a sense of the historical in the study of urban schooling; confronting the political and the economic in a more radical way; engaging
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with a wider range of cultural and pedagogic theory and attempting to situate empirical inquiries in relation to these wider frameworks. (pp. 32–33) In the chapter, “Theorising the Urban … .” I presented the results of my own initial exploration of social theory relevant to the study of urban education. This suggested the following theoretical schema: It becomes apparent from the literature that there are different ways of articulating or theorising the urban problematic … . It is possible, in ideal type form, to identify these differences around the organising constructs of problem, conflict and contradiction … . An emphasis may be discerned upon “urban problems” which is underpinned by forms of functionalism and system theory … . An emphases upon “urban conflict” draws its inspiration from the work of Max Weber and from the work (in England) of urban theorists such as Ray Pahl and John Rex.1 Challenging both of these constructs and the conventional wisdom of urban studies, is the work of modern Marxists such as David Harvey and Manuel Castells where the emphasis is upon “urban contradiction” as indicative of the wider contradictions of capitalism. (pp. 94–95) My purpose in this chapter was to alert students of Urban Education to the fact that there were at least three ways of locating and articulating the challenges of urban, and especially inner-city schooling. What was constructed as “the crisis of inner-city schooling” could be seen as an outcome of system dysfunction (failings in the schools and the teachers and failings in local education administration); as an outcome of urban conflicts (struggles among different interest groups based on class, race, religion and gender) or as an outcome of contradictions in the wider social and economic structure. To assist students to come to their own intellectual judgments on questions of theoretical coherence, it seemed important to clarify distinctions between an urban conflict perspective and one which used the language of contradictions. These distinctions were expressed as follows: Conflict as used in Weberian urban theory refers to the struggles and oppositions of various social and interest groups … as they are expressed in different sectors of the market for resources. Contradictions refer to structurally determined incompatibilities within a social and economic formation (generally identified with capitalism). (p. 103) While it is true to say that I wrote the chapter “Theorising the Urban …” to assist students to find an appropriate theoretical framework in which to study the challenges of urban schooling, it is also true that it was part of my personal search to “make sense of the urban.” As a regular professional visitor to London inner-city schools in the 1970s in the role of school practice supervisor,2 I began my own analysis of the challenges which they presented, from an “urban problem” perspective. However, as I read more widely in the literature of urban and social theory, I began to see that a problem perspective was a first stage analysis based upon close examination of local phenomena
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(school, community, education administration). This local phenomenon was itself an expression of wider urban conflict in the city as a whole, arising from divergent class, race, political and religious interests. Second stage analysis suggested therefore that some resolution of urban conflicts could be attempted using a progressive political process and liberal mechanisms designed to achieve “a just distribution of resources, justly arrived at” in the manner suggested by John Rawls’ in his Theory of Justice (1971). The sustained application of measures of resource redistribution by enlightened political and policy agencies, coupled with a serious commitment to social justice appeared to be the way forward for significant improvements in urban education at this time. It was for this reason that I invited the leader of the Inner London Education Authority, (ILEA), Frances Morrell, to contribute a chapter to the 1984 collection under the title, “Policy for Schools in Inner London.” Faced with the challenges of inner-city schooling, the ILEA had a city-wide approach to resource redistribution and to the advancement of social justice through policies to combat sexism, racism and classism in urban education. The ILEA urban education policies of the early 1980s were theorized at a sociospatial level which transcended a localized and pathological view of the individual “failing” school or urban community. With an intention to turn such theory into serious education policies of city-wide resource redistribution and the explicit naming of policies in race, class and gender terms the ILEA was condemned by conservative media agencies for its “radical,” “ideological,” and “political” approaches to the challenges of urban schooling. It would be true to say that the majority of the students of the MA (Urban Education) program at Kings College, London endorsed the redistributive and social justice strategies of education authorities such as the ILEA. The fact that such urban education policies were under attack from New Right ideological agencies at this time, seemed to them to confirm that these policies were on target. Social justice in urban schooling was from their perspective a realizable goal if policies such as these were seriously implemented. However as part of their commitment to a comprehensive study of urban and social theory relevant to urban education, the students were expected to engage with a body of literature which suggested that social justice strategies alone could only make a limited impact on the state of urban schooling. This body of literature, of what might be called third stage analysis, challenged the aspirations of the social justice paradigm.3 Two major texts which articulated this position were David Harvey’s, Social Justice and the City (1973) and Manuel Castells’, The Urban Question (1977).
The Political Economy of the Urban Question: Theory in the 1970s The epistemological status of Harvey’s text in Urban Studies is probably unique. The first half of the book consists of a systematic attempt (in what is called “Liberal Formulations”) to work through a logic of territorial distributive justice according to principles of social justice as set out by Rawls (1971). The second half of the book (in what is called “Socialist Formulations”) argues that liberal redistributive theory
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and practice cannot work in the context of capitalist urbanization. In a personal, reflective comment Harvey noted: “The emergence of Marx’s analysis as a guide to enquiry … requires further comments. I do not turn to it out of some a priori sense of its inherent superiority … but because I can find no other way of accomplishing what I set out to do or of understanding what has to be understood” (p. 17). Having examined existing urban intervention programs (including those in urban education) Harvey had come to the stark conclusion that they were “doomed to failure” (p. 110). In summary form his challenge to conventional wisdom on the urban question at that time may be represented as follows: (1) There is a fundamental contradiction between the imperatives of capital, which require the priority of profit and the imperatives of social justice which require the priority of social needs. (2) In relation to cities, capital will flow in the direction of greatest profit. (3) Government urban and inner-city programs which attempt to counteract that tendency are operating against the imperatives of the market. As such they are always limited in funds and time-scale, intermittent in relation to specific crises, and lacking in power to accomplish any significant changes. At worst, such programs and allocative devices are nothing more than face-saving or crisis-dampening devices. At best, they are well-intentioned but ineffectual interventions against the grain of the socio-political and economic situation. (4) Empirical study of urban intervention programs both in Britain and America demonstrates the validity of this analysis. For the students of the MA (Urban Education) program in the 1970s and their tutor, here was a text which challenged their commitments to liberal redistributive and social justice in education programs by suggesting that a “revolutionary theory” of the urban was required. This theory would have to confront the contradictions of a capitalist market economy in order to understand the phenomena described as “urban problems” or “urban conflicts.” This challenge was intensified by the analysis presented by Manuel Castells in his influential text, The Urban Question (1977). Castells called for a new theoretical field of the urban which would concentrate upon (1) the social structuring of space; (2) the organization and mode of the institutions of collective consumption (housing, education, health, transport etc); (3) politics and the intervention of the state and (4) forms of urban resistance. For Castells the study of the city was important because in metropolitan cities in particular the contradictions of capitalism, especially in the sphere of consumption became visible in dramatic ways. Welfare services in cities demanded by popular political action are, Castells argued, generally unprofitable for capital.4 As pressures upon and expectations for such social services increase in metropolitan cities, the welfare costs increase, with the result that corporate interests attempt to resist this and in fact work to reduce existing levels of provision. Such contradictions had already revealed themselves in the constructed fiscal crises of several American cities. There are two consequences arising from this situation. The central state and the local state5 are forced to take action to try to resolve these contradictions and conflicts by urban intervention programs of various types. Issues of power and politics then become central, “it is politics which structures the totality of the field and
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determines how it is transformed” (p. 243). However, growing urban contradictions provide not only increasing interventions from the state but also a growing resistance and opposition from different sectors of the urban population. Castells predicted that “urban social movements” would develop in metropolitan cities related to struggles over housing, education, health and other welfare services. In a subsequent publication, City, Class and Power (1978), Castells was very specific about this: There will be a significant development of urban social movements as a means of changing social relations and this will arise from urban contradictions. (p. 127)6 Castells had argued in the introduction to The Urban Question that “any new theoretical position that is not anchored in concrete analysis is redundant” (p. 4). What gave his writings on urban phenomena such power was the fact that they were anchored in impressive research and detailed empirical data, it was not easy to dismiss this work (or that of David Harvey) as simply abstract theory or political ideology. The challenges of this third stage analysis of the Urban Question had to be faced.
Politics, Theory and the Urban Question: Challenges in the 1980s and 1990s Castells’ (1977) observation that politics structures the totality of the urban field, including that of urban education, was validated dramatically in 1988 when the Conservative (and New Right) government of Margaret Thatcher abolished the Inner London Education Authority. What had been the leading local education authority and exemplar of progressive policies in urban schooling in Britain was swept away as part of the Thatcher government’s Education Reform Act of 1988. In an analysis of education policy and the inner cities, Geoff Whitty (1986) had commented on the radical nature of the policies of the ILEA, including a serious approach for students and teachers to political education, anti-racist education and anti-sexist education. The continuance of these policies he predicted would be “dependent on the changing balance of political forces both in and beyond the urban educational arena” (p. 141). By 1988 it was clear that a Conservative “Strong State”7 was not prepared to tolerate the existence of a local education state in the capital city with radical urban education policies. The balance of political forces had changed. In 1992 Kenneth Wong called for more attention to be given to the politics of urban education as a field of study and in a published collection, The Politics of Urban Education in the United States (1992) important analyses were presented by a range of academic writers and researchers. By comparison, the politics of urban education in Britain has been a relatively undeveloped field. The abolition of the ILEA was, as Crispin Jones (1989, p. 91) has put it, “an event of considerable symbolic importance” in the field of urban schooling and yet no extensive study of its political assassination has been undertaken. The abolition of the ILEA can be theorized in these terms. It represented an oppositional agenda in urban schooling which threatened dominant class, political, cultural
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and race relations, as represented by a New Right Conservative government in Britain. It was explicit about the importance of political education (characterized by critics as “socialist propaganda”): It named class as a correlate of educational achievement (in the face of an ideology which denied that class existed)8: It named racism9 (challenging the culture of silence on this question) and it named anti-sexism (caricatured as “loony feminism”). The great political offence of this urban education authority was that it made visible in discourse and in policy formation and action some of the key determinants of inner-city educational experience and outcomes, that is, politics, class, racism and sexism. It did this in the face of a dominant political ideology in Britain, that became known as Thatcherism,10 which denied that these concepts had any legitimate place in education policy and practice or even in educational discourse. If the first and greatest offence of the ILEA was to name in education policy that which should not be named, its second offence was “extravagance.” As the Secretary of State for Education asserted, the “ILEA spent far more money per pupil than any other authority in the country, yet it presided over some of the worst exam results to be found anywhere.”11 What this statement ignored, of course, was that the ILEA had to deal with the most complex social and educational disadvantage in the country. The offence of the ILEA was to provide a level of educational resourcing for urban working class students which began to rival levels of provision for privileged middle class students in private educational institutions. This was not the first time in the history of urban schooling in England that the level of educational resourcing for urban working class pupils had been judged to be “extravagant” and subsequently cut back by the action of a conservative central state.12 What followed the abolition of a democratically elected, city-wide educational agency for the improvement of inner-city schooling was what Whitty and Menter (1989) have described as the “atomization” of urban education. In place of the ILEA, thirteen local education authorities, ranging from Camden to Westminster now had to take up responsibility for inner-city schooling in London. With the abolition of the redistributive resource provisions of the ILEA,13 a situation of more strongly polarized resources for urban schooling resulted. As Crispin Jones (1991, p. 12) has noted, the effect of the removal of this provision, “was to decrease the amount of money available for the education of children and young people in those areas of inner London which had the high concentrations of social and economic disadvantage.” London boroughs such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Lambeth were faced with relative educational impoverishment and associated problems related to teacher supply and retention. The structural and fiscal “reforms” of Thatcherism were accompanied, as Whitty, Edwards and Gewirtz (1993) pointed out, by what they described as “the socio-cultural project.” This involved the introduction of market forces and market values into the previously protected (public good) welfare services of education, housing, health and transport. What Castells (1977) had earlier described as “the institutions of collective consumption” in urban settings became subject in the 1980s and 1990s to situations of competition, privatization and apparently enhanced “customer choice” of services. In urban education this meant that a culture of competition was introduced between local education authorities, between individual schools and among parents reconstructed as
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consumers in an educational marketplace. As Whitty, Edwards, and Gewirtz (1993: p. 11) expressed it: The task was not only to encourage members of a market society to think of themselves as individuals competing against other individuals in order to maximise their own interests; they also needed to be encouraged to accept that it was appropriate for there to be winners and losers in the system. The changed culture of urban schooling in London and in other major cities in the 1990s was now ideologically based upon a “winner,” “loser” syndrome. “Successful” inner-city schools were represented as the outcome of the work of outstanding school leaders (Super-heads), supported by high quality teachers and responsible and committed parents. “Failing” innercity schools were represented as failures because of inadequate school leadership, incompetent teachers and irresponsible parents. The theoretical context for explanations of differential achievement in urban education had, by political and ideological means, been reconstructed to make a social pathological paradigm dominant. Urban schools “failed” because of deficiencies in local administrators, school leaders and teachers and not because of social and economic deprivation in communities, under-resourcing of some schools or changes in student intake arising from the application of market forces to school recruitment. Reviewing this new situation in urban education in 2002, Geoff Whitty pointed out that the emphasis on enhanced parental “choice,” increased school autonomy and the free operation of market forces would result in “the disproportionate representation of socially advantaged children in the most ‘successful’ schools and of socially disadvantaged children in those schools identified as ‘failing’ ” (p. 84).14 The history of urban schooling in England, and especially in London, in the 1980s and 1990s provides a case study for the validation of Castells’ (1977) proposition that “it is politics which structures the totality of the field and determines how it is transformed” (p. 243). Politics transformed the structures, institutions and cultures of urban education in London in the last part of the twentieth century. A politics of coordinated city-wide planning, informed by a strong social justice philosophy was replaced by a politics of market forces in education informed by a strong commitment to consumer choice. While some urban educators may want to endorse the slogan “keep politics out of the schools” this is only possible in the limited sense of avoiding direct party political indoctrination in curricula and teaching. In a larger contextual sense politics does structure urban education and the modes of its transformations and in this sense also politics does enter the school and affects its educational culture and relationships. Inner-city educators and students of Urban Education Studies have to confront these political facts of life and they have to consider their implications for educational policy and practice. Above all, they will need to reflect upon how it has been possible for Conservative and New Right ideology in education to represent itself as an expression of the “natural” and of “common sense,” reserving the label “political” for alternative positions or characterising their policies as various forms of unnatural “social engineering.”
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Confronting the Information Age: The Challenge of the Informational Economy The publication of Manuel Castells book, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-Regional Process in 1989 marked a new and important phase in the development of urban theory relevant to urban education. The essence of Castells’ argument was that profound changes were taking place in the political economy of many cities on a scale comparable with earlier industrial revolutions but of a radically different nature. Castells argued that a new informational economy based upon “high technology” is emerging. A key structuring feature of cities and societies would be found in future in a specific relation to information and knowledgebased means of production. Processes of polarization and segmentation of populations and spatial areas would take place arising from changes in the labor market: A new type of labor demand … is creating new types of job, characterised by low wages and which enjoy less social protection. (p. 202) Castells described this urban restructuring process as it was developing in the USA and related it to features of urban schooling in these terms: There is a mismatching of skills determined by inequality in the educational systems, itself a result of spatial segregation by class and race. Public schools in the largest inner cities receive proportionately fewer resources than those in the suburbs and cater to the poorest sectors of the population, with an overwhelming proportion of ethnic minorities with the greatest educational needs … . The majority of the resident population of inner-cities cannot match the skill requirements of the new labor market because of the inefficiency and segregated nature of the public school systems. (p. 204) Students of Urban Education in England will point out that the characteristics of innercity schooling in the USA and in this country, have significant differences and this is clearly the case. However Castells’ analysis of the potential impact of an information technology economy raises important questions for urban education practitioners and researchers in England. What is being theorized here is the generation of a new type of literacy – an ICT literacy, which will require a new type of pedagogy and a higher level of educational resourcing in urban schooling. In his much quoted discussion of the social class bases of different forms of pedagogy,15 Basil Bernstein (1975) pointed out that some forms of pedagogy are much more expensive than others. It seems clear that an ICT based pedagogy in inner-city schools will be expensive when compared with a textbook based pedagogy. Castells’ (1989) analysis suggests that inner city schools in the USA will be unable to fund an effective ICT curriculum and pedagogy, both in terms of initial formation and in terms of the required updating of the technology over time. Without massive additional resourcing (open to the charge of urban education “extravagance”) it seems likely that the gap between inner-city school outcomes and those of
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suburban schools will widen in the new information economy. This is likely to be true, not only in the USA but also in other urban education locations. In his latest analysis, End of Millennium (2004b) (volume 3 of The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture), Castells returns to the theme of the social consequences of the shift from an industrial to an informational economy. In his view, processes of polarization in metropolitan cities will become sharper as differential ability to participate in a knowledge-based market results from differential access to quality education: Education becomes the critical resource to add value to ones labor in the new economy … . Furthermore, education is not the same as schooling. The knowledgebased economy requires general analytical skills and a capacity to understand and innovate which can only be satisfied in upgraded educational institutions. Lowincome groups, immigrants and minorities have significantly lower chances of access to quality education both at the secondary level and in college. (p. 136) As more inner-city residents and youth are unable to gain access to the informational economy, Castells predicts that there will be a corresponding growth of an urban criminal economy in all its forms. Urban crime becomes another form of urban resistance.
Urban Theory and Urban Educational Practice For those teachers and policy makers who are anxious to grapple with the challenges of inner-city schooling, an examination of trends in urban theory may seem to be a diversion which delays engagement with and action about the “real issues” which exist in “the real world.” Such a view is understandable in its impatience with “theorising while the inner cities burn,” but it ought nevertheless to be resisted. The rationale of the previous analysis is that no formulation of the “real issues” in the inner city or in urban education can take place independently of theory. If such theory is not made explicit it will nevertheless continue to operate and shape the field covertly. There seems to be every reason therefore to make it visible and explicit. However, being explicit about urban theory, especially that which has been described as third stage theory can result in feelings of powerlessness and loss of morale among urban educators. This also must be resisted. What Urban Education Study has to attempt is a balanced synthesis between a form of “pessimism of the intellect” (facing theories and facts, “even when they are decidedly unpleasant”16) and a form of “optimism of the will” (resisting structural determinism and recognizing the power of agency). As Marx might have said, “the urban theorists have only analysed the world, the important thing is to change it.” But how? This requires some consideration of the possible forms of agency which are available in contemporary urban education, given the contexts and constraints which urban theoretical analysis suggests. By agency I refer to a variety of modes of individual, institutional and community initiative constituting oppositional action against what appear to be the inevitable outcomes of existing political and economic relations in society. Such action can be pursued by
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individual teachers and school leaders, by local groups of citizens, by organizations based upon race, ethnic and gender concerns, by religious17 and faith organisations18 and by corporate and business interests which take social and community responsibility seriously. For contemporary urban educators in Britain and elsewhere it is necessary to reflect upon Castells’ central observation that “it is politics which structures the totality of the field” (p. 243) and after reflection, to consider what forms of educational action should be developed for the future. Merson and Campbell (1974) argued that the defining characteristic of inner city residents is their relative powerlessness. Such political powerlessness arises from a number of causes. It arises because most educational systems do not take political education or citizenship education seriously. In his reflections upon the “Challenges of Urban Education,” Paulo Freire (1993) argued that “literacy involves not just the reading of the word, but also the reading of the world” (p. 59). An education for critical consciousness would not only help students in inner-city schools to acquire literacy but also develop a political literacy which would help them to understand why the inner-city is as it is, and what possible forms of democratic action are available for its transformation.19 The education of most urban students at present is not generative of such political literacy. In Britain a disillusionment with the formal political process has resulted in growing levels of voter “apathy”20 or abstention from that process. Many inner-city residents do not believe that political parties have any sustained programs for the improvement of their communities and, as a consequence, they do not participate in elections. This compounds the problem as Galbraith (1992) has noted. If the urban poor are not an active voting constituency, political parties will adjust their programs in the interests of those who are active. Galbraith also argues in his thesis of the growing influence of “the political economy of contentment,” that the comfortable and contented majority of active voters are increasingly embracing a culture of relative private interest. The result of this is that action for the improvement of the inner-city and its schools is marginalized. As I expressed it in an earlier paper, Grace (1994): In a political culture of relative public good, a significant sector of citizens accept the legitimacy of political action taken in support of disadvantaged citizens as a practical expression of commitment to ideas of social justice, equality of opportunity and equity in society. In a political culture of relative private interest a growing number of citizens reject the legitimacy of action in support of the disadvantaged (who are seen to be responsible for their own problems) and support policies designed to enhance their own interests … . (p. 53) Galbraith (1992) argues that this changed political culture is now very visible in the USA and it can be argued that it is emergent in Britain also. The social consequences of these developments will be, as Castells (2004b) has pointed out, a sharper polarization between the comfortable suburbs and the impoverished inner-cities. If inner-city youth are not able, in sufficient numbers,21 to gain access to the new informational economy; if they are cynical about the formal political process and if they are alienated by a poor urban education experience, it seems likely that they will become recruits for the growing urban crime economy. All of this suggests that serious political and citizenship education must be a priority in the
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schools of the inner-city. Such students need an “education for critical consciousness.” They need socio-political and economic literacy to understand the inner-city as it is currently constituted. This does not mean, of course, the formation of a particular political ideology but rather the formation of an educational consciousness of what democracy means and what its potential for transformation can be. Students educated in and for a serious democratic literacy could become “active citizens.”22 As such they could become advocates for their communities; active in political processes, formal and informal; and effective in forming alliances with other major institutions in the inner-city to work for improvements in urban education.
Urban Education and the Concept of “Complex Hope” In 1994, I defined “complex hope” in urban education as a necessary complement to critical analyses of the present state of urban schooling in various locations. Unlike naïve hope or simple hope which often appears in the literature as an “incapacity to face facts as they are” (Wright Mills, 1973), complex hope is “an optimism of the will that recognizes the historical and structural difficulties which have to be overcome.”23 David Halpin in his ground-breaking book. Hope and Education (2003) has argued that hope of this type is the essential driving force for educational activity and for inspirational teaching. He quotes with approval Terry Eagleton’s formulation of this stance as finding “a bridge between present and future in those forces within the present which are potentially able to transform it” (2000, p. 22). In a recent analysis of the challenges and contradictions confronting urban schools in London,24 I was faced with the research of Buck, Gordon, Hall, Harloe, and Kleinman (2002) and Reay (2003) which established that class differentials in urban schooling in Britain were still considerable, despite decades of attempted reforms. How can urban schools respond in situations of obvious class inequalities in educational opportunities and outcomes? Given that the major challenges in this area are social, structural, political and economic, hope for transformation, even complex hope, seems problematic. However, as Martin Thrupp (1999) has pointed out, we cannot simply wait for major social transformations to take place. There are strategies for change which can be implemented albeit ones that can only be long-tem solutions. Thrupp makes a powerful argument that urban school mix defined as “the social class composition of a school’s student intake” has major consequences for school effectiveness. From this perspective, the differing academic profiles of urban schools are largely a function of their differing student intakes, rather than related to significant differences in their internal educational cultures. In Thrupp’s view, “the key solution to the effects of school mix will be to reduce between-school social class segregation” (p. 185).25 Thrupp also argues that teachers and school leaders in disadvantaged communities and “failing” urban schools should become advocates for the residents and the students and that they should “publicly reject the politics of polarization and blame” in urban schooling, which hold schools individually responsible for supposed “failure.” From my own experience of researching Catholic secondary schools in the innercities of London, Liverpool and Birmingham (Grace, 2002), I know that the leaders
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of such “failing” schools have a very good understanding of the complex of social forces working against the schools and they have intelligent suggestions for policy and action to assist the schools. However, these school leaders while articulate in discussions with a visiting researcher, are often inhibited from engaging in public advocacy for their schools and communities for a number of reasons.26 These include potential charges of “special pleading,” “vested interest,” and “being political.” The irony of the situation is that those who know most about particular challenges in urban schooling are inhibited from expressing these publicly, while those who know least, that is, Government ministers and the national and local media achieve maximum publicity for their accounts. Here is another of the many contradictions of the urban education situation.27 To protect school leaders and to do justice the complexity of “the failing urban school,” what is required is the formation of research partnerships between such schools and education researchers at local colleges and universities. Such partnerships could produce evidence-based accounts which could be used as a form of public advocacy for the school, not in the sense of special pleading but as a comprehensive and objective account of the many challenges facing the school. School leaders alone cannot be expected to do this but school leaders, with research support, could become powerful advocates for necessary reforms. Complex hope also involves a commitment to working for wider socio-political and cultural change in society. What is needed in contemporary Britain for instance is a new “sociocultural project” which will replace the market individualism of Thatcherism (unfortunately largely continued under “New Labour”), with a praxis of the common good and of serious social justice. This thesis has been powerfully argued by Brown and Lauder (2001) in their contention that: the great ethical hope at the beginning of the twenty-first century lies in the development of social solidarity based on the reflexivity of individuals who recognise that their quality of life depends on co-operation with others rather than relentless competition … . (p. 284) Brown and Lauder point out that among the forces working for change in this direction, the power of organized women could be crucial. Feminist consciousness provides an oppositional agenda for “reading the world” and for reconstructing the world. A similar point is also made by Castells and Ince (2004, p. 75) when he says: Women have a history and a set of values that involves a higher level of sharing than men are accustomed to, and this broader, richer and more flexible tradition would be a major social transformation if it became general. It could be argued that “those forces within the present” include religious and faith organizations of all types. Of all existing institutions they have the clearest mission to transform the ideological legacy of the New Right which has undermined commitments to welfare, social justice, equity and the common good. What the present historical juncture requires is a remoralization of the culture of politics after decades of its demoralization in a political culture of dominant material private interests. There are
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resources for hope in urban education to be found in counter-cultural statements from faith communities such as that produced by the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales in The Common Good in Education (1997)28 and by the Chief Rabbi in Britain, in The Politics of Hope (2000).29 There are resources for hope in contemporary evidence of relative improvements in the performance of some inner-city schools in England.30 This evidence of success in the face of existing circumstances is a realization of what the optimism of the will, of inner-city teachers, can achieve (although at great personal cost).31 However, its real significance lies in the recognition that if this is what can be accomplished in existing circumstances, what might be achieved if these circumstances were radically changed? This chapter has used the extensive writings of Manuel Castells on the urban question (in all its forms) as a major theoretical framework within which the challenges of urban education have to be located. However, it may be noted in conclusion that Castells’ analysis has very little to say about religious and faith communities as bases for urban social movements working for change in the inner-cities. To supplement this partial view, students of Urban Education will need to consult other sources such as Harvey Cox’s, Religion in the Secular City (1984), “a book about the unexpected return of religion as a potent social force in a world many thought was leaving it behind” (p. 20) With their emphases upon the common good, as a part of the social teachings of the major faiths of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, there are other sources for hope in the city and for hope in urban education. Politics has structured the contexts for urban education in the past but these major religions and faiths may be significant in contributing to their restructuring in the future.
Religion, the Secular City and Urban Education The latest stage in the development of urban theory relevant to urban education issues is a growing recognition that religion and the existence of faith communities has to be integral to future scholarship in urban education. A collection of essays with this focus was published in 1993 under the title, Religion and Ethnicity: minorities and social change in the Metropolis.32 Various contributors reported research studies which demonstrated the complex interactions of different faith communities in the construction of urban social movements and new cultural institutions: relationships with state provided schooling and relationships with other urban residents (both positive and negative). In other words, urban education theory has to change to a new intellectual paradigm that takes faith in the city seriously.33 The limitations of existing perspectives in urban theory have been recognized in a recent symposium on “The Future of Urban Sociology” (2005). As Saskia Sassen (2005, p. 353) argues: the city is once again emerging as a strategic site for understanding some of the major new trends reconfiguring the social order and hence potentially for producing critical knowledge not just about cities but about the larger social condition.
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Among those major new trends are the social and educational consequences of a resurgent Islam, a changing Judaism, a reformed Catholicism, an active Christian Evangelical movement and the developing aspirations of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities in various societies. These constitute new elements in “the larger social condition” and they have important implications for policy and practice in urban education. Harvey Cox has argued in Religion in the Secular City (1984, pp. 170–171) that, “if freedom once required a secular critique of religion, it can also require a religious critique of the secular.” A religious critique of writings in urban theory and urban education theory might point out that the existence of religious communities, religious institutions and religious cultures within major cities is routinely ignored. The analysis of urban education problems, conflicts and contradictions and of related policy interventions takes place within a taken-for-granted secular paradigm. This paradigm limits both a comprehensive analysis of the urban question and the formulation of policies to improve urban education contexts. Cox (1984) in his critique of the secular city believed that Liberation Theology had considerable potential to transform urban situations in the future through the agency of base communities. Base communities are local groupings of Christians where education, religion, politics and the realities of local social existence are brought together in shared discussion, prayer and plans for action. Base communities may demonstrate that religion, far from being “the opium of the people,” could be an effective agency for the praxis of social and educational justice in urban settings. A similar critique has been produced from a Jewish perspective by Jonathan Sacks in The Politics of Hope (2000). Sacks argues that modern politics have been dominated by two entities, the state and the market, and: The shared assumption has been that between them they hold the answer to all social problems. The right prefers the market. The left prefers the state. Both, however, have found themselves faced with social problems that have resisted all attempts at a solution. Among them are rising crime, the breakdown of the family, educational underachievement … . (p. xiv) What this paradigm has forgotten, in Sack’s view, is the importance of what he calls, “Third Sector institutions.” Third Sector institutions related to family, community and faith are essential to any strategy for the improvement of urban life, culture and education. The “Third Sector” realizes itself in concepts of social capital, reciprocal altruism or communitarianism. Reflecting on his own educational and social experience in East London, the Chief Rabbi argues that what is missing in many urban education situations today is the faith and community support of third sector culture: As I reflected on how my own family, along with thousands of others like them, had broken free of the bonds of poverty in a single generation, I came to the conclusion that it was because of the strength of those things: family, community and faith. The Jews of the East End were poor in everything else, but they were rich in social capital … . Today, when I visit run-down neighbourhoods, I see the same
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poverty I remember from my childhood, but with one fateful difference. I see a poverty of hope. (p. xvii) Much of the social capital which exists in major cities is to be found still in religious communities, Christian, Jewish, Islamic etc. Faith-based urban schools can draw upon these resources of social capital for the benefit of their students. However, if these resources are only available to the children and youth of particular religious communities then their contribution to the overall improvement of urban education outcomes will be limited. A challenge for progressive urban education policies in the future will be how to find ways of integrating the third sector strengths and resources of various religious communities into programs for the overall improvement of urban education in society in general. The application of a complex hope perspective for future faith related developments in urban education requires a measure of realism. Faith groups have the potential to be a positive influence in urban education improvement, if their contribution is handled with sensitivity. On the other hand, communities with a strong religious identity may generate increased social divisiveness and conflict.34 Urban education policy in the future must find ways of balancing the legitimate aspirations of faith communities for particular types of educational experience, with equally legitimate concerns for greater social solidarity and community cohesion within metropolitan cities and their schooling systems.
Acknowledgements I thank the following critical friends for their comments, help and advice. Where I have taken their advice it has improved the analysis: Stephen Ball, David Coulby, Sharon Gewirtz, Harvey Goldstein, David Halpin, Crispin Jones, Norman Lucas, Meg Maguire, Ian Menter, Peter Newsam, Martin Thrupp and Geoff Whitty.
Notes 1. Important sources at the time included Pahl’s (1975) book, Whose City?: and further essays on Urban Society and John Rex’s (1973) book, Race, Colonialism and the City. 2. Visiting inner-city schools on a regular basis stimulated my interest in research in urban education. I subsequently undertook doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Basil Bernstein. This research was published in 1978 as Teachers, Ideology and Control: A Study in Urban Education. 3. The 1984 Urban Education collection therefore included a chapter by Rachel Sharp, “Urban Education and the Current Crisis” which argued this thesis using international data. 4. The unprofitability of state provided welfare services was a frequent theme in the critical literature of the time. However, with the growing privatisation of welfare services in cities in the 1990s the colonisation of these services by corporate interests has begun to change this situation. For one discussion, see Monbiot (2000). 5. For one treatment of the local state, see Cockburn (1977). 6. Writing in 2004, Castells modified this confident prediction. For this later discussion, see Castells (2004a, pp. 64–68).
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7. For a good discussion of this, see Gamble (1998). 8. Whitty and Menter (1989, p. 58) argued that the policies of the British government at this time were class-based and that, “Thatcher’s rhetoric of classlessness is precisely designed to obscure this fact.” 9. ILEA’s initiatives in anti-racist education, stimulated conferences and research projects to engage with these issues. See, for example, Pumfrey and Verma (1990). The influence of the ILEA can still be traced today in the work of the Anti-Racist Teacher Education Network (ARTEN). 10. In “Thatcherism and Education,” Roger Dale (1989) argued that an ideological and political alliance (with some internal contradictions) had been formed among “industrial trainers,” “old tories,” “populists,” “moral entrepreneurs” and “privatisers,” which was anti-statist and anti the Welfare State in particular. 11. Quoted in Jones (1991, p. 107). 12. Urban working class schooling in England was accused of “extravagance” in the 1860s and in the 1890s and in both cases expenditure was cut back. See Reeder (1977). 13. ILEA income was derived from a rating system based on property values in London. This meant in practice that the ILEA received considerable income from the City of London (The corporate centre) which it was able to redistribute via the Index of Relative School Needs (devised by the Research and Statistics Department) to schools in poorer areas such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Southwark. In 1980 the ILEA budget was £900 million, £400 million of which came from the City of London. I am grateful to Sir Peter Newsam, former Education Officer for ILEA for this information. 14. This was dramatically exemplified in the struggles surrounding the closure of Hackney Downs School in 1995. See O’Connor, Hales, Davies, and Tomlinson (1999). 15. See also my discussion of different forms of pedagogy in urban schooling, Grace (1995). 16. The terms “pessimism of the intellect” and “optimism of the will” were used by the political theorist, Antonio Gramsci in the early twentieth century to suggest a necessary strategy when facing a difficult socio-political situation. By pessimism of the intellect, Gramsei was referring to a realistic analysis and evaluation of a given situation, that is, a readiness to look clearly at what might be a grim and unpleasant scenario. This would always be a necessary preliminary to any effective action. However, it was important that this analysis should not have the effect of paralysing subsequent action because of the scale of the problems revealed. “Optimism of the will” was the socio-political stance required in attempting to transform the situation. Wright Mills (1973, p. 9) expressed similar views when he criticised the American social science texts of his day: “To cry for ‘the constructive program’ and ‘the hopeful note’ is often a sign of incapacity to face facts as they are, even when they are decidedly unpleasant – and it is irrelevant to truth or falsity and to judgements of proper work in social science.” 17. I have tried to illustrate the tensions between market values and Catholic values, for instance, in Catholic inner-city schools in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. See Grace (2002). See also Vallely (1998). 18. See, for instance, Faith in the City (1985), The Cities: A Methodist Report (1997), Urban Christ (1997) and Gospel From the City (1997). A new field of Urban Theology now has to be taken into account in urban education scholarship. See, Northcott (1998). 19. As Freire (1993, p. 40) put it: “The fundamental issue is politics. It has to do with which content gets taught, to whom, in favour of what … against whom and how it gets to be taught.” 20. “Apathy” as used here, is a construct of social pathology. What is being referred to is the rational abstention of inner-city voters from a political process which they believe no longer represents their interests. 21. It is always possible to show individual “success.” What is needed is cohort analysis of the destinations of inner-city students. 22. This phrase was used as a political slogan in Britain in the early 1990s but the pedagogy of active citizenship has yet to appear in most urban schools. For an important discussion of education and the struggle for democracy see Carr and Hartnett (1996). 23. Grace (1994, p. 57). 24. See Grace (2006). 25. A range of possible long-term solutions to this problem is suggested by Thrupp. See pp. 185–196. 26. It is recognised that there are important differences between the UK and the USA contexts in relation to public advocacy for urban schools.
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27. In “Urban Education: Confronting the Contradictions” (2006) I examine the contradictions relating to power, class, gender, race and literacy. 28. While the education policies of successive British governments have encouraged schools to think of ways of being individually successful in a market economy for schooling, the Catholic bishops exhorted them to hold fast to common good values and to values of solidarity and professional community. 29. “The time has come for a counter-cultural voice to challenge the idols of the age: celebrity, power, wealth, success and the freedom to do what we like so long as we can pay governments to deal with the consequences … .” Dr Jonathan Sacks (2000, p. xix). 30. For a recent statement of this evidence from the Schools Standards Minister in Britain, see “Urban education: lessons from London” (9.2.2005) www.fabian-society.org.uk. For a current statement of government policy on urban education in London, see The London Challenge (2003). 31. As Meg Maguire and Justin Dillon (2003, p. 117) express it: Perhaps the most intractable and contradictory dilemma that faces teachers in the inner city is the paradox of recognizing the social and material realities in which the school is placed, while at the same time ensuring that aspirations and expectations are not reduced by these challenges. 32. See especially chapter 3, “The Political Articulation of Community and the Islamisation of Space in London” and chapter 5, “Schools and Muslim Girls.” 33. Michael Apple (2001, p. 102) argues “one should never underestimate the power of religion in the United States.” See Grace (2004) for a similar argument in the field of sociology of education. 34. Critics of faith-based urban schools are quick to suggest that this will be the case. However, there is as yet, no strong research base to support these claims.
References Afshar, H. (1993). Schools and Muslim girls. In R. Barot (Ed.), Religion and ethnicity: Minorities and social change in the metropolis (pp. 56–67). Kampen: Kok Pharos. Anti-Racist Teacher Education Network. (2002). Framework for anti-racist teacher education. London: Arten. Apple, M. (2001). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, god and inequality. New York: Routledge Falmer. Archbishop of Canterbury’s Urban Commission. (1985). Faith in the city. London: Church House publishing. Barot, R. (1993). Religion and ethnicity: Minorities and social change in the metropolis. Kampen: Kok Pharos. Bash, L., & Coulby, D. (1989). The education reform act: Competition and control. London: Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class, codes and control: Towards a theory of educational transmissions: Vol. 3. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brown, P., & Lauder, H. (2001). Capitalism and social progress: The future of society in a global economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Buck, N., Gordon, I., Hall, P., Harloe, M., & Kleinman, M. (2002). Working capital: Life and labour in Contemporary London. London: Routledge. Carr, W., & Hartnett, A. (1996). Education and the struggle for democracy. Buckingham: Open University Press. Castells, M. (1977). The urban question: A marxist approach. London: Edward Arnold. Castells, M. (1978). City, class and power. London: Macmillan. Castells, M. (1989). The informational city: Information technology, economic restructuring and the urban – regional process. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Castells, M. (2004a). The power of identity (2nd ed.) Vol. 2. The information age. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Castells, M. (2004b). End of millennium (2nd ed.) Vol. 3. The information age. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Castells, M., & Ince, M. (2004). Conversations with Manuel Castells. Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales. (1997). The common good in education. London: Catholic Education Service. Cibulka, J., Reed, R., & Wong, K. (Eds.). (1992). The politics of urban education in the United States. Washington: Falmer Press. Cockburn, C. (1977). The local state. London: Pluto Press. Coulby, D., and Bash, L. (1991). Contradiction and conflict: The 1988 Education act in action. London: Cassell. Coulby, D., Jones, C., & Harris, D. (Eds.). (1992). Urban education: World yearbook of education. London: Kogan Page. Cox, H. (1984). Religion in the secular city. New York: Simon & Schuster. Dale, R. (1989). The state and education policy. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Department for Education and Skills. (2003). The London challenge: Transforming London secondary schools. Nottingham: DFES. Duffield, I. (1997). Urban Christ. Sheffield: Urban Theology Unit. Eade, J. (1993). The Political Articulation of Community and the Islamisation of Space in London. In R. Barot (Ed.). (1993), pp. 29–42. Eagleton, T. (2000). The idea of culture. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Fay, B. (1975). Social theory and political practice. London: Allen and Unwin. Freire, P. (1993). Challenges of urban education in pedagogy of the city. New York: Continuum. Galbraith, J. (1992). The culture of contentment. London: Sinclair – Stevenson. Gamble, A. (1998). The free market and the strong state. London: Macmillan. Grace, G. (1978). Teachers, ideology and control: A study in urban education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Grace, G. (1984). Education and the city: Theory, history and contemporary practice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Grace, G. (1994). Urban education and the culture of contentment: The politics, culture and economics of inner-city schooling. In N. Stromquist (Ed.), Education in urban areas: Cross-national dimensions (pp. 45–59). Westport: Praeger. Grace, G. (1995). Theorising social relations within urban schooling: A sociohistorical analysis. In P. Atkinson, B. Davies, & S. Delamont (Eds.), Discourse and reproduction: Essays in honor of basil Bernstein (pp. 209–227). New Jersey: Hampton Press. Grace, G. (2002). Catholic schools: Mission, markets and morality. London: Routledge Falmer. Grace, G. (2004). “Making connections for future direction: Taking religion seriously in the sociology of education”. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 14(1), 47–56. Grace, G. (2006). “Urban education: Confronting the contradictions: An analysis with special reference to London” (Vol. 4, pp. 115–131). London: London Review of Education. Halpin, D. (2003). Hope and education: The role of the utopian imagination. London: Routledge Falmer. Harvey, D. (1973). Social justice and the city. London: Edward Arnold. Jones, C. (1989). “The Break-up of the Inner London Education Authority”. In L. Bash, & D. Coulby (Eds.). (1989), pp. 60–72. Jones, C. (1991). “Baker’s Dozen? Education in Inner London”. In D. Coulby, & L. Bash (Eds.). (1991), pp. 106–120. Maguire, M., & Dillon, J. (2003). Excellence in Cities. In J. Dillon, & M. Maguire (Eds.). Becoming a Teacher (2nd ed.) (pp. 109–119). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Methodist, C. (1997). The cities: A methodist report. London: Action for Children. Merson, M., & Campbell, R. (1974). “Community education: Instruction for inequality” Education for Teaching. No. 93, pp. 25–32. Monbiot, G. (2000). Captive state: The corporate takeover of Britain. London: Macmillan. Morrell, F. (1984). “Policy for Schools in Inner London”. In G. Grace (Ed.). (1984), pp. 195–209. Northcott, M. (1998). Urban theology: A reader. London: Cassell. O’ Connor, M., Hales, E., Davies, J., & Tomlinson, S. (1999). Hackney downs: The school that dared to fight. London: Cassell. Pahl, R. (1975). Whose city? and further essays on urban society. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Pumfrey, P., & Verma, G. (1990). Race relations and urban education. London: Falmer Press.
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Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Reay, D. (2003). “Reproduction, reproduction, reproduction: Education and social class in the United Kingdom.” In J. Freeman-Moir, & A. Scott (Eds.), Yesterday’s dreams: International and critical perspectives on education and social class (pp. 104–122). Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. Reeder, D. (1977). Urban education in the 19th century. London: Taylor and Francis. Rex, J. (1973). Race, colonialism and the city. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Rowland, C., & Vincent, J. (Eds.). (1997). Gospel from the city. Sheffield: Urban Theology Unit. Sacks, J. (2000). The politics of hope. London: Vintage. Sassen, S. (2005). “Cities as Strategic Sites”. Sociology, 39(2), 352–357. Sharp, R. (1984). “Urban Education and the Current Crisis”. In G. Grace (Ed.). (1984), pp. 60–93. Stromquist, N. (1994). Education in urban areas: Cross-National dimentions. Westport: Praeger. Thrupp, M. (1999). Schools making a difference: Let’s be realistic! Buckingham: Open University Press. Twigg, S. (2005). Urban Education: Lessons from London, http://www.fabian-society.org.uk Vallely, P. (1998). The new politics: Catholic social teaching for the twenty-first century. London: SCM Press. Whitty, G. (1986). “Education Policy and the Inner Cities”. In P. Lawless, & C. Raban (Eds.), The contemporary British city (pp. 75–86). London: Harper and Row. Whitty, G. (1992). “Urban education in England and Wales”. In D. Coulby, C. Jones, & D. Harris (Eds.). (1992), pp. 39–53. Whitty, G., & Menter, I. (1989). Lessons of thatcherism: Education policy in England and Wales 1979–1988. Journal of Law and Society, 16(1), 55–67. Whitty, G. (2002). Making sense of education policy. London: Paul Chapman. Whitty, G., Edwards, T., & Gewirtz, S. (1993). Specialisation and choice in urban education. London: Routledge. Wong, K. (1992). “The Politics of Urban Education as a Field of Study”. In J. Cibulka, R. Reed, & K. Wong (Eds.). (1992), pp. 3–26. Wright, Mills, C. (1943). “The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists”, American Journal of Sociology, 49(2), 168–180. Wright, Mills, C. (1973). The Sociological Imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
51 COMBATING RACISM IN SCHOOLING: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON CONTEMPORARY POLICY AND PRACTICE David Gillborn Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
Introduction A characteristic of most urban areas is their ethnic and racial diversity.1 In this chapter I examine how race, and in particular racism, operate in and through contemporary education policy and practice. Building on an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative research in the field, the chapter examines how race inequity has been influenced by the drive to improve “standards” as measured through the crude results of high stakes tests. The principal sections of the chapter consider differences in attainment between different minority groups; the in-school processes that shape minority students’ experiences and achievements; the issue of exclusion (expulsion) from school; and the possibilities for meaningful anti-racism in contemporary policy and practice. In order to contextualize these debates, however, it is useful to begin with a brief introduction to the demographic landscape.
Populations and Problems A significant and growing number of British residents (around 4.6 million) have community backgrounds outside the UK: equivalent to around 8% of the total population in the most recent national census (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2001). This figure represents a growth of around 48% between 1991 and 2001. Most minority ethnic communities have much younger population profiles than white communities; consequently it is anticipated that minority ethnic communities will continue to grow substantially, both in relative and absolute terms, over the next 20 years.2 This will have a particular consequence for education, where the school population will continue to include a greater proportion of minority ethnic people than is true of the adult population. These changes are already well advanced. In 2004 around 15% of secondary school pupils (aged between 11 and 16) and 18% of primary pupils (age 5–10) were classified as having minority ethnic heritage (Department for Education & Skills 979 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 979–1006. © 2007 Springer.
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[DfES], 2005a, p. 3). In the cities of London, Birmingham and Leicester it is projected that by the end of this decade no group will account for 50% or more of the population: that is, there will be no ethnic majority. These demographic changes are not restricted to urban centers alone. There are few parts of the education world that are not directly affected by the multiethnic nature of society. Official statistics already suggest that only a minority of primary schools (around 25%), and very few secondary schools (5%), can accurately claim to be “all white” (Department for Education & Employment [DfEE], 1999, p. 2). Nevertheless, it remains the case that most minority ethnic students are educated in urban schools (DfES, 2005b, pp. 8–9). Against this background of increasing diversity, the English education system currently faces a series of challenges.3 On one hand, because of legislative changes arising from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999),4 the system now has a legal duty pro-actively to pursue race equity; on the other hand, the system continues to produce outcomes that are deeply scarred by systematic race inequities (in, e.g., rates of permanent exclusion and academic success). In this chapter I review the current state of race equity in the English education system, consider the conflicting demands upon the system, and explore the possibilities for meaningful anti-racist change in the future.
Attainment and Under-Achievement the reality is that some children from all minority ethnic groups achieve highly but more children from some minority ethnic groups (Chinese, West African, Indian) achieve higher levels of attainment than is the case for other minority ethnic groups. To argue thus is not to indulge in semantics. (John, 2001, p. 3, original emphasis) The relative attainments of children in different ethnic groups have long dominated discussion of ethnic diversity in English education. The field has been plagued by widespread misunderstanding and over-simplification that have sometimes added to the problems. The notion of “under-achievement,” for example, is widely quoted but rarely subjected to proper scrutiny. In most current academic and policy treatments, the term refers to a situation where the attainments of one group are significantly less than those of the majority ethnic group. This is usually judged by comparing group averages or the proportion reaching some agreed cut-off point, such as a minimum of five higher grade GCSE passes.5 These are important measures but they do not tell us anything about all members of that group: although members of a particular group might be less likely to attain five higher grades overall, some individuals in that group will undoubtedly meet and exceed such measures. Too much attention to group measures can sometimes lead to over-simplification and even stereotyping. Many writers have argued that the notion of “under-achievement” itself has become yet another stereotype – as if each individual member of an under-achieving group were destined for failure.6 Gus John’s argument (quoted above) powerfully identifies how easy it is for discussion of group differences to lapse into dangerous and racist assumptions. He argues that if minority ethnic students continue to be presented as one-dimensional
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and separate groups, policy “will succeed in projecting ‘ethnic minority’ students as an undifferentiated mass, pathologically defined, as if the lack of attainment with which the group as a whole has come to be identified is somehow congenitally determined ” (John, 2001, p. 3, original emphasis). These warnings are important because the pattern of attainment by minority ethnic students is considerably more complex than is widely recognized. First, it is important to note that every ethnic group is capable of the highest achievement. This statement is not some idyllic dream or ideological commitment, rather it is a fact documented in official statistics. For each of the principal recorded groups of color in England (White, Black African, Black Caribbean, Black Other, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) statistical data from Local Education Authorities (LEAs) show that there is at least one part of the country where that group has the greatest proportion of young people attaining five or more higher grade GCSEs (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 8–11). This is a vitally important finding that demolishes any notion of innate differences between groups and is a forceful reminder of the need to guard against stereotyping on the basis of broad descriptive statistics. A second point to remember is that the very definitions and assumptions that shape official statistics can come to influence the terms of debate and determine policy priorities. Gypsy/Traveller children are frequently absent from considerations of minority ethnic groups. For example, they are not included in one of the British government’s most detailed sources of data, the Youth Cohort Study (YCS)(DfEE, 2001a; DfES, 2003a). This is especially worrying because the consensus is that these children are the group most at risk of educational failure (see, Bhattacharyya, Ison, & Blair, 2003; Bhopal, Gundra, Jones, & Owen, 2001; Office for Standards in Education [OFSTED], 1999; Plowden, 1967; Swann, 1985). A survey by the schools inspectorate (the Office for Standards in Education: OFSTED) found that Gypsy/Traveller children were massively over-represented on the register of children designated as having “special educational needs” and: although some make a reasonably promising start in primary school, by the time they reach secondary school their levels of attainment are almost always a matter for concern. Many, especially boys, opt out of education by Year 9 [aged 13–14] and very few go on to achieve success at GCSE or beyond. (OFSTED, 1999, p. 11) The 2001 Census included a “mixed” category in the question on ethnic origin for the first time and this has subsequently been adopted in the categories used in the annual schools census. This is an especially heterogeneous group and there is some controversy about the assumptions behind the label “mixed” (Pheonix & Owen, 2002). Nevertheless, as more data emerges, it is likely that in the future this category will begin to feature in relevant debates to a greater extent than was previously the case (Tikly, Caballero, Haynes, & Hill, 2004). Nationally discussion of “under-achievement” usually focuses on three principal minority groups; Black (African Caribbean),7 Bangladeshi and Pakistani children. Although rates differ from year-to-year and from region-to-region, overall it is clear that children from these groups tend to achieve less well, on average, than their white
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peers of the same sex and social class background. This pattern is well established at the national level and has been found in numerous different surveys. In 2004, 55% of white 16 year olds attained five or more higher grade (A*–C) passes in their GCSEs. In contrast, this level was attained by 33% of Black young people, 37% of Pakistanis and 46% of Bangladeshis. (See Figure 1.) When considering attainment data it is important to remember that key information is often absent from official statistics. The information in Figure 1, for example, does not mention gender nor social class. And yet it is well established that both these factors are strongly associated with differences in average attainment: on average girls attainment is higher than boys in each of the principal minority groups (Bhattacharyya et al., 2003, p. 12; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 22–25) and boys and girls from non-manual backgrounds score considerably higher on average than peers from manual households (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 18–21). These factors are vital because, of course, they each interact. A re-analysis of official data, for example, showed that although girls categorized as African Caribbean and Bangladeshi/Pakistani were attaining higher on average than boys in their ethnic groups, their attainment was not only less than white and Indian girls, but also less than white and Indian boys. In other words, the gender gap within minority ethnic groups is not enough to close the wider inequities that exist between different ethnic groups (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 25–26). Similarly, although Black students from non-manual (middle class) households are likely to perform better than their Black counterparts in manual households, their attainment is less than all other non-manual groups (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 20). It is necessary, therefore, to keep in mind the significance of class, ethnic origin and gender: each factor is important, but none are completely dominant.8 However, the common assertion that gender and/or class factors “explain” ethnic inequities is demonstrably false.
80% 72% 70%
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55%
50%
46%
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35%
30% 20% 10% 0% Indian
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Figure 1. Attainment and ethnic origin (England & Wales, 2002) Source: DfES (2005c) Table A.
Pakistani
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Education Reform and Changing Patterns of Attainment Overall rates of success in the GCSE have risen significantly since the examination was introduced in 1988. Successive governments (both Conservative and Labour) have used the proportion of students attaining five or more higher grade passes as the dominant measure of “standards” and achievement in the system. Consequently, a great deal of extra effort has gone into attaining this measure (at both school and LEA levels) and a year-on-year improvement has become the norm for more than a decade. This raises an important question: have minorities shared equitably in the improving rates of GCSE success? The best available data suggests that there is considerable cause for concern. In late 2000, OFSTED published a new review of evidence on the influence of “race,” class and gender on educational attainment (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). Commissioned as part of OFSTED’s response to The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999), and building on an earlier review of “race” research (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996), the report drew considerable publicity with its claim that substantial inequities of attainment between minority groups were not only persisting but, in some cases, actually growing: Indian pupils have made the greatest gains in the last decade: enough to overtake their white peers as a group. Bangladeshi pupils have improved significantly but the gap between themselves and white youngsters is much the same … . African-Caribbean and Pakistani pupils have drawn least benefit from the rising levels of attainment: the gap between them and their white peers is bigger now than a decade ago. (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 14) In apparent contrast to these findings, just a few months later the government announced new data and trumpeted that “black and Indian students and students from working class backgrounds have seen their GCSE results rising nearly three times as much as the national average since 1997” (DfEE, 2001b, p. 1). Predictably the news of Black students’ improving at such a rate drew great attention and was played up in the government’s subsequent plans for education reforms (see DfEE, 2001c, p. 14). As Figure 2 demonstrates, however, the government’s pleasure was short lived. Not only did the apparent gains look more modest over a longer time period; but subsequent data showed a further decline for Black students. Figure 2 charts the changing patterns of GCSE attainment from the late 1980s through to 2004. The data are drawn from the Youth Cohort Study (YCS). A disadvantage with the YCS is that it reports on a sample of 16 year olds, rather than the whole cohort. Although the sample is large (more than 14,000 in 2004) it is considerably smaller than the numbers involved in the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC) which, in 2002, began to gather systematic data on the ethnicity of every child in the state system. However, at the time of writing the PLASC data are only available for two cohorts. In contrast, the YCS offers a unique picture of how different ethnic groups have fared over more than a decade. The YCS data are especially important because they
30 18 na na na
– 12 na na na
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%
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%
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%
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Figure 2. Ethnic origin & GCSE attainment Source: Adapted from DfES. (2005c). Youth Cohort Study: The Activities and Experiences of 16 Year Olds: England and Wales. SFR 04/2005. London: DfES: Table A. Notes: na not available: separate calculations were not made for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students until the 1992 cohort. Year the year of the cohort being questioned: the GCSE examinations were taken in the previous calender year. Please note: these are the official statistics and include students attending independent schools. From 1998, the data include those attaining equivalent GNVQ qualifications in Year 11.
White Black Indian Pakistani Bangladeshi
%
1989
Percentage gaining five higher grade GCSEs and percentage point difference with the “white” group
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offer the only available information on how a nationally representative sample have fared since the beginning of the major reforms that began with the Education Reform Act 1988. The data are generated by a questionnaire sent to a nationally representative sample of 16–19 year olds. Figure 2 records the proportion of students in each of the main ethnic groups who achieved five or more higher grade GCSE passes (or their equivalent) in the most recent surveys. Alongside the relevant percentage is a calculation of the “gap” between that group’s attainment and the level for their white peers in the same survey. Hence, in 1989, 30% of white young people gained five or more higher grade passes, compared with 18% of Black students: this equates to a “gap,” an inequity, of 12% points. Only one of the ethnic groups identified by the YCS has enjoyed an improvement in every one of the surveys: white students. The performance of the other groups has been less certain, with periods where their attainment in one study remained static or actually fell below that of the previous survey. These changes could relate to actual fluctuations nationally, but they might also be a product of relatively small changes within the sample groups. Consequently, it is advisable to treat year-on-year changes with caution and focus more on the longer term trends. This caution notwithstanding, it is surely significant that only white students have drawn clear benefit every year since the main reforms got underway. The performance of Black students has shown a marked improvement over recent years. Over the entire period in Figure 2 (1989–2004) the proportion of Black students attaining at least five higher grades almost doubled (from 18 to 35%). This improvement (of 17% points), however, did not keep pace with white students (whose attainment improved by 25% points over the same period). Despite improvements during the 1990s, therefore, it remains the case that the so-called “Black/white gap” is currently bigger (at 20% points) than it was more than a decade ago (12% points in 1989). This comparison, however, does not tell the whole story. The data in Figure 2 show that the Black/white gap grew considerably during the early- to mid-90s. This was a period of intense emphasis on raising exam performance and improving positions in the newly introduced school performance tables (first published for secondary schools in 1992). In contrast, surveys in 1998 and 2000 showed a narrowing of the Black/white gap. Despite the significant gains that received so much publicity in the 2000 data, figures for 2002 and 2004 showed a fall in the proportion of Black students attaining five or more higher grade passes, meaning that once again the inequity of attainment has begun to rise. Notwithstanding the earlier warning (above) about fluctuations in the YCS figures, it is clear that parity of attainment remains a long way away: the Black/white inequity in the most recent data is almost as great as that at any time since the late 1980s. If anything the pattern of attainment by Pakistani students is even more complex. Since 1992, the achievements of Pakistani young people have varied considerably: falling in two consecutive cohorts before showing some important gains more recently. Overall, between 1992 and 2004, the proportion of Pakistani students attaining five or more higher grade passes improved by 11% points (from 26 to 37%). This is a significant increase but is mostly accounted for by gains in the 2002 cohort alone (up from
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29 to 40%) which were not fully sustained in the next survey. In addition, it should be noted that the gap between Pakistani students and their white peers, while fluctuating considerably, was actually at its lowest when data were first gathered separately for this group, in 1992. From a very low starting point in 1992, the Bangladeshi group showed quite dramatic improvements until the 2000 survey, when their attainment fell below the level of the previous cohort. However, the upward trend resumed in subsequent surveys and, overall, Bangladeshi students are now three times more likely to attain five higher grades than they were in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, Bangladeshi students remain less likely to achieve five or more higher grades than their white counterparts. The picture for Indian students is markedly different from the other minority groups examined above. From a position of virtual equity in 1992, when the YCS first disaggregated the composite “South Asian” category, Indian students have improved more than their white peers. Although the proportion attaining five or more higher grades remained static between 2000 and 2002, overall Indian students have improved from 38% in 1992 to 72%, an increase of 34% points: more than double the white improvement (15% points) over the same period. Data on ethnic origin and achievement for the last 15 years or so, therefore, shows that none of the existing inequities are fixed. Each of the attainment inequities have varied over time, with the early and mid-1990s being a period of especially pronounced inequity. All groups have enjoyed some improvement over the period but significant problems persist. The Black/white gap is almost as great as ever and both Bangladeshi and Pakistani students have experienced periods of growing inequity.
Changes in Attainment: From Age 5 to 16 The Governments’ use of attainment scores as a crude indicator of “standards” has led to a significant increase in formal assessment throughout the English education system. One consequence of this has been the generation of additional data that offer the possibility of further inquiry into patterns of attainment as students move through the compulsory system. It is a mark of the low level of official interest in “race” equity, however, that relatively few current statistics are available with any meaningful analyses by ethnic origin. In contrast, some local authorities have been gathering ethnicallybased data for more than a decade and such areas now offer the opportunity to examine the entire range of attainments at different stages in the system (from age 5 to 16). Data generated in a range of urban authorities suggests that patterns of ethnic inequity might actually worsen as students go through school (see Gillborn & Mirza, 2000; Richardson & Wood, 1999; Warren & Gillborn, 2003). In particular, Black (African-Caribbean) students often enter schooling better prepared than their peers, but their relative attainment falls dramatically as they move through the education system. These data, from a range of LEAs, suggest that schools add considerably less value for their Black students. In one large metropolitan LEA in 2000, for example, Black students entered primary school (aged 5) attaining an average of 20 points above the local average in their baseline assessments but their older Black peers were leaving school (aged 16) attaining 21 points below the LEA average in their GCSEs (See Figure 3).
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30
20 Indian 10 White 0
Baseline 1 (age 5)
Key Stage 2 1 (age 7)
Key Stage 3 2 (age 11)
Key Stage 4 3 (age 14) Key Stage 4 (age 16)
LEA average
–10 Pakistani Bangladeshi –20
African-Caribbean
–30
–40
–50
Figure 3. Ethnic inequalities: Age 5 to 16 (one metropolitan authority, 2000) Source: Gillborn & Mirza (2000) Figure 5.
Initially there was no requirement for ethnic monitoring in the assessments of five year olds: however, national data do confirm that Black Caribbean students, in particular, suffer a marked decline in their attainments relative to white students between the ages of 11 and 16. Nationally, white pupils are more likely to attain the desired level in their Key Stage 2 English tests (aged 11) than Black Caribbean pupils by a margin of 8% points: at age 16, however, the gap is more than double at 17% points (DfES, 2003c, p. 9). As the data in Figure 3 testify, however, there may have already been a dramatic fall in relative attainment during the primary school years culminating in the Key Stage 2 test results. Quantitative data, therefore, show that although the situation is by no means fixed, it is clear that in the high stakes examinations that mark the end of their compulsory schooling some minority ethnic groups (especially Black students) attain significantly less well on average than their white peers. Students in all ethnic groups are more likely to attain higher grade passes than they were before the “standards” drive began in the late 1980s but they have not benefited to the same degree. Only white students have enjoyed continual improvement throughout the last 15 years and the Black/white gap is bigger than it was when the reforms got underway. Worse still, these inequities seem to grow as students move through the school system. In order to understand some of the processes that lie behind this picture, it is necessary to draw on qualitative research that explores the realities of life in urban schools.
School Processes and Institutional Racism It’s not blatantly there. I mean, you can’t, you wouldn’t be able to just walk in the school and say “Oh the school’s racist.” You have to take time before you knew that. (Marcella: a 14 year old African Caribbean student)9
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Detailed research on life in multi-ethnic schools has revealed a good deal about the significance of “race” and ethnic identity for students and teachers. In many cases the influence of ethnicity is quite subtle: in others, the ethnicized nature of interactions is more obvious. Among the latter are cases where students’ feel themselves the victim of racial harassment. Unfortunately, despite its often overt form, racist harassment between students is frequently not recognized by teachers, whose inaction can result in spiralling conflict (see Connolly, 1998; Gillborn & Gipps, 1996). In an outstanding study of the school experiences of South Asian students, for example, Ghazala Bhatti documents aggression from fellow students and notes how teachers’ reactions can play an active role in shaping further resentments and conflicts. The following episode, for example, is drawn from Bhatti’s study and begins with her field notes on a classroom dispute between John (a white boy) and Shakeel (an Asian classmate). As the episode begins there has already been some conflict between the two: The atmosphere was getting charged. Miss Paine was busy writing the date on the blackboard. Lot of general noise in class which sounds incoherent on tape. Shakeel looking very provoked, shoved the book aside and pushed the chair back. Lull in noise level. John:
Look at him! Paki Pakora [Latter said in a near whisper but audible to Shakeel, Asad and me] Shakeel: I’ll smash your face in, you clown [said very loudly] AP: [turning around] Right that’s enough. Shakeel leave the class this minute. Shakeel: But Miss … AP: Out! Go and stand outside … God these boys! I wrote in my field notes that Shakeel made a lot of noise collecting things and putting them in his bag. There was a look of great satisfaction on John’s face. There was pin-drop silence in the class. (extract from Bhatti, 1999, p. 192)
Ghazala Bhatti accompanies this description with her own reflections on the incident and explains that the following day three white and three Asian boys were involved in a fight away from the school: both John and Shakeel took part. Bhatti notes that other students had been making noise and remarks on her surprise that “Miss Paine did not keep the quarrelling parties behind to try and ascertain the circumstances which had led to the incident” neither did she “leave the classroom to explore what had happened.” Had the teacher sought an explanation from Shakeel, she could have been in a position to defuse the conflict and to challenge John’s racism. In this case, however, only one party was disciplined and the dispute was intensified. Additionally, Bhatti notes, the incident would not have had racist connotations if both boys had been of the same ethnic origin. But in this example, ethnicity is clearly a key factor. Shakeel is reacting to racist name calling and the teacher’s decision solely to punish the Asian student “was racist in its outcome if not in intention” (Bhatti, 1999, p. 192). This kind of conflict is compounded by some teachers’ reluctance to address racism. If racist name-calling (or worse still, racist physical violence) goes unpunished by teachers then witnesses will draw their own conclusions. White students may think that
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teachers condone such perspectives and minority ethnic students will rightly question the school’s commitment to equity and justice. This situation may sound exaggerated to some (see, e.g., Smith & Tomlinson, 1989, p. 106), but qualitative studies of schools suggest that racial harassment is a regular (for some a daily) occurrence. The names shouted across classrooms, the student tripped on the corridor, the graffiti on the wall: all of these are forms of racist abuse that have been seen to go unpunished in some schools. Following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, the Home Office issued a new code of practice on reporting racist incidents. The document recommended the following definition: A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person … The purpose of this definition is not to pre-judge whether a perpetrator’s motive was racist or not: that may have to be proved … rather (it is) to ensure that investigations take account of the possibility of a racist dimension to the incident and that statistics of such incidents are collected on a uniform basis. (Home Office Code of Practice on Reporting and Recording Racist Incidents, quoted in London Borough of Lambeth nd, p. 16) Such an approach does not prejudge the guilt of any party: rather it emphasizes the importance of people’s perceptions; insists that racism be recorded wherever a participant experiences it; and adds to the impetus for a serious investigation and subsequent action. Too often, racist incidents (especially racist name calling) have been denied significance by white people who have failed to understand the meaning of such assaults. Twenty years ago an official inquiry, the Swann Report (1985), complained of this approach and it is still in evidence: the following quotations, for example, are taken from a study of white teachers’ views (Kemp & Gillborn, 2000) questioned up to a year after the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report – a period where there had been a great deal of public debate about more subtle and extensive forms of racism: I haven’t seen any instance of what I would call a serious racist incident. I’ve heard silly name-calling. I suppose it’s got to be taken seriously, but within reason: kids do call each other names, to start panicking and saying “it’s terrible, it’s being racist” is just not the case. (White primary school teacher) Occasionally they’ll name call but they won’t do it in a racist way any more than they’ll say “you’re fat” or “you’ve got glasses.” (White primary school teacher) The other day a boy called a teacher racist and I said “We’re not allowing you to use your colour as an excuse” and he admitted it … it was his cop out. (White secondary school teacher) … their first line of defence is that, “Oh, the teacher’s racist” … it’s an easy cop-out. (White secondary school teacher) These quotations are significant for several reasons. First, they suggest that even postLawrence, some teachers remain unwilling to take seriously accusations of racism or incidents where racism is clearly in play. The primary teacher who views racist name calling as “silly” rather than “serious” not only runs counter to current official advice
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on such matters (see above) they also show less awareness of the realities of racism than the white primary school perpetrator quoted in research by Barry Troyna and Richard Hatcher: like if I call someone “Dickhead” it doesn’t really hurt them, but if I call someone a “black bastard,” something like that, it would hurt them. (Gillian, white primary student quoted in Troyna & Hatcher, 1992, p. 168) The secondary teachers’ comments are also significant. They evidence a common fear among white teachers that minority ethnic students will use the notion of racism as a weapon to make spurious accusations and deflect criticism. This is an important concern and one that anti-racist institutions must work through seriously (see Bonnett, 2000; Gillborn, 1995). To simply deny the possibility that the student has a genuine grievance, however, is not only disrespectful, but also refuses any possibility of engagement and, effectively, rejects the case for anti-racism. It is a position that is untenable in contemporary education. In many ways this kind of rejection trades on an assumption (common among many white people) that “racism” is crude and obvious; seen in violent attacks or the language of neo-Nazi political parties. But the thrust of many contemporary critiques (and increasingly a view enshrined in formal equity legislation in Britain) is that racism can actually be much more subtle and even unintended. This is the position underlying the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report’s definition of “institutional racism”: The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. (Macpherson, 1999, p. 28) This definition is highly relevant to education because research has increasingly revealed numerous ways in which teachers’ assumptions (e.g., about behavior, “ability” and motivation) can operate to the disadvantage of particular minority ethnic groups. Research, in both the US and UK (and for at least two decades), has shown consistently that when teachers are asked to judge the relative ability, motivation and behavior of their students, it is likely that Black students will be systematically disadvantaged. Black students are typically under-represented in high status teaching groups (Hallam, 2002; Hallam & Toutounji, 1996; Oakes, 1990; Sukhnandan & Lee, 1998). In some cases, teachers’ differential expectations mean that Black students are placed lower than white counterparts with inferior test scores (see Wright, 1986). Additionally, Black students are over-represented in low status groups, a factor that artificially lowers their attainment because grouping students according to teachers’ expectations creates institutional barriers to success. Lower ranked groups frequently receive a more limited curriculum, which has a cumulative effect as students move through school (Plewis, 1996). A further area of disadvantage relates to differences within the dominant examination itself, the GCSE. Most GCSE examinations are now “tiered,” meaning that teachers
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have to enter students into two separate hierarchically-ordered question papers for which only a limited range of grades are available. Students can only attain the highest pass grades if they are entered in the top tier; but Black students tend to be underrepresented in this level (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Qualifications & Curriculum Authority, 2000). Worse still, the system of tiering in mathematics includes an additional tier, with the effect that students entered in the lowest tier can only attain a grade D at the very best: this despite the fact that D and below are commonly seen as failures in the job market and in competition for places in further and higher education. Research in two London secondary schools found that two thirds of Black students were placed in the lowest of three tiers for mathematics (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000). Consequently, in one of the most important core subjects, two in every three Black students had been denied the opportunity of attaining a higher pass grade before they had even seen the question paper. For South Asian students, there is evidence that language needs are frequently misinterpreted, leading to stereotyping and the denial of learning opportunities. There is often a failure to distinguish between language needs and learning difficulties. This can lead to students with English as an Additional Language (EAL) being defined as having special educational needs (SEN) and then being passed over for subsequent opportunities because of issues related to teacher expectations, curriculum coverage and examination attainment (Cline & Shamsi, 2000; Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Hallam & Toutounji, 1996; Troyna & Siraj-Blatchford, 1993).
Exclusions from School In March 2002 around 2,000 Black parents, teachers and community members attended a high profile conference focusing on the education of Black children in London. Subsequently described as “a landmark and historic event in the life of London’s African and Caribbean communities” (Livingstone, 2003, p. 1) the conference was organized by Diane Abbott, one of the few Black members of the British Parliament. Attendees were asked to complete a questionnaire on relevant issues and one of the most striking findings was the priority accorded to pupil exclusions.10 This was the single most commonly cited problem: more than a third of respondents (37%) described exclusions as the “most important” educational issue for Black people. Uniquely among the various problems highlighted, in every group of participants (parents, students, governors, teachers, local authority officers, and community workers/activists) at least 30% of respondents described exclusions as the most important problem: the figure was highest (45%) among community workers and activists (Greater London Authority, 2003, p. 50). This is a high profile and long-established problem. Black students have tended to be over-represented in permanent exclusions (expulsions) whenever relevant data have been broken down by ethnicity. In the mid 1980s, for example, “Afro-Caribbean” students accounted for 14% of London school children but made up more than 30% of all exclusions in the capital (Times Educational Supplement, September 9, 1988). This problem became even more pressing during the 1990s when the overall number of
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exclusions increased dramatically: the figure for 1995/1996 was 12,476: four times the number recorded at the start of the decade (Gillborn, 1998, p. 11). In the mid 1990s new data, based on Ofsted inspections, suggested that nationally Black Caribbean children were excluded from secondary schools at almost six-times the rate for white students (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996, p. 53). It was calculated that this meant around 1,000 additional and potentially unjust Black expulsions every year (Gillborn, 1998, p. 13). In 1998, the first report of the newly created Social Exclusion Unit focused on exclusions and truancy from school. The unit’s recommendations were taken up by Government and committed Labour to a major reduction in the number of permanent exclusions: a drop of a third by 2002 (Social Exclusion Unit [SEU], 1998). Based on the peak of around 12,700 exclusions in 1996/1997, the target was set at 8,400 by 2002. The Government abandoned this target, in 2001, arguing that the reduction had all but been achieved (at 8,600 in 1999/2000) and that no new targets were necessary (DfES, 2001): an announcement that seemed designed to placate a right-wing media that was keen to present a reduction in exclusions as equivalent to lowering standards of discipline. Perhaps predictably, the following two years saw a rise in the number of students being permanently excluded (DfES, 2003b, Table 1). It is important to remember that the official statistics on permanent exclusions are only part of the story. Indeed, there are indications that “unofficial exclusions,” which evade official recording, are becoming increasingly common (Osler, Watling, Busher, Cole, & White, 2001). We should also remember that the growth in alternative provision, including the use of referrals to “Pupil Support Units,” will have helped reduce the official numbers but do not guarantee students access to the mainstream curriculum. Additionally, Black parents’ groups have raised concerns about “internal exclusion,” where students may be repeatedly removed from class: again, a form of exclusion from equal access to schooling but not a form of exclusion that shows up in official data. With these warnings in mind, the official statistics on ethnicity and exclusion are summarized in Figure 4. Figure 4 shows the recorded levels of permanent exclusion since the overall peak in 1996/1997. The columns show the number of students in each group formally recorded as having been permanently excluded. The percentage column shows that number of students as a percentage of their ethnic group in school; hence, the figure of 0.06 Bangladeshis in 2002/2003 represents six students in every 10,000, and 0.37 for Black Caribbean students represents 37 in every 10,000. The first thing to note is the complexity of the statistics. The number of white pupils recorded as permanently excluded declined each year between 1996/1997 and the overall low of 1999/2000, but then rose in each of the next two years. In contrast, the number of Black Caribbean pupils excluded barely changed in the first year of the overall decline, but (having begun to fall more rapidly) then continued to decline even in 2000/2001 when overall numbers began to rise once again. Indian students had the least chance of being excluded (as a percentage of their numbers in the school population) throughout the entire period in question: but the number (and proportion) of Indians excluded actually rose in 1997/1998 just as overall rates began to fall. The exclusion rate for Bangladeshi students has been volatile throughout the period; including a rise in 1999/2000 (the third successive year of overall reductions), a fall in
0.18 0.78 0.31 0.71 0.06 0.18 0.10
10,555 770 200 334 91 286 60
White Bl. Caribbean Bl. African Bl. Other Indian Pakistani Bangladeshi
10,303 765 203 287 116 218 60
N
10,424
8,801 589 157 268 71 165 42
N 0.15 0.60 0.21 0.50 0.04 0.10 0.07
%
1998/1999
8,314
6,890 455 145 218 54 129 53
N 0.12 0.46 0.17 0.37 0.03 0.07 0.08
%
1999/2000
9,122
7,574 385 156 236 47 113 44
N 0.13 0.38 0.17 0.39 0.03 0.06 0.07
%
2000/2001
9,519
7,820 410 160 220 60 170 80
N 0.13 0.41 0.15 0.35 0.03 0.09 0.11
%
2001/2002
9,270
6,800 360 130 90 50 130 40
N
0.12 0.37 0.12 0.32 0.03 0.08 0.06
%
2002/2003
Figure 4. Ethnic origin and permanent exclusions from school (England, 1996/1997 to 2002/2003) Sources: For 1996/1997–2000/2001. Department for Education & Skills (2002). Statistics of Education: Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools in England. London: DfES. Table 4. Thereafter Department for Education & Skills (2003). Permanent Exclusions from Schools and Exclusion Appeals, England 2001/2002 (provisional). London: DfES, Table 2. Department for Education & Skills (2004). Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools in England, 2002/2003. SFR 42/2004. London: DfES, Table 4. Notes: N number of pupils permanently excluded. % number of pupils excluded in that ethnic group expressed as a percentage of that ethnic group in compulsory schooling.
0.18 0.77 0.30 0.58 0.07 0.13 0.10
%
1997/1998
TOTAL 12,298 12,668 (includes some groups not shown separately above)
%
N
1996/1997
Origin
Ethnic
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2000/2001 (when the overall rate started to rise), and a steep increase (of more than 80%) in 2001/2002. In view of the limitations of the official statistics, and the volatility of figures for minority ethnic groups, it is necessary to be cautious about interpreting these data. Overall, it appears that students in each of the principal ethnic groups shared to some degree in the overall reduction that occurred between 1996/1997 and 1999/2000 inclusive. However, taking a longer term view (over the whole period detailed in Figure 4) a more varied picture emerges. Comparing the numbers excluded at the start and end of this seven year period, and disregarding the “Black Other” composite group,11 the greatest proportionate reduction was experienced by Pakistani students (down around 55% on the 1996/1997 high). Students recorded as Black Caribbean (53%), Indian (45%) and Black African (35%) also experienced a greater proportionate decrease than the 36% enjoyed by their white counterparts. When we focus on the likelihood of exclusion within each ethnic group some more consistent patterns begin to emerge. Students of “South Asian” ethnic heritage, for example, have almost always been less likely to be excluded (as a percentage of their ethnic group) than their white and Black counterparts.12 In contrast, Black students (those categorized as Black Caribbean, Black African or Black Other) have almost always been more likely to be excluded than their white counterparts: a pattern that is true in every year and for each of the Black groups (with the lone exception of Black African students in 2002/2003, when their rate of exclusion was the same as their white peers). The “mixed” ethnic group (discussed earlier) does not yet feature in official statistics on permanent exclusion. Additionally, there are no national data on the use of short “fixed term” exclusions (or “suspensions” as they are sometimes also known): when students are barred from a school for a fixed amount of time. However, recently published data on Birmingham (one of Britain’s largest and most ethnically diverse LEAs) does not make comfortable reading. Figure 5 details the use of fixed term exclusions in
Primary
Secondary
Special
Girls (%)
Boys (%)
Girls (%)
Boys (%)
Girls (%)
Boys (%)
All fixed term (%)
Af. Caribbean Bangladeshi Indian Mixed Race Pakistani White Other
15.4 0.0 0.0 12.8 1.3 67.9 2.6
18.5 1.3 3.1 17.6 7.0 51.5 1.0
30.2 1.5 2.9 12.7 6.4 45.0 1.3
20.4 3.3 2.6 12.2 13.2 46.2 2.2
5.0 0.0 0.0 15.0 10.0 65.0 5.0
8.4 1.6 0.0 20.4 14.1 53.9 1.6
21.3 2.4 2.6 13.6 10.6 47.7 1.8
N
78
874
907
2693
20
191
4763
School pop. (%) 6.9 3.8 6.5 4.3 17.9 56.5 4.1
Figure 5. Fixed term exclusions by ethnic origin & gender in primary, secondary & special schools, Birmingham 1999–2000 Note: because of rounding, percentages may not always equal 100.
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Birmingham schools broken down by ethnic origin, gender, and type of school. “African Caribbean” students (a composite of the main “Black” groups) and “Mixed Race” students account for a disproportionately high number of fixed term exclusions: a pattern that is true regardless of gender and type of school. Overall, African Caribbean and Mixed Race students accounted for more than three times the number of fixed term exclusions predicted by their representation in the local school population. The over-representation of Black students in the numbers excluded from school is a topic that generates considerable debate and controversy. There is insufficient space here to explore all the relevant factors: nevertheless, in view of this chapter’s focus on the interaction between policy and equity at the school level, the single most important fact may be that there is growing evidence that the over-representation is the result of harsher treatment by schools rather than simple differences in behavior by students. Twice in recent years the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED: the independent schools inspectorate) has published special inspections concerning discipline and exclusions from school. In both cases they have found evidence that Black students are treated somewhat more harshly than their peers of other ethnic origins. In the mid 1990s inspectors found that the profile of “Caribbean” excludees was significantly different to that of other excludees: with the former judged of higher prior attainment and having less pronounced histories of disruption (OFSTED, 1996, p. 11). More recently, Ofsted reported that “many black pupils who find themselves subject to disciplinary procedures perceive themselves to have been unfairly treated”: inspectors noted that “the lengths of fixed-period exclusions [suspensions] varied considerably in some schools between black and white pupils for what were described as the same or similar incidents” (OFSTED, 2001, p. 23). These comments must be read within a context where Ofsted has, itself, been criticized for failing to take a sufficiently active role in debates on race equity (Osler & Morrison, 2000). Indeed, a research report funded and published by the Department for Education & Skills has noted that “Ofsted school inspections rarely comment on disproportionality in exclusions” (Parsons et al., 2004, p. 1). The report noted that even where evidence of over-representation was contained within reports, it usually went unremarked: None of the seven Ofsted inspection reports published on secondary schools [in the sample] commented on disproportionality of minority ethnic exclusions, which was evident in the tables published in six of them. (Parsons et al., 2004, p. 50) Once again, these official reports lend substance to several qualitative research studies that have suggested that Black students receive systematically harsher treatment, not through any conscious conspiracy to discriminate, but through the actions of teachers who tend to perceive a greater threat in their Black students (e.g., see Blair, 2001a, 2001b; Parekh et al., 2000; Sewell, 1998; Wright, Weekes, & McGlaughlin, 2000). In relation to attainment in high stakes tests and in exclusion from school, therefore, the best available evidence demonstrates first, that considerable race inequities continue to scar the English educational system. Second, the school system and education policy appear to be actively implicated in the process that sustain, and in some cases extend, race inequity. Some of the processes can appear subtle, for example, teachers’
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differential expectations and the cumulative effects of internal selection within schools. But their effects can be gross, including the fact that Black children are disproportionately removed from the mainstream system altogether (via expulsion) and refused the chance even to enter examinations that could offer the highest possible grades. Having mapped some of the major areas of inequity, the following section considers the prospects for improvement in the near future.
Racism and Anti-Racism: Policy and Practice The terms “multiculturalism” and “anti-racism” tend to be used somewhat more specifically in the British literature than elsewhere. Whereas scholars in the US, for example, have used the former term to cover a very wide range of approaches (for an excellent summary see Banks, 2004), in Britain multiculturalism has often been defined negatively in contrast to a more radical critique offered by theorists and activists under the heading of “anti-racism.” Such critiques portray multiculturalism as a liberal facade that deflects deeper criticism by attending to superficial matters of “celebrating diversity” and making limited token (often patronizing) curricular changes. Similar criticisms have been made in Canada and are becoming increasingly prominent in the US literature where the notion of critical multiculturalism, and in particular the adoption of Critical Race Theory, has much in common with anti-racist theory elsewhere (see Carrim & Soudien, 1999; Dei, 1996, 1999; Figueroa, 1999; Gillborn, 2000, 2006; Goldberg, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1998; May, 1999; Nieto, 1999; Troyna, 1993). Until recently “anti-racism” inhabited a role outside the political mainstream in Britain. Its proponents included prominent politicians in local authorities, educationists and community activists, but national policymakers fought shy of the term, which was popularly equated with extreme radicalism (see Gillborn, 1995; Sivanandan, 1990).13 Anti-racism was especially vilified during the 1980s and 1990s. Writing about the public assault on anti-racism in the 1980s (by politicians, media and right-wing academics), one of the foremost anti-racist writers in Britain noted how the hysteria that was generated acted to: still the voices of those, like myself, who tried to say that there was no body of thought called anti-racism, no orthodoxy or dogma, no manual of strategy and tactics, no demonology. What there was in our society was racism, in every walk of life, and it had to be combated – in every conceivable way. And because racism was hydra-headed, and reared its different heads in different ways in different times … the ways of combating racism were also legion. (Sivanandan, 1990, p. 147) The popular demonization of anti-racist education was lent further impetus by media distortions of an inquiry into the racist murder of an Asian student, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, stabbed to death at Burnage High School, Manchester, by a white peer (Macdonald, Bhavnani, Khan, & John, 1989). Sections of the press represented the inquiry’s findings as an indictment of anti-racism in its totality – according to one national newspaper, the “Anti-racist policy led to killing.” This is a gross distortion of the report which, in fact, argued strongly in favor of anti-racism as an essential component in the work
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of all schools. The inquiry team were, however, scathing in their criticism of the particular form of “symbolic, moral and doctrinaire anti-racism” that had been practiced in Burnage. Among the defining characteristics of “symbolic anti-racism” are: ●
●
●
an essentialist and reductive approach to race: color is assumed always to be the most important feature of a person/community – overriding other issues such as social class, gender, age, sexuality, disability, size, etc. an assumption of white racism: racism is defined as a “whites only” problem and all whites are automatically assumed to be directly implicated in racism and racist structures. a Black/white worldview: “Blacks” are cast as powerless victims and differences within and between minority communities are denied relevance.
While offering no detailed blueprint for a more complex version of anti-racism, the Burnage report’s attack on “symbolic, moral and doctrinaire” approaches offered an important basis for more reflexive and nuanced approaches (see, e.g., Carrim, 1995; Dadzie, 2000; Gillborn, 2000). Unfortunately, it took yet another racist murder (that of Stephen Lawrence), to prompt official bodies to reconsider their assumptions about anti-racism. On its publication, in February 1999, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (Macpherson, 1999) sent shock waves through Britain with its meticulous account of the bungled police investigation and its conclusion that: racism, institutional or otherwise, is not the prerogative of the Police Service. It is clear that other agencies including for example those dealing with housing and education also suffer from the disease. (Macpherson, 1999, p. 33) One of the most significant aspects of the report concerned an attempt to move beyond the superficial and extreme notion of racism that had previously characterized policy debate (in education and beyond). Pre-Lawrence public authorities and commentators tended to work with a view of racism as encompassing only the more obvious and deliberate forms of race hatred: as if “racism is restricted to a few ‘rotten apples’ in a basket that is basically sound” (Rizvi, 1993, p. 7, after Henriques, 1984, p. 62). Remarkably, for a report that began with a racist murder (surely the most crude and vicious form of racism), the Lawrence Inquiry insisted on a broad reworking of the term “institutional racism” (noted above), that explicitly included unintended and thoughtless acts that have the effect of discriminating regardless of their intent. Needless to say, this definition has been subject to endless scrutiny and debate. It is by no means a simple paraphrasing of previous approaches and it is not without its problems. Nevertheless, one thing that is common to this perspective and longer established definitions, is its fundamental challenge to complacency about the realities of contemporary racial politics and inequities. As Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton observed more than 30 years ago, institutional racism: is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. [It] originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives
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far less public condemnation … . (Carmichael & Hamilton, 1967 original emphasis, reprinted in Cashmore & Jennings, 2001, p. 112.) Speaking in Parliament on the day of publication, the Prime Minister Tony Blair, hailed the Lawrence inquiry as a turning point in British political life: The publication of today’s report on the killing of Stephen Lawrence is a very important moment in the life of our country. It is a moment to reflect, to learn and to change. It will certainly lead to new laws but, more than that, it must lead to new attitudes, to a new era in race relations, and to a new more tolerant and more inclusive Britain. (Hansard, February 24, 1999, column 380) As promised the report has led to new laws, most notably the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. This law extended the existing race equity legislation and covered more than 45,000 public bodies in England and Wales (Commission for Racial Equality, 2002a). One of the most significant changes was the requirement that public bodies take positive action to promote race equity. Certain specific requirements were made of particular services: in education, every state maintained school in England and Wales is now required to: ● ●
●
have a written race equality policy; monitor its activities for any sign of bias (especially in relation to student attainment); and draw up action plans to eliminate racial inequality. (Commission for Racial Equality, 2002b)
On paper this is some of the toughest equalities legislation anywhere on Earth and the Act undoubtedly lends a great deal of weight to those communities, practitioners and academics arguing for more anti-racist developments in education. In practice, however, the immediate impact of the legislation appears to be much less radical than might have been supposed. An initial report on rates of compliance in different parts of the public sector, for example, paints a particularly discouraging picture in relation to education. In a survey of more than 3,000 public authorities, schools were the least likely to reply. Overall, a response rate of 47% was achieved, but the rate for schools (20%) was less than half of this (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 5). Clearly a low response rate could indicate many things: for example, schools may simply be too busy to reply to questionnaires or, less charitably, a low response rate might suggest that they are less secure in their race equity work. But all this is speculation: it is reasonable to suppose, however, that the schools that did respond might include a relatively high proportion of those that view race equity seriously. If this is the case, then the survey’s results suggest several causes for concern. First, the report singles out education as an area where a high proportion of returns consistently failed to identify meaningful outcomes in their plans: There is a great deal of variation between sectors – with over half of respondents from the education sector, for example, having not identified outcomes under
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most headings. There is clearly a need for organisations to articulate more directly what they are aiming to achieve – within a concrete timetable. (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 6) As noted earlier, in relation to education the new legislation gives particular priority to levels of attainment in high stakes tests. Despite this, the survey revealed that in each part of the education sector a majority of respondents had not adequately identified outcomes that they wished to achieve. The best results were from further education institutions (where 42% set clear targets), then higher education (38%) and finally, schools (36%) (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 11). Second, schools were among the least positive respondents when assessing the impact of their race equity policies to date. Roughly two in every three schools that responded (65%) said that the changes had already produced some positive outcomes: this compares poorly with almost all other bodies, including central government (89%), further and higher education (80%), criminal justice and policing (74%) and local government (68%). Only one sector, health (62%), was less positive than schools (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 8). Third, and perhaps most worrying of all, schools were unlikely to report any perceived need for greater support in developing their race equity work in the future: The stated need for more guidance does not always correlate with sectors in which least progress had been made. This suggests that both the CRE [Commission for Racial Equality] and sector based bodies have a role in targeting awareness campaigns. (Schools for example, were least likely to express a need for further guidance – despite having made less progress in many cases). (SchneiderRoss, 2003, p. 13) The lack of progress in this field is especially frustrating because there is no shortage of clear guidance on how schools can move forward. The schools inspectorate, for example, has published two separate reports discussing examples of primary (OFSTED, 2002a) and secondary schools (OFSTED, 2002b) that are especially effective for African Caribbean students. Indeed, a wide range of research has identified a number of approaches that support high achievement for all groups and help to counter racism in schools: ●
● ● ●
●
●
●
strong leadership on equal opportunities and social justice (from the local authority and the head teacher in particular); seeking and using the perspectives of students and parents; designing and enacting clear procedures for recording and acting on racist incidents; generating and sustaining an ethos that is open and vigilant, which enables pupils to discuss “race” issues and share concerns; developing and communicating high expectations accompanied by a clear view that under-performance by any group is unacceptable; reviewing curricular and pastoral approaches to ensure their sensitivity and appropriateness; using ethnic monitoring as a routine and rigorous part of the school’s self evaluation and management.14
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Advancing race equity in schools is not rocket science. Experience in the English system clearly demonstrates, however, that being able to identify “good practice,” and even passing laws to require monitoring and target-setting, are not sufficient. The key ingredient would appear to be the political will to face up to such a complex and politically charged set of issues: to date, this has apparently been too much for the majority of head teachers and politicians (locally and nationally) regardless of their political allegiances.
Conclusion The future prospects for the development of a more just and anti-racist education in Britain are somewhat mixed. On one hand, the Lawrence Inquiry has helped to drive forward a radical critique of institutional racism that goes beyond any previous approaches that have received mainstream support. Simultaneously, legislative changes have made public authorities (including all state maintained schools) legally answerable for race inequity and established a series of requirements that provide a powerful framework for placing anti-racism on the agenda of all schools and local education authorities. These developments have considerable potential to make race equity a genuinely “mainstream” concern. On the other hand, however, the rhetoric of public figures and the good intentions of new legislation have yet to make any meaningful and consistent impact on the brutal realities of racist inequity experienced by many students. The central tenets of education policy continue to be driven by a topdown reformist agenda that prioritizes crude and regressive notions of “standards” above any serious attempt to reduce inequity and improve social inclusion. The drive to produce “results” that will look good in the formal school performance tables continues to distort school curricula; selection within schools continues to spread (to more parts of the curriculum and throughout the entire compulsory age range); inequities in attainment remain significant, in some cases they are worse than a decade ago; and Black children remain significantly more likely to be excluded from mainstream schooling altogether. Overall, the lesson to be learnt appears to be that in the absence of a thorough critique of the processes that support race inequity, and despite inclusive rhetoric from politicians, in reality racism and race inequity are left largely unchallenged, and even strengthened, through contemporary policy moves to raise standards through accountability measures that trade on results in high stakes tests.
Acknowledgements This chapter is an expanded and up-dated version of a paper previously prepared for the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Sage Race Relations Abstracts. The chapter has benefited (directly and indirectly) from the input of numerous friends and colleagues; in particular Michael W. Apple, Stephen J. Ball, James A. Banks, Carol Campbell, Nazir Carrim, Samidha Garg, Dorn Gillborn, Zeus Leonardo, Sophie Kemp, Alison Kirton, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Marie Lall, Richard Majors, Heidi
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Safia Mirza, Tariq Modood, Nicola Rollock, Ed Taylor, Carol Vincent, Simon Warren, Geoff Whitty and Deborah Youdell.
Notes 1. There is no such thing as “race” in the strict biological sense of significantly different sub-species of homo sapiens. The groups that are commonly known as “races” are viewed differently at different time points and between different contemporary societies. However, the idea of race remains a powerful social construct that requires constant interrogation. It is in this sense, sometimes called “social race,” that the term is used in this chapter. 2. Around 16% of white people are aged 65 or over, compared with approximately 3% of Africans, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. Conversely, it is estimated that 20% of whites are less than 16 years old, compared with 43% of Bangladeshis, 35% of Pakistanis and 32% of Africans (Parekh et al., 2000, p. 375). It is officially estimated that people of minority ethnic heritage will account for around half the growth in the working age population between 1999 and 2009 (Cabinet Office, 2003, p. 4). 3. A limited form of devolution within the United Kingdom means that although a single British Parliament resides in Westminster, certain powers (including those to determine the curriculum and education regulations) are now held separately in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In this chapter I focus specifically on the situation in England: there are several reasons for this. First, the largest proportion of Britain”s minority population reside in England. There are significant demographic and historical differences between the minority populations of different parts of the UK and, in a chapter of this length, it makes sense to deal with one country in detail, rather than merely skim across several. Second, and most important, the majority of relevant research has been conducted in English schools. This means that we know a good deal more about how race and racism operate in the English system. 4. Stephen Lawrence, an 18 year old Black college student, was stabbed to death by a group of white youths on a London street in April 1993. Following a prolonged campaign for justice, led by his parents Doreen and Neville Lawrence, in 1997 an official inquiry was launched into the murder and the failed police investigation. The inquiry reported in 1999 (Macpherson, 1999). 5. The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the most common examination at the end of compulsory schooling in England. The following grades can be awarded: A*, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, U. With the exception of U (ungraded), all other grades are considered to be “passes” but grades A*–C are described as “higher pass grades.” The latter are usually given preference in competition for entry to professional training and higher education. 6. For this reason I prefer to talk of inequities in attainment rather than “under-achievement.” This has the advantage of accurately describing the situation while avoiding the common misconceptions linked to “under-achievement” (see Bhattacharyya et al., 2003; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000; Wright, 1987). 7. In this chapter I use the word “Black” to refer to those children with family heritages in Africa and/or the Caribbean. There is no universally agreed protocol on the use of such terms but this approach does at least have the advantage of reflecting the preferred self-identification of many of the people so labelled. 8. The government has recently begun to release data broken down by ethnic origin and receipt of Free School Meals (FSM). It should be remembered, however, that FSM is only a crude proxy for social class. Receipt of FSM is an indicator of family poverty but there are very many working class children who do not receive FSM. This is important when considering such data because the great variety of experience within different groups could be masked by such a blanket category as “non-FSM.” It is certainly not the case that non-FSM equates to “middle class” in a sense that would be widely understood. 9. Quoted in Gillborn and Youdell (2000, p. 186). 10. In Britain the most serious sanction that a school can take against a student is to permanently expel them (“exclusion” in the official lexicon of the law). The local state has a duty to ensure that such students receive a basic education elsewhere, usually through placement in some form of special unit or limited private tuition.
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11. “Black Other” a composite group which can be prone to dramatic fluctuations in size from 1 year to the next. 12. The only exception to this pattern was in 1996/1997 when the percentage of Pakistanis excluded was the same (0.18) as the white rate. 13. For a consideration of differing national traditions of anti-racism see Bonnett (2000). 14. This list draws on numerous studies, including work funded and conducted by a range of participants, including academic researchers, charitable foundations and statutory bodies (for further details see Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 27).
References Banks, J. A. (2004). Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions, and practice. In J. A. Banks, & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 3–29). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bhattacharyya, G., Ison, L., & Blair, M. (2003). Minority ethnic attainment and participation in education and training: The Evidence. London: Department for Education & Skills. Bhatti, G. (1999). Asian children at home and at school: An ethnographic study. London: Routledge. Bhopal, K., Gundara, J., Jones, C., & Owen, C. (2001). Working towards inclusive education: Aspects of good practice for gypsy traveller children, DfEE Research Paper 238, London: DfEE. Blair, M. (2001a). The education of Black children: Why do some schools do better than others? In R. Majors, (Ed.), Educating our black children. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Blair, M. (2001b). Why pick on me? School exclusion and black youth. Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent. Bonnett, A. (2000). Anti-racism. London: Routledge. Cabinet Office. (2003). Ethnic minorities and the labour market: Final report. London: The Strategy Unit. Carmichael, S., & Hamilton, C. V. (1967). Black power: The politics of liberation in America. London: Penguin. Carrim, N. (1995). “Working with and through difference in antiracist pedagogies”. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 5(1), 25–39. Carrim, N., & Soudien, C. (1999). Critical antiracism in South Africa. In S. May (Ed.), Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and antiracist education. London: Falmer. Cashmore, E., & Jennings, J. (Eds.). (2001). Racism: Essential readings. London: Sage Publications. Cline, T., & Shamsi, S. (2000). Language needs or special needs? The assessment of learning difficulties in literacy among children learning English as an additional language: A literature review. London: DfEE. Commission for Racial Equality. (2002a). Code of practice on the duty to promote race equality. London: Commission for Racial Equality. Commission for Racial Equality. (2002b). The duty to promote race equality: A guide for schools. London: Commission for Racial Equality. Connolly, P. (1998). Racism, gender identities and young children: Social relations in a multi-ethnic, innercity primary school. London: Routledge. Dadzie, S. (2000). Toolkit for tackling racism in schools. Trentham: Stoke-onTrent. Dei, G. J. S. (1996). Anti-racism education: Theory & practice. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. Dei, G. J. S. (1999). The denial of difference: Reframing anti-racist praxis. Race Ethnicity & Education, 2(1), 17–37. Department for Education & Employment (DfEE). (1999). Ethnic minority pupils and pupils for whom English is an additional language 1996/1997. Statistical Bulletin 3/99. London: DfEE. Department for Education & Employment (DfEE). (2001a). Youth cohort study: The activities and experiences of 16 year olds: England and Wales 2000. SFR 02/2001. London: DfEE. Department for Education & Employment (DfEE). (2001b). Black and Indian students see big improvement in GCSE results. Press notice 2001/0033. London: DfEE. Department for Education & Employment (DfEE). (2001c). Schools building on success: Raising standards, promoting diversity, achieving results. Cm 5050. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2001). New measures will tackle violent pupils and parents and help promote good behaviour: Estelle Morris’. Press notice 2001/0300. London: DfES.
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Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2002). Statistics of education: Permanent exclusions from maintained schools in England. London: DfES. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2003a). Youth cohort study: The activities and experiences of 16 year olds: England and Wales. SFR 04/2003. London: DfES. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2003b). Permanent exclusions from schools and exclusion appeals, England 2001/2002 (provisional). SFR 16/2003. London: DfES. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2003c). Aiming high: Raising the achievement of minority ethnic pupils. DfES/0183/2003. London: DfES. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2004). Permanent exclusions from maintained schools in England, 2002/2003. SFR 42/2004. London: DfES. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2005a). Ethnicity and education: The evidence on minority ethnic pupils. Research Topic paper: RTP01–05. London: Department for Education & Skills. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2005b). London schools: Rising to the challenge. London: Department for Education & Skills. Department for Education & Skills (DfES). (2005c). Youth cohort study: The activities and experiences of 16 year olds: England and Wales 2004. London: Department for Education & Skills. Figueroa, P. (1999). Multiculturalism and anti-racism in a New ERA: A critical review. Race Ethnicity & Education, 2(2), 281–301. Gillborn, D. (1995). Racism and antiracism in real schools: Theory, policy, practice. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gillborn, D. (1998). Exclusions from school: An overview of the issues. In N. Donovan (Ed.), Second chances: Exclusion from school and equality of opportunity. London. New Policy Institute. Gillborn, D. (2000). Anti-racism: From policy to praxis. In B. Moon, S. Brown, & M. Ben-Peretz (Eds.), Routledge international companion to education. (pp. 476–488) London: Routledge. Gillborn, D. (2006). Critical race theory and education: Racism and antiracism in educational theory and Praxis. Discourse, 27(1), 11–32. Gillborn, D., & Gipps, C. (1996). Recent research on the achievements of ethnic minority pupils. Report for the Office for Standards in Education. London: HMSO. Gillborn, D., & Mirza, H. S. (2000). Educational inequality: Mapping race, class and gender – A synthesis of research evidence. Report #HMI 232. London: Office for Standards in Education. Gillborn, D., & Youdell, D. (2000). Rationing education: Policy, practice, reform and equity. Buckingham. Open University Press. Goldberg, D. T. (Ed.). (1994). Multiculturalism: A critical reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Greater London Authority. (2003). Towards a vision of excellence: London schools and the Black child: 2002 Conference Report. London: Greater London Authority. Hallam, S. (2002). Ability grouping in schools. Perspectives on Education Policy, number 13. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Hallam, S., & Toutounji, I. (1996). What do we know about the grouping of pupils by ability? A Research Review. London: University of London Institute of Education. Henriques, J. (1984). Social psychology and the politics of racism. In J. Henriques, W. Holloway, C. Urwin, C. Venn, & V. Walkerdine (Eds.), Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity (pp. 60–89). London: Methuen. John, G. (2001). Implementing “Schools – Building on Success”: Proposals for the consideration of Estelle Morris, Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Rawtenstall: JTN Consultancy. Kemp, S., & Gillborn, D. (2000). Achievement in southwark: A qualitative study. Presentation at the Southwark Teachers’ Centre, London: Borough of Southwark, 1 December. Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1): 7–24. Livingstone, K. (2003). “Foreword” to greater London authority (2003). Towards a vision of excellence: London schools and the black Child: 2002 Conference Report. London: Greater London Authority. London Borough of Lambeth. (nd). Challenging racism & promoting race equality: Guidance for schools. London: London Borough of Lambeth. Macdonald, I., Bhavnani, R., Khan, L., & John, G. (1989). Murder in the playground: The report of the Macdonald inquiry into racism and racial violence in Manchester schools. London: Longsight.
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Macpherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence inquiry. CM 4262-I. London: The Stationery Office. May, S. (1999). Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and antiracist education. London: Falmer. Nieto, S. (1999). “Critical multicultural education and students’ perspectives”. In S. May (Ed.), Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and Antiracist education. London: Falmer. Oakes, J. (1990). Multiplying inequalities: The effects of race, social class, and tracking on opportunities to learn mathematics and science. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation. Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2001). 2001 Census. London: ONS. Retrieved on December 20, 2005, available at www.ons.gov.uk/census2001 Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). (1996). Exclusions from secondary schools 1995/6. London: OFSTED. Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). (1999). Raising the attainment of minority ethnic pupils. London: OFSTED. Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). (2001). Improving attendance and behaviour in secondary schools. London: OFSTED. Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). (2002a) Achievement of Black Caribbean pupils: Three successful primary schools. London: OFSTED. Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). (2002b). Achievement of Black Caribbean pupils: Good practice in secondary schools. London: OFSTED. Osler, A., & Morrison, A. (2000). Inspecting schools for race equality: OFSTED’s strengths and weaknesses. Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent. Osler, A., Watling, R., Busher, H., Cole, T., & White, A. (2001). Reasons for Exclusion from School. DfEE Research Brief no 244. London: DfEE. Parekh, B. (2000). The future of multi-ethnic Britain. London: Profile Books. Parsons, C., Godfrey, R., Annan, G., Cornwall, J., Dussart, M., Hepburn, S. et al. (2004). Minority ethnic exclusions and the race relations (amendment) Act 2000. Research Report 616. London: Department for Education & Skills. Pheonix, A., & Owen, C. (2002). “From miscegenation to hybridity: Mixed relationships and mixed-parentage in profile”. In B. Bernstein, & J. Brannen (Eds.), Children, research & policy. London: Taylor & Francis. Plewis, I. (1996). “Inequalities and the national curriculum.” In B. Bernstein, & J. Brannen (Eds.), Children, research and policy. London: Taylor & Francis. Plowden Report. (1967). Children and their primary schools. London: HMSO. Qualifications & Curriculum Authority. (2000). Pupil grouping and its relationship with gender, ethnicity and social class: A summary of the research literature. Report by QCA Research, May, London: QCA. Richardson, R., & Wood, A. (1999). Inclusive schools, inclusive society: Race and identity on the agenda. Report produced for Race on the Agenda in partnership with Association of London Government and Save the Children. Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent. Rizvi, F. (1993). Critical introduction. In B. Troyna (Ed.), Racism and education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Schneider-Ross. (2003). Towards racial equality: An evaluation of the public duty to promote race equality and good race relations in England & Wales (2002). London: Commission for Racial Equality. Sewell, T. (1998). “Loose canons: Exploding the myth of the ‘black macho’ lad.” In D. Epstein, J. Elwood, V. Hey, & J. Maw (Eds.), Failing boys? (pp. 111–127). Buckingham: Open University Press. Social Exclusion Unit. (1998). Truancy and school exclusion report by the social exclusion unit. Cm 3957. London: SEU. Sivanandan, A. (1990). Communities of resistance: Writings on Black struggles for socialism. London: Verso. Smith, D. J., & Tomlinson, S. (1989). The school effect: A study of multi-racial comprehensives. London: Policy Studies Institute. Sukhnandan, L., & Lee, B. (1998). Streaming, setting and grouping by ability. Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research. Swann, L. (1985). Education for all: Final report of the committee of inquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups. Cmnd 9453. London: HMSO.
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Tikly, L., Caballero, C., Haynes, J., & Hill, J. (2004). Understanding the educational needs of mixed heritage pupils. Research Report 549. London: Department for Education & Skills. Troyna, B. (1993). Racism and education: Research perspectives. Buckingham: Open University Press. Troyna, B., & Hatcher, R. (1992). Racism in children’s lives: A study of mainly white primary schools. London: Routledge. Troyna, B., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (1993). “Providing support or denying access? The experiences of students designated as ‘ESL’ and ‘SN’ in a multi-ethnic secondary school.” Educational Review, 45(1), 3–11. Warren, S., & Gillborn, D. (2003). Race equality and education in Birmingham. Birmingham: Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Race Action Partnership. Wright, C. (1986). “School processes – an ethnographic study.” In J. Eggleston, D. Dunn, & M. Anjali (Eds.), Education for some: The educational & vocational experiences of 15–18 year old members of minority ethnic groups. Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent. Wright, C. (1987). “Black students – white teachers.” In B. Troyna (Ed.), Racial inequality in education. London: Tavistock. Wright, C., Weekes, D., & McGlaughlin, A. (2000). “Race”, class and gender in exclusion from school. London: Falmer.
52 REFORMING URBAN EDUCATION SYSTEMS
Martin Johnson Acting Deputy General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, U.K.
Four Countries in a United Kingdom Britain is a largely urban society. Agriculture and fishing employ just 1.4% of the working population. Although the pattern of recent census data is of reducing populations in some of the cities, movement is towards towns rather than the country. England has a very high population density and strict legislation with respect to building in the countryside which limits population drift. Although in some counties there are schools where rural isolation and the associated lack of aspiration are said to be a hindrance to pupil performance, most English pupils attend urban schools. Recent reform of the education system has been at the national level, with an unstated assumption that the system is one of urban schools. Indeed, there is a view that recent policy has been made with excessive attention to the circumstances (in some versions of this statement, misunderstood ) of London schools alone (Fullick & Brighouse, 2007). Those parts of the United Kingdom which have retained the most rural character are on its geographical margins, and most are not in England. Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales also have their own powers over education policy, though to varying degrees. In part, devolution of powers from the UK government occurred during the first term of the Labor Government elected in 1997. Scotland’s school system has always been different from England’s, even though it was governed from London until 1999. From 1885, when the Secretary of Scotland Act established the Scottish Office and presaged a separate administrative machine, a distinctively Scottish education system developed, with provision in advance of England. Although the observer from outside the UK might feel that the difference amounts largely to one of nomenclature, curriculum and assessment structures are divergent, as are important details of the workforce structure and roles, governance, funding, and inspection. 1007 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1007–1026. © 2007 Springer.
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The geography and history of Scotland have produced a concentration of population in the central lowlands, including the cities of Edinburgh in the east and Glasgow in the west. In this belt, the exploitation of coal led to early industrialization with heavy industries such as shipbuilding which declined in the second half of the twentieth century. Scottish urban social structure differs from England’s in having a strong religious dimension, with active antipathy between “Protestant” and “Catholic” communities with largely segregated schools in the cities. However, the Scottish Office and latterly the Scottish Executive has also needed to attend to the needs of children in the comparatively sparsely populated areas outside the central belt, and particularly in the Highlands and Islands where the protection of Gaelic culture is an ongoing political issue, particularly since depopulation was enforced by English rulers in the eighteenth century. Northern Ireland is a different case. Geographically, Belfast is its only major city. As would be expected in a small town environment, its secondary schools are on average smaller than those in England. There are also serious centuries-old divisions between “Protestant” and “Catholic” communities, played out in armed conflict between 1969 and 1998, and replicated in highly segregated schools across the whole of Northern Ireland. From the establishment of Northern Ireland in 1921 it was governed from London, but with powers including those over education devolved to a parliament at Stormont. Until the early 1960s, successive Protestant governments replicated English legislation. In 1972, Stormont was prorogued as a result of the armed conflict; power then reverted to London where it remains, with a brief interlude of self-governance following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. During this period the UK Government has not sought to replicate most education initiatives in Northern Ireland, and with local politics concentrating on ending violence the school system has been subject to relatively little change. Most noticeably, while the 70s saw the abolition of selection for secondary schools on ability grounds in most of England, Northern Ireland still has a system of “grammar” and “secondary” schools, although their reform is now being planned. While there has been some grass-roots support, mainly from the middle-class, for “integrated” schools, practical support from the state has been limited, and 95% of pupils still attend segregated schools. Wales is in an intermediary position. Prior to the 1997 referendum on devolution, legislation gave some recognition to Welsh culture. The Welsh Language Acts in 1972 and 1973 made teaching the Welsh language compulsory and created some Welsh medium schools. Voters in Wales were almost evenly split in the referendum, and the resultant legislation to establish a Welsh Assembly provided for a lesser degree of devolution than in Scotland. Within education, there is an unsatisfactory balance between powers situated in Cardiff and London, particularly on staffing, where terms and conditions for teachers are determined by the UK government but linked matters are devolved. Since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly Government it has attempted to emphasize its separate identity from the Westminster Government. It has explicitly distanced itself from market models of public service delivery. In education, although English regulatory bodies are replicated in Wales, their tone and detailed operation are different; where in England government’s purpose is to force up standards in schools, in Wales it is to support schools to improve their standards.
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Cardiff is the only major city in Wales. It is much less culturally diverse than English cities. Deprivation is more a feature of the much smaller communities which have suffered from the loss of coal-mining and other basic industries. Cardiff reflects the communal culture of these communities, and there is relatively little appetite for choice behavior in public services. However, for the Welsh Assembly Government issues of rural education, and in particular the connections with the promotion of Welsh language and culture, have a much greater political significance than in Westminster.
Continuous Reform The last two decades have seen continual attempts by the UK government to reform schools. As described below, they have been based at system level on a market model, but with strong centralist overtones and with an emphasis on powerful school accountability mechanisms. Until the transfer of powers to the Welsh Assembly Government, some of the reforms applied equally to Wales, but without any evidence of attention to its distinct needs, and reform was clearly targeted at England. However, neither the market rhetoric nor most of the interventions have been adopted by the administrations of the other countries, either before or since devolution. Also described below are policies specifically addressing urban education issues. These have not been simply replicated in the three countries. Apart from the complication of an overlay of sectarianism in Glasgow and Belfast, there is less market behavior on the part of urban parents outside England, with a greater sense of connection to the “local school.” There may be problems of deprivation and alienation in the cities of the three countries, but their administrations are relatively more aware of problems of rural poverty and isolation. Hence, the remainder of this account refers to schools in England. The manifest purpose of reform has been a single consistent theme, that of economic competitiveness which is said to require an educated workforce, itself narrowly defined in terms of some academic qualifications. This has been without regard either to an evidence base linking school achievement with economic performance (Robinson, 1997), or to additional purposes of a state system of schools. The essential character of the school system in England and Wales was established in the Education Act 1944, and in the next 35 years only three Education Acts of note were thought necessary. The election of a reforming Conservative Government in 1979 soon led to a comparative flood of legislation, including the radical Education Reform Act 1988 and the even longer Education Act 1993, and over 30 Acts between 1979 and 2000 (Tomlinson, 2001). With education remaining high on the political agenda, each new Secretary of State seems to feel it necessary to make a mark with further legislation. Most of this legislation affects all schools, but since most English schools are urban it can be seen as a reform programme of urban education. As discussed later, some of the more recent innovation has been more targeted at areas whose schools are producing the lowest pupil performance, these being deprived urban locations including the inner cities. It may be convenient to view the period since 1988 in three overlapping phases, according to the dominant focus of reform: at first the system, then the school, and
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later the classroom. The period between 1988 and 1993 saw the implementation of the Education Reform Act, which amongst a large number of changes centralized curriculum but devolved to schools significant staffing and budgetary power and established a quasi-market. The rationale for and impact of the quasi-market has been extensively reviewed (Davies, Adnett, & Mangan, 2002; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995; Power & Whitty, 1999; Whitty, 1997; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998). It is quasi since no price mechanism applies, but no other effective mechanism to balance demand and supply is in place, with the result that the administrative arrangements for admitting pupils to schools remain problematic. Adherents of the market expected open enrolment, roll-based funding, and publication of some pupil performance data to force schools to improve pupil performance in order to compete for pupils. The establishment at the same time of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) may be seen as an aspect of product information for the consumer, or as an alternative policy, a centralized inspection agency to regulate performance. Another mechanism of the same kind was the standard national tests at ages 7, 11, and 14 in addition to the existing exams for 16 year olds. It is extremely difficult to judge the success of the quasi-market, as distinct from other coinciding system changes, in improving pupil performance, although it is clear that performance has risen substantially. In 1989, 32.8% of pupils aged 16 plus obtained five or more of the new GCSEs at grades A–C, the principal benchmark; by 2004, 53.7% reached this standard. Some early evaluation suggested that schools were responding by more actively recruiting potentially high performing pupils but the extent to which the distribution of pupils amongst schools has changed remains unclear (Woods, 2007). The economists Bradley and collaborators (Bradley, Johnes, & Millington, 2001; Bradley & Taylor, 2002, 2004) used multivariate analysis to measure the impact on a secondary school of the performance of rival schools, and concluded that a 3% improvement in rivals is followed by a 1% improvement in the school’s own performance. They concede, however, that family background is the most substantial determinant of a school’s performance. The problem with this kind of analysis is that causation is not addressed. These reforms in place, attention then turned to supporting schools to improve in response to market pressure. This phase was led by academic research into effective schools, which may be traced back to Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston (1979) and Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob (1988). The school improvement movement identified in-school factors tending to raise pupil performance. They included strong but team-based leadership, and an associated shared vision; positive and consistently managed expectations of pupil behavior and performance; and a commitment to working with parents and community (MacGilchrist, 2007). School improvement was as much a grass roots movement as a Government policy, but it provided support for two policy themes. First, it supported the contention implied in the earlier reform that autonomous schools could produce better pupil performance. Second, it underpinned the rejection of an apparent determinism which explained pupil failure in terms of social factors, as summed up by the Labour Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett – “poverty no excuse.” Whilst fatalism and low expectations were, and possibly remain, a feature of some schools, it seemed by the mid-nineties
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that the pendulum of rhetoric had swung excessively, leading to the title Schools making a difference: let’s be realistic (Thrupp, 1999), and “… improvement methods would make a difference. A little difference.” (Johnson, 1999, p. 166) Limitations on the utility of the school improvement model became clear (Mortimore, 1998; MacGilchrist, 2007). One was the reliance on high quality leadership and management, when there was continuing concern about that quality which led to the establishment of a National College for School Leadership. The second was the recognition that school improvement placed heavy demands on a workforce already feeling overstretched. Thirdly, improvement research corroborated earlier findings (Coleman et al., 1966; Hanushek, 1992) and showed that 85% of the variation in pupil performance is due to factors external to the school (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). Of the remaining 15%, the classroom effect was shown to be the most substantial. This finding coincided with the determination of the Labour Government elected in 1997 to move to the third phase of reform, a programme to develop the teaching force and the quality of pedagogy. The programme seemed highly centralized even to a system which had absorbed the centralization of the Education Reform Act, as it imposed a model lesson, “the literacy hour,” on primary teachers. Said to be based on research evidence relating to effective teaching, it was implemented by way of cascade training to every primary teacher in the country, and enforced by means of the Ofsted inspection system. This National Literacy Strategy was followed quickly by a National Numeracy Strategy and a National Secondary Strategy. The Government, which had set itself targets for pupil performance, claimed dramatic success for this programme. Key Stage two (end of primary) test scores improved substantially (Table 1) and Ofsted reported improvements in the quality of teaching in primary schools. Later, the independent evaluation of the Strategies reported a much more mixed picture, with a degree of implementation without embedded comprehension, and increased problems of teacher overload and loss of autonomy. There was also excessive and counter-productive coaching for tests, and some staff doubted whether improved test results reflected real improvement (Earl et al., 2003). Recent analysis of primary pupil achievement suggests the doubts to be well-founded (Richards, 2005; Tymms, 2004). The conclusion to be drawn from this programme is that it may well be appropriate to focus on the classroom as a site where interventions can lead to improvement in pupil performance. However, a simple and didactic pedagogical model can be effective only for a short while and only to a degree. Its inadequacy was illustrated by the school inspection framework operated by Ofsted, in which inspectors were required to make separate judgments about both the quality of teaching and the quality of learning. Inspection reports frequently revealed a disparity. Whatever may be said about the Table 1. Year English Math
Key stage two: Percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or above 1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
57 54
60 60
63 64
65 65
68 69
70 72
72 74
73 74
72 74
74 75
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adequacy of the inspection framework, the implication was that a lesson (and the teacher) could be regarded as satisfactory or better if its structure reflected the orthodoxy of the Strategies, regardless of its effect on the pupils. The introduction of the new orthodox term “teaching and learning” indicates a more sophisticated approach to pupil performance, in which the classroom is understood as the site of complex social interaction and learning is seen as both the appropriate focus and as deeply problematic. Two strands of work arise. First is a revived interest in the theory and practice of learning. The learning sciences are being invoked to encourage teachers to increase their understanding of how children learn, and hence what kind of techniques can be used in classrooms to help children learn more. As Claxton puts it, “Learning is learnable (and we ought to teach it)” (Claxton, 2004). Some of the science is distorted as it is operationalized into teaching plans, such as Gardner’s (still contested) theory of multiple intelligences being transmuted into “learning styles” (Coffield, 2004). Nevertheless, national agencies such as the National Strategies and Ofsted now require teachers to have regard for reception as much as delivery of their lessons. Second is a concern to develop the school workforce. The evaluation of the primary strategies found that they “have added to teacher workload (already an issue) and contributed to feelings of being overwhelmed.” (Earl et al., 2003, p. 7) At the moment of the publication of this study, the Government was signing an agreement with the national employers and most of the unions representing school staff, “Raising Standards and Tackling Workload: A National Agreement.” For the unions, the primary aim was to reduce excessive workload, largely by transferring parts of teachers’ work to other staff. For the Government, a longer term aim was to provide the capacity at school level for teachers to become more effective. In part, this involved contractual changes to identify time set aside for the preparation of high quality lessons. Another part, currently in development, is both contractual change and development of provision to enable teachers to take part in professional development to enhance their understanding of the theory and practice of pedagogy. An alternative approach to this aim is to make provision which addresses barriers to learning within the lowest achieving groups. This is one of a number of drivers behind the debate about qualifications and curriculum in the 14–19 phase. There is a limit in the extent to which better pedagogy and test preparation can continue to raise achievement. With only just over half the cohort reaching the benchmark of five good GCSE passes, and the benchmark national test at 18, three GCE A levels, passed by 28%, national testing in this phase can be seen as a process of exclusion, since none of the proliferation of other qualifications available have similar status. Proponents of reform argue that a single qualifications framework for all academic and vocational studies with clear progression covering all attainment levels would result in increased participation in the post-compulsory phase. Some of the proponents go further, arguing for substantial curriculum reform for all in the secondary school so that lower achievers can be offered more appropriate learning experiences to maximize their commitment to learning. Qualifications and curriculum reform may be desirable for a number of reasons. It remains an open question as to whether it would benefit lower achievers disproportionately and thus reduce the range of achievement, or whether a more attractive offer
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would enable all pupils to make better progress. Formal expressions of “pupil voice” are not strong within British schools, but it may be that even successful pupils find the current experience demotivating and develop very instrumental attitudes to learning and qualifications. Another weakness of this approach is the lack of connection with labor market economics. Evidence on returns to qualifications, the extent to which a given qualification increases earning power, suggests that low levels of participation in non-academic courses post-16 may be rational responses to their value. It is the attitudes of employers, and in particular their readiness or otherwise to pay wage premiums for qualifications, which may well have more decisive influence on participation rates.
Developing the Quasi-Market This categorization of reform as having three phases since 1988 should not obscure the overlap between them. In particular, there have been continuing attempts to develop a market model for the school system. Adherents of the market argue for product differentiation in order to provide consumers with real choice. With a national curriculum prescribed in detail, regular national pupil assessments, and a national inspection system which has inhibited innovation, it might be argued that there is little space for schools in England to develop individuality, but to enable a choice rhetoric governments since 1988 have developed a number of categories of schools. It is worth reflecting that although the three phases of reform were applied to all schools, the choice rhetoric and measures to produce differentiation have been targeted largely at secondary schools. It is not clear why governments have not thought it important to drive up standards in primary education by means of competition within a quasi market, especially since primary schools in England with a mean roll 239 are generally considerably smaller than secondary schools, with a mean roll 943 (DfES, 2004, Table 2), so that in urban settings the larger number of primary providers might be expected to make a more satisfactory market. Product differentiation has been achieved in forms of governance and finance, but it is difficult to judge to what extent these have resulted in differences that are obvious at the level of the classroom. A constant theme has been the injection of private sector resources and expertise, despite the lack of any evidence that the private sector as a whole has significant enthusiasm for close involvement with individual institutions. The first attempt of this kind was the City Technology College, provision for which was made in the Education Reform Act. CTCs were established as independent schools funded largely by the Government, but with sponsorship from business. They were obliged to follow the national curriculum but were independent of all local authority control, including over admissions. In the event only 15 opened. Mainstream business would not support the programme, and most of the sponsors were self-made entrepreneurs. CTCs affected the balance of intake of other schools within their catchment areas, but made little impact on the system as a whole. The 1988 Act also introduced grant-maintained schools in England and Wales. They were distinguished by an even higher degree of autonomy than enjoyed by all state
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1962/63 1963/64 1964/65 1965/66 1966/67 1967/68 1968/69 1969/70 1970/71 1971/72 1972/73 1973/74 1974/75 1975/76 1976/77 1977/78 1978/79 1979/80 1980/81 1981/82 1982/83 1983/84 1984/85 1985/86 1986/87 1987/88 1988/89 1989/90 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04
Boys
Girls
Total
16.3 18.2 21.0 22.0 22.8 22.8 22.8 23.0 23.3 23.3 22.5 22.9 22.2 22.7 23.4 23.7 23.5 23.7 24.5 25.4 25.4 26.3 26.3 26.2 25.6 28.2 29.8 30.8 33.3 34.1 36.8 39.1 39.0 39.9 40.5 41.3 42.8 44.0 44.8 46.4 47.9 48.8
15.0 17.2 19.5 20.3 21.2 22.2 22.6 23.2 23.8 23.6 23.4 23.4 23.0 23.1 23.5 23.6 23.9 24.4 25.6 26.8 27.1 27.2 27.4 27.2 27.2 31.7 35.8 38.4 40.3 42.7 45.8 47.8 48.1 49.4 50.0 51.5 53.4 54.6 55.4 57.0 58.2 58.8
15.7 17.7 20.3 21.1 22.0 22.5 22.7 23.1 23.5 23.5 22.9 23.1 22.6 22.9 23.5 23.7 23.7 24.0 25.0 26.1 26.2 26.7 26.9 26.7 26.4 29.9 32.8 34.5 36.8 38.3 41.2 43.3 43.5 44.5 45.1 46.3 47.9 49.2 50.0 51.6 52.9 53.7
schools, and their budgets were enhanced by the amount that other schools were calculated to be receiving in services from their local authorities. It was for schools themselves to decide whether to transfer status. Take-up was geographically varied, ranging from 16 out of 17 secondary schools in the outer London borough of Bromley to none in some
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counties, but by the time of the change of government in May 1997 a fifth of secondary schools in England had become grant-maintained. To some surprise, particularly of many of its supporters, the incoming government signaled its adherence to the choice rhetoric by maintaining the distinction (though with a new name, “foundation schools” and revised funding arrangements). The Labour Government further developed differentiation by means of the strong development of a programme of specialist secondary schools, which combined a number of elements of the choice agenda. The virtue of private sector involvement was injected by means of a requirement that schools raise £50,000 in sponsorship as part of a bid for the status. The bid also required a 4 year plan for what could be described as a programme of school improvement centered round an expertise in a particular curriculum area from a short list chosen by the Government. However, specialist schools were not released from the requirement to teach the National Curriculum. Most schools participating in the programme, again self-selecting, freely accepted that the major motive was the cash benefit totaling about £0.5 million over 4 years for the average sized school. The purpose, particularly the ideological purpose, of this programme is somewhat unclear. In the early years there were strong claims from the Government, and of course from specialist schools themselves, that they formed a kind of elite. Their pupil performance was better than that of other secondary schools, though the dispute as to whether that derived from their qualities or the qualities of their intake has never been quite resolved. However, the Government then announced the aim that all secondary schools should become specialist, and indeed by September 2005, 2,383 out of 3,385 schools in England had achieved the status. This expansion has ended the role of the specialist schools programme as providing market differentiation, especially since the specialism is often not a strength of the specialist school (Ofsted, 2005). It has also made argument about comparisons between specialist and other schools a matter of history. Apart from the specialist programme, the Labour Government made commitments to support “faith” schools as a means of promoting what it termed “diversity and choice” despite evidence on their segregational effect in English cities and the implied reinforcement of continuing segregation in Northern Ireland. Further, it introduced its own version of the CTCs, known as academies (originally city academies). The significant difference between the two programmes was the readiness of the Labour Government to fund high-cost new build, and this in the context of a commitment to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in the country over a 15 year period by means of Building Schools for the Future, a private-public partnership scheme with traditional financial controls. Most recently, in October 2005 the Government published a White Paper, “Higher Standards, Better Schools for All” which attempts to stimulate market behavior in two ways. Firstly, it introduces further product differentiation by means of “trust schools.” Private sector and charitable organizations may establish trusts and take over willing maintained schools, although they would enjoy only the same degree of autonomy as foundation schools. This also reflects the belief of the Prime Minister in the superiority of the private sector. There are no apparent incentives for schools to take up this option, but the White Paper proposes a new government office, of Schools Commissioner,
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which would broker trust schools, and it remains to be seen what unofficial leverage would be applied. Second, the White Paper reflects the recent concern amongst supporters of the market that it would operate more effectively if it were more dynamic, with easier entry and exit. Nodding also to “parent power” it proposes to facilitate proposals from groups of parents, or others, to establish new schools. It remains to be seen how the provision of capital for site acquisition and building, planning consent, and project management is to be facilitated, but the implication is that it is “others,” in the form of enterprises with access to such resources, who are more likely to be involved than groups of parents. These proposals were associated with the Prime Minister personally, rather than the whole Government, far less the governing Labour Party. As their publication coincided with speculation about the Prime Minister’s authority and popularity in the context of his decision to resign at some time before the next general election, it remains to be seen how much of them will be realized. The mechanisms for differentiation listed above are far less powerful determinants of school organization and functioning than the centralized policies described earlier. The national curriculum, national testing, national inspection, national funding, a workforce employed on nationally determined contracts and standards, together make English secondary schools highly similar. Their differences are due in part to any individual ethos that may be generated, particularly in the case of faith schools, but largely to differences in intake characteristics. It is probably the case that parental concern about “choosing” a secondary school is rather higher than 20 years ago although 45% of secondary pupils attend their nearest school (Burgess, McConnell, Propper, & Wilson, 2004), but it is difficult to know whether that is because they feel more like consumers with a choice to be made from a range of products, or because of the heightened salience of education, and “school standards” in particular, as a political issue. The Government has sponsored research on parental attitudes to secondary admissions (Williams, Coldon, Stephenson, Logie, & Smith, 2001) but none on attitudes to the quasi-market and choice. It may be that an effect of the quasi-market has been to generate not diversity but ethos convergence amongst urban secondary schools. A symbol of ethos in English schools is the pupil uniform, a matter for decision by schools and traditionally a visible signal of a school’s (class) cultural position. Since the introduction of the quasimarket uniforms have become not more various but more similar (Halpin, Power, & Fitz, 1997). This would be explained by schools adopting a recruitment strategy aiming not at a market segment but at some middle ground, which incidentally is likely to be occupied by comparatively non-problematic pupils – from the points of view of both behavior and attainment.
Reform and Attainment The purpose of school reform, whether focused on the system, the school, or the classroom, has been consistent and simple. It is to raise levels of pupil attainment.
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Attainment is capable of simple definition since the introduction of national testing at the ages of 7, 11, 14, 16, and the post-compulsory school age 17 and 18. Attainment is defined and measured by written examinations in English, mathematics and science at 11 and 14, and in a wider range of subjects at 16. The validity and reliability of these tests is assured by a national agency, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. From the point of view of policymakers, reliability is the more important characteristic as it permits comparisons within and between cohorts. The degree of reliability over time is a disputed technical question. Attainment scores have been subject to national targets since the 90s, but targets were systemized by the introduction of a system of Public Service Agreements in 1998. In a Comprehensive Spending Review, the Treasury negotiated with each spending department of state an agreement on the department’s activity, spending, and planned outcomes for the period ahead. The outcomes were expressed as targets. The process has been repeated every 2 years, although the Treasury has announced a further Comprehensive Spending Review to take place in 2006. In 1998, targets for school performance by 2002 were set as follows: ● ●
At key stage two, 80% to reach Level 4 in literacy and 75% in mathematics. At 16, Increase in the proportion who achieve one or more GCSEs at Grade G, or equivalent, from 92 to 95%, and five or more GCSEs at Grade A* to C from 45 to 50%.
As pointed out earlier, the years since the implementation of the Education Reform Act have seen substantial increases in pupil performance as measured in both primary and secondary schools. However, only the five A* to C target was met. As the tables below show, performance at key stage two flattened off from 2001, and the rate of improvement at GCSE has slowed. It is instructive to take a longer term perspective over school performance. Although there are no longer term data for primary schools, there is claimed continuity in standards set in national tests at 16. It is reasonable to describe trends in performance at 16 plus as follows. There was a steady rise in the 60s with a period of stagnation in the 70s. Another short period of modest increase in the early 80s was followed by further stagnation, coinciding with a period of teacher unrest. The most marked rise occurred between 1988 and 1993, from 26.4 to 41.2%, an increase of almost 2.5% p.a. This preceded the implementation of the Education Reform Act with its marketization, but coincided with the introduction of the GCSE, a unified examination. In the period 1994–2004 there have been further steady increases averaging 1.1% p.a. There has been no significant change in the range of achievement. Improvement of a whole cohort at approximately the same rate, rather than relative gains by lower attainers, is indeed a plausible outcome of both school improvement and teaching and learning approaches to reform. National, highly centralized reform programmes might be assumed to benefit all schools and all pupils to approximately the same degree. Indeed, as Rutter et al. observed in 1979, if all schools were to improve to the standards of the most effective, the advantage to the pupils of more favored backgrounds would become more marked.
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The School Quasi-Market and Range of Performance The data on pupil performance does not provide conclusive evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of all or any of the reform programmes undertaken in the last 20 years. The establishment of targets made pupil performance a significant political issue, particularly in light of the well-known statement by the leader of the Labour Government that his priorities were “education, education, education.” An outcome has been close scrutiny of performance data and the generation of more sophisticated and differentiated data, which itself has fed further policy debate. The remainder of this chapter is concerned particularly with two debates about the relationship between school reform and pupil performance, within the context of a greater interest in internationally comparative education performance. The first of these focuses on not average performance but the range of performance, and so deals with questions of equity within the reformed system. The second returns to questions of the impact of social structures outside education on pupil performance, and by implication the utility of public expenditure on education itself. In the early years of the publication of pupil performance data, attention was centered on the national figures, in relation to national targets. Governments attempted to explain differences in performance at school level in terms of differential school effectiveness, in line with the rhetoric of the school improvement movement. Hence the slogan, “poverty no excuse.” Other analysts sought not excuses but evidence on the relationship between social factors and attainment as a basis for further policy. Gender, race, and deprivation and class could be seen as being related to achievement at all ages. The policy debate was further enhanced by the publication of reports of OECD’s PISA project (OECD, 2001, 2004), an international comparative study of attainment in language, mathematics and science. It also contained associated data, including social background and pupil attitudes. The British government pointed up the 2001 finding that the performance of 15 year olds in England and Wales in literacy compared well internationally. Other commentators noted the detail that the highest achievers were almost the best in the world, but England and Wales had the highest range of achievement amongst the better performers, giving rise to the phrase “Britain’s long tail of underachievement.” These findings stimulated a debate about inequality of performance which continues to the present. More recently, the relatively low education and training participation rate of English 17 year olds has also been accepted as an indicator of the need for policy development, particularly in the area of curriculum and qualifications.
Targeted Support for Schools British policymakers noticed that the PISA studies showed a much closer relationship between the social class origin of pupils and their educational attainment in Britain than in many other OECD states (MacGilchrist, 2007). The Labour Government’s policy interventions directed at this link began soon after its election, co-existing with a market rhetoric. These programmes targeted support at geographical areas where pupil
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performance was lowest, and these coincided with areas of social deprivation. First, the Government established 73 Education Action Zones throughout the country between 1998 and 2000, containing over 1,300 schools. Before the programme was wound up in 2005, EAZ schools benefited from about £300 million of extra investment. Schools in the zone were required to work together and with partners such as the LEA, parents, local community, voluntary organizations, and local businesses. The latter were expected to contribute about a quarter of the funding, although actual cash and kind donations were much smaller. The aim of the EAZs was to use the additional resource, the freedom to innovate, and the energy of collaboration between schools and with the community and local business to raise pupil performance. The outcome was patchy. Some EAZs were seen as extremely successful, but others lacked the internal momentum to produce test score improvement greater than non-EAZ schools (Ofsted, 2003; Halpin, Dickson, Power, Whitty, & Gewirtz, 2004). Second, the Excellence in Cities programme was launched in 1999, originally covering secondary schools in inner London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and West and South Yorkshire. It was later extended to other cities and 34 smaller towns with significant pockets of deprivation, and now involves 1,000 secondary schools and over 1,000 primary schools, including those in successful EAZs which have become “excellence clusters.” By 2004, spending on EiC had risen to some £350 million p.a. Excellence in Cities was much more centrally directed than EAZs, comprising five strands each with a dedicated funding stream. Secondary schools welcomed the capacity to appoint learning mentors, a new kind of individual pupil support worker. Evaluation suggested positive impacts on attendance and behavior, but pupil performance improvement was again more patchy (DfES, 2005a, 2005b; Machin, McNally, & Meghir, 2004), although at GCSE stage EiC Schools improved at twice the rate of non-EiC schools in 2002 and 2003 and by about four times in 2004. Finally, in 2003 the Government responded to media interest in the performance of schools in London by establishing a unit within the DfES, the London Challenge (Fullick & Brighouse, 2007). London is a significant factor in any evaluation of English schools since one sixth of its pupils are educated there. It contains both the wealthiest and the poorest localities in the country. Some localities exhibit the highest levels of pupil mobility and the highest concentrations of pupils for whom English is an additional language, along with deprivation factors associated with low attainment. Compared with the rhetoric of the market, choice and diversity, the methods of the London Challenge seem like a throwback to earlier concepts of government intervention, and its work has been largely un-advertised, apart from the inspirational contribution of the charismatic figurehead of the Challenge, Tim Brighouse. The key activities of the Challenge are spending and individual school support. London has been an early beneficiary of the long-term school building programmes, particularly through a concentration of academies within the area, a number of which replaced “failed” secondary schools. Additional central government funds have been allocated for substantial increases in salaries and some housing support for London teachers, which has led to substantial improvement in the perennially difficult teacher recruitment and retention. A significant proportion of the spending on a national programme to improve leadership
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has been directed at London schools. The London Challenge team itself has been an important additional resource. It has supported local authority advisers in finding solutions to problems faced by individual schools, from finding a suitable applicant for a key vacancy to finding the appropriate mechanism for a school rebuild. In some ways, London Challenge is behaving like local education authorities before 1988, controlling additional resources and using its staff to support schools. Another way in which the Government has signaled its concern with the lowest attainers is by means of its national targets, which are refined at each Spending Review. In the first review, targets for schools were expressed in terms of percentages of pupils to reach certain levels. The 2002 version for performance at GCSE was: Raise standards in school and colleges so that between 2002 and 2006 the proportion of those aged 16 who get qualifications equivalent to five GCSEs at Grade A* to C rises by 2 percentage points each year on average … . (DfES, 2002) However, it was argued that such targets encouraged schools to neglect pupils who were unlikely to reach grade C. As a result, the Government introduced “floor targets,” which are designed to affect the performance of the lowest attainers. The 2002 GCSE target continues: … and in all schools at least 20% of pupils achieve this standard by 2004 rising to 25% by 2006. By 2004, all LEAs to have a rate of achievement for 16-year-old pupils of at least 38% obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C or equivalent. Increase the percentage of pupils obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A* to G (or equivalent) including English and mathematics: by 2004, 92% of 16-year-olds should reach this standard. None of these 2004 targets for secondary schools were met, although significant progress was made towards the 20% floor target. A purpose of the Spending Review is to align government department activity to policy as expressed in the targets. A good example of this was the establishment of a unit within the DfES to monitor and support all schools which were at risk of missing the floor targets. Causation is difficult to establish, but in 1997, there were 615 secondary schools where fewer than 25% of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs. In 2004 this had reduced to186.
Targeted Action on Deprivation Additional support for schools with deprived intakes has been accompanied by the development of programmes targeted at deprived families. Inevitably, early child development and parenting have been a major focus of new provision. The 1998 Green Paper, Meeting the Childcare Challenge, established a National Childcare Strategy for
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children from birth to 14 as a vital component of the support for parents and families. The Government introduced free early education places for 4-year olds, later extended to 3-year olds, and which led to the introduction of the foundation stage of the national curriculum for children from three to the end of the reception year. The view that childcare and early education are vital to challenge the propensity of deprived children to relative underachievement drew on research showing that by the age of 22 months there is a marked difference in the achievement of pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds (Feinstein, 2003). The Government also linked childcare with its 2010 objectives of 70% lone parents in employment and halving child poverty, on the way to eradicating child poverty in 2020, and other objectives including improving health, boosting productivity, improving public services, closing the gender pay gap and reducing crime. The Sure Start programme aimed to improve parenting support for the poor from birth onwards, with user involvement in service planning and delivery. The Government also planned a children’s centre in every one of the 20% most disadvantaged wards in England, bringing together good quality childcare, early years education, family support and health services. In 2004, The Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners set out plans for extended services, with schools playing a leading role in making available for all a core offer including childcare between 8 A.M. and 6 P.M., access to sport and cultural activities and specialized childrens’ services, and parenting support. Much of this could be seen as being borrowed from the Integrated Community Schools programme in Scotland (Tett, 2007), which was initiated in 1998. However, if the extended services agenda is part of an attempt to raise the relative attainment of lower achievers, the allocation of just £680 million over 2 years from an education planned expenditure (2004–2005) of over £52 billion seems rather conservative. This sum, which is about the same for a national programme as spent on the targeted Excellence in Cities, is intended to be a 2 year start-up support with transition to self-funding, which implies charges to service users. The context is that by 2007–2008 the average per pupil funding for schools will be at least £5,500, more than double the 1997 figure, and education spending will rise to 5.6% of GDP, although a slowdown in the real rate of growth is planned for 2006–2008. If rational policy making involves allocating resources appropriate to policy priorities, it seems that the Government has more faith in school improvement than family support as routes to overcoming deprivation but as yet there has been very little open debate about the relative effectiveness for better pupil performance of marginal spending on a range of public services apart from schools (Robinson, 2004). Much of this policy aimed at deprived families is directed to children in their early years. Hence, any improvement in their educational achievement would not have worked through to the key national indicators years of age 11 and 16. However, whether interventions in care and parenting are likely to achieve significant changes to strongly class related patterns of achievement may depend on the specifics of class cultures and class relations. Caution on judgments here is indicated by the very stubborn history of those patterns in Britain.
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The Stubborn Class Differential As suggested above, a feature of the English system is the large amount of data on pupil performance as measured by national tests. Now available down to individual pupil level, it supports both academic research and political rhetoric. The evidence on recent trends in performance is mixed. The Government claims that schools in deprived areas are improving at a faster rate than others. However, in 2005 the Government also released figures which suggested a widening in the performance gap between deprived pupils and others at age 11. (DfES, 2005c). Although the proportion of deprived pupils attaining level 4 is increasing more quickly than for other pupils, the latter are achieving the higher level 5 in greater numbers. This failure to close the substantial class differential in performance has been accompanied by a failure to reduce social inequality in general. In 2003, 28% of children in Britain were in poverty (Bradshaw & Mayhew, 2005) and the Government has confirmed that worklessness is a major cause of child poverty and that lone parent households have a high level of poverty (Marsh & Perry, 2003). Recent work has shown over 30% annual mobility around the poverty line (Kemp, Bradshaw, Dornan, Finch, & Mayhew, 2004), which suggests an even larger social group who experience insecurity and instability leading to particular cultural forms inimical to education success. In this highly unequal society education policymakers are handicapped if unable to use concepts of class culture and cultural reproduction to understand the relationships between “socio-economic status” and educational outcomes. Failure to analyze educational performance in the context of class structures tends to lead to relative under-emphasis on factors external to school, and relative over-emphasis on school improvement. Although the Government has developed policies for both, rhetorically it is improvement in schools serving deprived communities which has been more salient. This is strikingly inconsistent with the finding above that at least 85% of the variation in pupil performance is due to factors external to the school. It is arguable that virtually all of the policy debate since 1979 about school reform has taken place as if this were not the case. Britain has one of the highest levels of relative poverty in Europe (Bradshaw & Mayhew, 2005). It is difficult to imagine that this is unrelated to its relatively “long tail of underachievement,” but this connection is not made in much analysis of the PISA findings. In Britain there has been much popular comment on the success of Finland, observed to be “top of the league,” but British observers of Finnish schools could not find obviously superior practice. A wider analysis of the economic and social structures of Finland has been largely absent; it is surprising that Finland’s distribution of wealth and income, its levels of relative poverty, and the resultant class cultural forms including commitment to education, have not been examined. An alternative suggestion is that these omissions are not at all surprising. British governments since 1979 have been neo-liberal in approach, with a commitment to market solutions to policy issues wherever possible. Many members of those governments with a concern for social justice are committed to a trickle-down theory, that the benefits of greater wealth for the wealthy will spread throughout society. In this period, inequality of both wealth and income has grown, including during the period of Labour Government since 1997. The Labour Government has defended its position of
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promoting social justice within a neo-liberal framework by increasing spending on public services and slightly increasing public sector spending as a proportion of GDP. Schools in particular have benefited from substantial increases in funding. This firm framework sets the Government in opposition to a “social Europe,” which it regards as uncompetitive in global markets because of the burden of public sector provision, not least in services for the disadvantaged. British policymakers are not in a position to ask themselves whether reducing the range of educational achievement and the level of educational exclusion can only be achieved by reducing the level of social exclusion. The Scandinavian model is seen as impracticable, because it implies a degree of egalitarianism and a size of public sector which governments argue are unacceptable to the British.
Conclusion The UK Labour Government first elected in 1997 has continued its predecessor’s strategy of levering up pupil performance by market mechanisms. However, in practice this approach has not been applied consistently. It has made no attempt to force it on the more or less devolved nations, perhaps in part because concepts of parental choice have little meaning in rural settings – the market can only be a strategy for urban schools. As pointed out elsewhere in this volume (Woods, 2007) the Government has also worked with the grain of opinion within the education community that collaboration between schools may be a more effective route to raising system performance, and recognizes that “co-opetition” (Davies et al., 2002) better describes how schools really behave. The result has been an incoherent if not apparently contradictory programme, the incoherence manifested in its major policy publications. The programmes for urban schools may be described as partially successful, with large elements of cross-school co-operation, despite inadequate targeting at deprived pupils and communities. It is likely that the roll-out of policies to support the young children of deprived families will also make some difference. Reform has been accompanied by improvements in pupil performance as narrowly tested. There remains underperformance by a substantial fraction of the cohort and an unacceptable range of performance. The failure of schools to produce any reduction in the disparity of performance between children of different social groups must be seen as a major failure for a government committed to reducing inequality. There has been little official focus on the performance of pupils from various “race” groups despite the clear finding (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000) that within a complex picture some groups are disadvantaged independently of other factors such as class. It seems likely (Gillborn, 2007) that in general schools are giving little attention to their statutory duty with regard to “race.” Policymakers will be forced to return to the simple and longstanding proposition that differential educational performance is determined largely by social structures outside schools. Deep-seated questions about the distribution of wealth and income and the cultural forms generated by the distribution will need to be addressed again. At the same time, there will need to be a review of the purposes of state education. A taken-for-granted within a marketized system is that consumers can compare providers
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in terms of key data, with the result that individual pupil performance as narrowly tested becomes the overriding focus of schools. This approach gives rise to concerns at two levels. First, schools concentrate on a few skills and specified knowledge of academic subjects required to pass written tests. It may be that such a curriculum does not sufficiently equip young people with the skills and outlooks required in contemporary society. Second, it squeezes work on schools’ other purposes, which may be summarized as social rather than individual. Schools need to be perceived as key institutions in building and maintaining communities and in developing appropriate levels of social cohesion. While education remains near the top of the political agenda, schools can expect to remain the objects of further reform, but there is no reason why the next round could not have wider foci. However, it is difficult to see how community building ultimately can co-exist with market drivers. That is the dilemma for today’s policymakers – and perhaps tomorrow’s.
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53 URBAN LEARNING AND THE NEED FOR VARIED URBAN CURRICULA AND PEDAGOGIES Richard Riddell Faculty of Education, University of the West of England, Bristol, U.K.
Introduction: The Need for Varied Pedagogies Pedagogy has been a key focus of the “third phase” of educational reform in the UK, for the past 10 years or so, as Johnson points out in this volume. Large national programs such as the literacy and numeracy strategies (DfEE, 1997, 1998) – now the national primary strategy (DfEE, 2003b) – have brought about substantial changes in classrooms, with many common pedagogical elements being introduced (Earl et al., 2003). And the strong external accountability mechanisms established in the first, system phase of reform have reinforced these changes and, possibly, ensured they were implemented faster. In practice, as Johnson also points out, these changes have constituted a reform program for urban schools because of the urbanized nature of the UK. However, it is argued here that this will not be sufficient to change radically the relative performance of children from different backgrounds and communities, even though this is still the avowed aim of the UK government (DfES, 2005c). The problem is that twenty-first century urban classrooms, as organizational and personal contexts for learning, have been constituted by complex, historical processes of social, economic, and political change (Riddell, 2003). Learning processes will only be effective for all children, therefore, if they engage with the specific realities which have emerged from these processes of change, and are based on an understanding of the different educational, cultural, linguistic, and social starting points of urban children. Pedagogy – while clearly needing to draw on much current national and international practice – needs to be tailored to specific classroom situations. This can only be done after active engagement with the family, community, and peer-group context for non-school learning, and its incorporation into the curriculum.
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Social, Economic and Political Change Understanding the social, economic and political events of the past 30 years hence becomes crucial to understanding how the current shape of state schooling has emerged. In the UK as elsewhere, major recession in the 1970s began a process of change whose consequences are not yet complete (Brown & Lauder, 1997). A generation of narrowing income gaps since the Second World War was succeeded by one where they widened (Power et al., 2002) and, in the early years of the twenty-first century, evidence of narrowing income gaps and the elimination of child poverty is at best still limited (Brewer, Goodman, Shaw, & Shephard, 2005; Hills & Stewart, 2005). One of the consequences is that, in major centers of population, there remain significant social and economic gaps between often neighboring communities – British society remains profoundly stratified. And this has developed and been sustained by the unfolding restructuring of the British economy since the 1970s, with large scale reductions in opportunities for unskilled work in major industries (and the end of some of these industries themselves), rising unemployment as a consequence until the 1990s (still prevalent in some urban communities), and moves since the 1980s towards more “non-standard” employment, often insecure by its nature (Hills & Stewart, 2005; Roberts, 2001). At the same time, and partly as a consequence, there has been a decline in the size and relative significance of the working class (Roberts, 2001), and growth in an opposite trend of the “new” middle class (Bernstein, 1975; Roberts, 2001), that is, those whose employment is in professional and administrative roles on behalf of others who own or are responsible for businesses or public sector organizations. The formation of this class is not complete (Butler & Savage, 1995; Savage et al., 1992), yet it wields considerable influence in urban areas on employment, housing, consumption, and education (Butler with Robson, 2003).
Political Change in Public Services: Consequences of the Quasi-Market Unlike in villages or market towns where a small number of schools has to cater for broad strata of the population, schools in major conurbations have always differed in the social composition of their intake, reflecting the characteristics of the communities they serve. This has often been exacerbated in the UK by academic selection and the existence of schools in the private sector (Judge, 1984). However, the introduction since the 1970s of the quasi-market in one form or another into public services, across the English-speaking world (Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998), has exacerbated this situation considerably. The quasi-market intention to ensure that schools responded to the expressed wishes of “consumer citizens” (in this case, parents), is discussed elsewhere in this volume (see Johnson, 2007; Woods, 2007). For the present purpose, however, it is important to understand that not all schools have been affected in the same way (Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995); more to the point, not all parents now enter the market on an equal footing.
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Middle class parents enter as “skilled/privileged choosers” (Ibid., p. 25), because of the knowledge of the system they bring to the market’s processes (Power, Edwards, Whitty, & Wigfall, 2003) and the skills and resources they are able to deploy, for example, in appealing against a decision not to offer their child a place at a particular school. In addition, their economic capital means they are more able to purchase private education or a house in the catchment area of favored schools. Working class parents tend not to be market players at all (Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1995). Moreover, “like seeks like.” Middle class parents are keen for their children to be educated in schools attended by “people like us” and not schools attended by “others” (Bagley, Woods, & Glatter, 2001; Ball, 2003). The decisions they take and the transitions for their children are not painless (Power et al., 2003), but they are worked on extensively, with much visiting and gathering of information, which is now legion. Much of this gathering is through “talk” and drawing on the social capital of networks of friends and acquaintances (Ball, 2003). Parents also often use their relationships with schools to glean wider data about, for example, the effectiveness of teachers, and this is then further discussed with their peers. This appears not to be confined to the UK – see, for example, Lareau’s (2000) account of the behavior of US middle class parent helpers in elementary classrooms and their use of inside information.
The Development of Stratification and the Emergence of “Upper” and “Bottom Strata Schools” The net result of this cumulative process of the exercise of preference in urban areas has been an exaggeration of existing social differences between the intakes of schools, particularly at secondary level (Riddell, 2003). The effect of middle class action has been exclusive, in the sense that winning opportunities for their children in favored schools has in practice denied them to others (Ball, 2003). In the major conurbations, where the effect has been felt over large numbers of schools and young people, the effect has been dramatic. Up to seven different “strata” of secondary schools can now be identified (Brighouse, 2003; Newsam, 2003), ranging from those which are academically selective, which in practice means on the basis of so-called “general ability” even when the school professes to be assessing “aptitude” (Coldron & Williams, 2000), through those which are socially selective because of the (now) advantaged nature of the areas they serve and the effects of the quasi-market, to the lower strata schools. Schools in the upper strata have a greater proportion of socially advantaged children and of children from professional and middle class homes. There will be lower proportions of children with identified special educational needs, and certainly those with social, emotional or behavioral ones, and there will be fewer children from families or communities in crisis (Riddell, 2003). The schools are more likely to feature well in external measures of performance and inspection and higher proportions of their pupils will proceed to higher education. Schools in the lower strata are categorized by Brighouse (2003, Ibid.) as “comprehensive minus,” “secondary modern,” or “secondary modern minus.” Riddell (2003)
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refers to the group as a whole as “bottom strata schools.” These schools have far lower proportions of young people from socially advantaged backgrounds because of the processes by which the schools have emerged, and more from families who experience social and material deprivation, for whom schooling may not be the highest priority in their lives. Some will live in abject poverty – still; many however will value education and ensure their children are well-cared for, but have few well-defined ambitions (Riddell, 2003). There will be fewer young people in these schools who, on the expectation of their performance at 11, will be high achievers in national performance tests at 16. These schools will thus be less “attractive” to parents (Gewirtz et al., 1995; Whitty et al., 1998; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998) because of the “privileging” of the academic in the market, and will be more vulnerable to its vicissitudes as a consequence, particularly if things go wrong for them. Because of the location of bottom strata schools, many will also have higher numbers of recently arrived immigrant families, seeking asylum or refugee status, to join established UK communities, or just greater prosperity; there will be more speakers of English as an additional language. Teachers’ authority will be challenged more often; there will be significantly higher levels of special educational need; an important minority of students, particularly by the midteens, will not attend school often and some hardly at all; and “behaviour,” ranging from routine “low-level” disruption in all classrooms to outbreaks of violence, will either be a continual pre-occupation or require continuous vigilance (Riddell, 2003). The schools will often experience the social echoes of major events in the community; managing the resulting tensions between groups of students or parents and ensuring they do not spill over into outbreaks of disorder in school will become the only task of senior staff for significant periods of time (Ibid.). What Thomson (2007) describes as the “time order economy” needs to prevail all the time in these schools. Because of additional other aspects of the ways in which urban school systems have developed – “flight” from inner urban areas, for example, and the existence of a thriving private sector – bottom strata schools often now predominate over large areas of the major conurbations. At secondary level, they are often the majority form of state school and are the framework within which local attempts at improvement must be forged, even though there will be a small number of secondary schools in radically different circumstances, often with extremely high raw score performances, in many urban Local Authority (school district) areas. So much so, that in some cases they will “out-perform” local private schools. The presenting cultures of the schools at the two extremes couldn’t be more different.
The Nature of Learning; Learning Deprivation The contexts of schools are therefore by no means the same and in urban areas they differ markedly from each other. The task facing the “super-” or “socially selective schools” (as Brighouse, 2003 refers to them) is quite different from that facing bottom strata schools – and the pedagogies required similarly must differ. And although the demands of “aspirant parents” (DfEE, 1999) in the former schools, and the views they take of teachers (Butler with Robson, 2003; Lareau, 2000), can be very demanding,
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we know that in bottom strata schools, schools serving areas of relative disadvantage, considerably greater effort is required to make progress, and this effort has to be sustained over time (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000). This is not, to take the sort of “deficit ideology” referred to by Tett (2007), just a matter of “dealing effectively with” the difficult context, for example, through developing a “behaviour policy,” with graded rewards and sanctions so that teachers can get on with the “real business of teaching.” Learning is “completely” bound up with the context in which it takes place – its location, time of day and physical conditions, and in personal terms, the feelings or states of mind of the learners at the time (Claxton, 1999; National Research Council, 2000; Riddell, 2003). Even with apparently untroubled transactions between teachers and young people, the classroom and its interchanges have been constituted by the sum of, and interactions between, the social, economic and political processes described so far, even though they are of course also affected by the pedagogies employed. Because urban schools are constituted in such a wide variety of ways, each classroom has a unique socio-cultural context in which learning is constituted and recognized as such by young people, and within which previous learning might be used as a building block, regarded as a hindrance, or just plain bypassed or “ignored.” And to be useful and drawn upon, the learning derived from classroom experience needs to be applicable in other contexts and situations beyond the school; and further still, the learner needs to be able to recognize its relevance and be able to apply it. This constitutes the issue of learning transfer. In the bottom strata schools, this becomes a much bigger and more complex issue; in schools in the upper strata, children are able to move more seamlessly between the various contexts for their learning, often because there are greater similarities between how they are constituted in home, school, and community. Pollard with Filer (1996, p. 97) construct a cyclical model of learning to describe the processes involved in classroom activities, their antecedents and outcomes, shown here as Figure 1. It was developed on the basis of an ethnographic study of children of primary age and to explain their findings in terms of a “sociology of learning.” Their model describes how young people carry their unique “identity” into learning experiences. This includes their “intellectual and physical potential,” together with the “material, cultural, and linguistic resources” they have accumulated from previous learning, and experiences in school, family and community. In effect, this is both their social and economic context “in their head” and the results of their previous learning; classrooms have as many of them as they have children. Children enter each learning “challenge” – which arise through “experiences, relationships, and tasks,” and in the social setting of the classroom – with a “stance” towards learning and the “strategies” for learning they have previously developed. Once in the classroom, their learning may be enabled or put at risk by the “social” and “power relations” which exist there, the degree of “control” they are able to exercise over their own learning and the way the teacher is able to “scaffold” the young people across their “zone of proximal development,” that is, the area available for the next steps in their learning (Vygotsky, 1978). This of course varies from young person to person depending on their previous learning cycles, and is a key role of pedagogy, practiced appropriately in context.
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Relationships of self and others (with family, peers, and teachers)
IDENTITY potential and resoruces (intellectual and (material cultural, physical) and linguistic)
Learning challenges (experiences, relationships, and tasks)
Informal learning outcomes (self-esteem and social status)
Learning stance and strategies (self-confidence, motivation, and strategic resources)
Formal learning outcomes (curriculum attainment)
Opportunity to learn in social settings (working consensus and power relations affecting risk taking and control)
Quality of teaching and assistance in learning (structuring of affective and intellectual support at the ZPD) Figure 1. A social model of learning (taken from Pollard with Filer (1997) p. 97)
On the basis of the combined experiences of greater or less effectiveness in learning, the young person achieves “formal” (curriculum) and “informal” (personal) “outcomes” to take into subsequent learning experiences. These outcomes further develop their “resources” and “potential,” affecting the “stance, self-confidence, and strategies” with which they begin subsequent learning. The context for learning in their heads changes again.
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There are a number of important implications of this model of the learning process and the issue of learning transfer. First, young people who complete “successful” cycles, that is, ones with more or better informal and formal outcomes, start subsequent cycles at an advantage. Young people who complete learning cycles less successfully start subsequent ones somewhat behind their peers. If they repeat this poorer process, they fall further behind again. In other words, disadvantage is cumulative and recycled. Over thousands or more learning cycles during a school career, such relative “learning disadvantage” becomes more and more serious for young people unless its underlying causes are identified and addressed. This must be part of the truth, at least, behind the attainment gaps which widen with age in the UK (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000) and cannot simply be explained on the basis of class, ethnic origin, or gender. To put it another way, the Pollard with Filer model helps provide the link between social structures, individual agency and the further subsequent development of structures.
Learning Disadvantage and Urban Classrooms What are the circumstances in which learning disadvantage arises and is then cumulatively amplified with age? It is clear that children with fewer material resources – books, for example, or other stimuli and experience gathered in their family and community environment through such things as visiting theatres or museums – will be disadvantaged as they approach learning experiences where these things are important (in school). And certainly, if they have dramatically fewer opportunities generally for learning in family and community, because of the impoverishment of their environment, they will be further disadvantaged in school because of the cumulative and reinforcing nature of learning. Some young people – for example, from some otherwise impoverished or minority communities (Moll & Greenberg, 1992) – will have a background of rich learning in community, but transfer may be weak if the school’s expectations and environment cannot “recognise” the learning and its conventions, particularly if the dominant ones are of a different type from those in school. In addition, if children have fewer cultural resources, or less “cultural capital” (Bourdieu, 1986), they may not know what to expect in the classroom situation and may continue to misinterpret the signals of their teachers and peers, deepening their cumulative learning disadvantage. They may not know, and may not learn, how to orient themselves to school learning; they may not know what success is within the terms of the cultural expectations of the classroom or, indeed, what it has got to do with them. This will affect the stance they take to future learning in the terms of the Pollard with Filer model (1996). And this may be compounded if the linguistic patterns in use at home (or peer group) are different from those obtaining in school; the “no language” assumption sometimes made of some children of working class and minority ethnic origin by teachers has its basis in teachers’ expectations of linguistic interaction with children which are different from those obtaining at home (Brooker, 2002). From some backgrounds, for example, African American working class ones, the home-generated expectation is not that young children will respond to the “questioning techniques” of
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adults, but listen respectfully and avoid eye contact (National Research Council, 2000). Such children will not benefit readily from the teaching and may be thought worse of, irrespective of how well-cared for they are at home. The learning strategies which children have accumulated will be effective if they work within the classroom context – the closer they are, and the greater similarity between their backgrounds and their teachers’, such as is often the case in upper strata schools – the more effective they are likely to be. Children who have chances to experiment and try out different ways of doing similar things in their home environment (e.g., in a professional middle class home) will bring these strategies into the classroom, and a belief in their eventual success even if they fail at first. Those without such opportunities will not, and their self-confidence in learning will suffer. Poorer outcomes mean fewer or poorer strategies. Last and by no means least, if children are impoverished, cold, badly clothed, and under-fed, they will have few material resources and learning may well be the last thing on their mind. But the important point is that learning disadvantage may be experienced even by young people from backgrounds where they are well-cared and provided for, and they are encouraged to attend school and take their school work seriously. This is not just another tale about material disadvantage and poverty. In all these cases, the learning disadvantage experienced by young people affects their stance to learning and the self-confidence with which they may navigate their way in the social world of the classroom. And this is before the teacher’s pedagogy and planned experiences begin to have an effect, whatever their sophistication after the third phase of national reform. Furthermore, in the classrooms of bottom strata schools, there are more children experiencing learning disadvantage than others and they constitute a higher proportion of the pupils on roll because of the way in which the schools have evolved, including the cumulative “absence” of children from more advantaged backgrounds due to the quasi-market. The concentration of large numbers of such learning disadvantaged children has compositional effects in the schools, and this is what makes the nature of the presenting context “relentless” and much more challenging on a day to day basis (Riddell, 2003). Again, these schools are quite different to work in from those in the upper strata. Teachers naturally adapt their expectations in such circumstances in the face of difficulties and there is some evidence that they modify their pedagogy, often restricting its range and repertoire (Thrupp, 1999) compared with what is available in the schools attended by more advantaged children. Thus upper strata schools may have richer curricula, with a much greater emphasis on “extras”; bottom strata ones much more of an emphasis on literacy and numeracy and, perhaps, employment outcomes. This is how the “pedagogy of poverty” becomes the “poverty of pedagogy” (Haberman, 1991), reflecting the nature of national prescription in a performativity climate; this is precisely the opposite of what is required. And in countries where schools serving more advantaged communities are better resourced than those in the bottom strata (not the UK, but see Kozol, 1991 for some of the effects in the US, and Thomson, 2002 for Australia), learning disadvantage is not only cumulative with age, but compounded by the schools’ circumstances and ability to respond.
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Constructing Urban Pedagogies to Reduce Learning Disadvantage in Specific Contexts The complexity in the community processes through which the huge range of urban classrooms is constituted requires the construction by schools of a “two way path from school to the community and from the community to the school” (Heath, 1983; quoted in National Research Council, 2000, p. 111). In upper strata schools, where many young people enter schools with clear ideas of its purpose and its rules, and with parents who have already constructed their “life projects” (Ball, 2003), it is certainly desirable to “start with the child.” But the diversity in the backgrounds of the children in bottom strata schools, and the consequent potential greater distance between the expectations, cultural norms and linguistic patterns in school – in short, the instrumental and expressive orders (Bernstein, 1975) – and the assumptions and experience in family and community, make this a necessity, not just a desirability. The point is the same: providing a mental (and sometimes a physical/pictorial) route from the home and community environment into the appropriately constructed learning environment in the school. Young people need to be able to make immediate connections when they enter school, before they are engaged in the formal learning experiences planned by their teachers, between what is important to them – their interests, the dominant imagery and the symbols in their family, community and peer group lives – and life inside school. And they need to be able to see and be aware of these connections (National Research Council, 1999). Otherwise, they will find some of the notions with which they are eventually presented in the classroom difficult to accept (Ibid.) and, certainly, to transfer (Claxton, 1999; National Research Council, 2000). By these processes, learning in school is located within and starts from pupils’ own understanding and experience, and a foundation for effective transfer is laid. This does not mean that young people from certain, non-privileged backgrounds cannot be introduced to “the canon,” whatever combination of abstract knowledge, “subjects,” culture, and intellectual skills it is taken to be, or to abstract thinking, merely that the physical and mental routes into it for them have to be well-planned and obvious. And more so than, for example, for young people from professional middle class homes for whom the canon reflects the patterns of their family thinking, experience and language exchange. When they arrive in school, often they are “coming home”; they are stepping through their second front door. Nor should this mean a simplification or restriction of the canon, or of aspects of knowledge to which young people have access in the interests of “relevance”: something which may be suspected to lie behind, or certainly be the implication of, moves towards a more “practical,” or, in early twenty-first century UK usage, “vocational” curriculum. But in certain contexts, this most definitely does mean reviewing ideas of the “educability” of some children – for example, those who have been excluded or serially excluded from schools or have been identified as having “social, emotional, or behavioural” needs – and it does mean pressing “forward with the task of reconceptualising pedagogy,” as Hart et al. (2004, p. 14) say, to ensure access to the canon. This is true even while needing to respond to pressing social and other needs, which cannot be ignored and which find expression in the relentless day-to-day environment of the
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bottom strata school described (Riddell, 2003). The implication, however, is that there is not one “urban pedagogy,” but a blend appropriate to the circumstances of the school and its pupils. Specifically, this means careful thought about the physical environment where this in the gift of the school (colors, layout, furniture, and background music), and the expressive order overall (dress, rituals, expectations), so that they reflect first, what is important for learning once in school and the sorts of relationships between adults and young people which are supportive of it; and second, the imagery and symbols referred to in family, community, and peer group to enable the transition from different modes of thought (and learning). This needs to go further than symbols, however. The strength of the Pollard with Filer social model of learning is that it reminds us of the variety of learning outside the classroom and of the importance of its relationship with that within it, because all of it is the foundation for learning and the interpretation of subsequent experience. If the predominant modes of learning in the community are different from those in school, then they too need to find some place in the school curriculum. Otherwise children, especially when they are young, will not recognize learning in school for what it is. Further, if what is considered important to know in the community does not find some reflection in school, to show its value, school knowledge itself will remain abstract and “other.” Moll and Greenberg’s (1992) pioneering research in an impoverished Hispanic community found that one predominant community mode of learning was by watching and imitating (adults), and important knowledge areas in the community were based on the construction industry and the, necessarily frequent in a poor community, maintenance of motor vehicles. Accordingly, they recommended the incorporation of this mode of learning and these and other “funds of knowledge” into the school curriculum, as starting points for children’s further learning. On this view, because children construct “a model of the world to aid them in construing their experience,” as Bruner puts it (1996, p. 56) – not, it must be said, one subject to metacognitive reasoning, at least in its early stages – they will only derive meaning from new learning experiences within the terms of this model. This explains the bafflement of some children experienced by all teachers in response to some of their lessons. Expanding this constructed model to encompass other forms of learning (e.g., absorption of information through explanation and discussion) and knowledge (e.g., algebra, or cultural heritage in a variety of idioms) becomes the task of pedagogy, inside and outside the classroom. The teacher plans these transfer routes in and out of classroom learning so that it remains grounded in the mental and physical reality of the young person. The final step in constructing urban pedagogies is to provide for and be specific about the development of the learning skills, modes, and strategies with which students need to be acquainted, particularly if they are not likely to be so in other contexts. They are important aspects of the learning cycle (the Pollard with Filer Model, 1996). The components of such “learning to learn” tools are described in varying ways; in the UK they have been included in statutory curriculum documentation for some time (see, e.g., DfEE & QCA, 1999) and are on the national curriculum website (www.nc.uk.net, available November 29, 2005). They are referred to as the “thinking
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skills” of creative thinking, information processing, enquiry, reasoning, and evaluation, and are part of the “learning across the curriculum” requirement. This does not mean that these learning tools are taught specifically or effectively in most schools, or that there are different opportunities to learn and develop them as part of enrichment or other activity. There is no systematic evidence either way, but they form an important component of the stance and strategies with which further learning experiences and challenges are tackled. We do know that there has been a huge expansion of germane materials for teachers – this “brain learning industry” itself requires a separate detailed examination. In practice, this means that some schools will use frameworks for constructing their pedagogies which are comparatively well-founded in research: Claxton’s (2002) four characteristics of effective learners (resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity), for example. Others will use less wellsupported frameworks: Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004) examined 13 of the most influential and popular frameworks of so-called “learning styles” and found little of practical value in any of them. If the “urban pedagogies” required in bottom strata schools are to be effective, therefore, then they do need to be soundly based: it cannot be assumed that young people will be acquiring their own resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness or reciprocity in other learning contexts in family and community. And even if they have done so, the mental constructions of such characteristics (e.g., from gaming) may well not transfer to, or be capable of being used in, the learning context of the classroom. Again what elsewhere might be the pedagogical desirability of being explicit about the objectives of particular pieces of learning, becomes a necessity in bottom strata schools if young people are to develop self-efficacy in their learning (Riddell, 2003); something far easier for young people from other social contexts, where their social confidence transfers into their learning behavior in the classroom.
The Implications of Developing Urban Pedagogies in Bottom Strata Schools Having physical and teaching environments in school which ease transition from family, community and peer group learning contexts and back again, and reflect the requirements and business of learning; incorporating local modes of learning (urban pedagogies) and funds of knowledge (urban curricula); and being specific about the teaching of effective learning skills (pedagogies again); all have the profoundest implications for bottom strata schools – far more so than for schools serving socially advantaged communities where not doing this will do less damage long-term to the students educationally, occupationally, and in terms of their eventual social position. The first of these implications is that, if it is necessary to enable the physical and mental transfer from family, community, and peer group to classroom learning, schools need to know and understand the interests of their pupils and the dominant imagery and symbols in these other aspects of their lives. They need to understand the dominant forms of learning in the community, the linguistic patterns in use and what constitute the local funds of knowledge.
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These therefore need to be studied and considered carefully. The everyday tacit learning all teachers “pick up” as they gauge the “character” or “personality” of their classes (Huberman, 1983, p. 486) and think about why some lessons succeed beyond expectation and others “bomb out” (Ibid.), is not sufficient by itself. The more profound and explicit learning required needs to be based on understanding and, because of the diversity in the complex processes which constitute bottom strata classrooms, cannot simply be undertaken by the incorporation of generalized research findings (e.g., about how African Caribbean boys learn) into school, although this may be a good starting point. The nuances in local communities (and between individuals and groups of individuals), which may develop and change over time (Riddell, 2003), demand constant attention and continually renewed acquaintance. The second implication is that the diversity in classroom construction and local community nuances make keeping an open mind about their effects in the classroom essential, particularly as they too may vary over time; above all, it means being “reflective.” This is the exact professional opposite of the implementation of given approaches, structures, or pedagogies irrespective of context which, unless their deeper pedagogical principles are understood by teachers – that is, how they should be introduced to the specific circumstances of the school and class – cannot ensure that young people learn in all circumstances (Fullan, 2001). This is his third and deepest stage of learning. Reflective teachers also need reflective schools; both learn cyclically (Senge et al., 2000), because that is what learning is like, and such professional learning cycles are the fundamental defining characteristic of learning schools, themselves open-minded as organizations and reflective in the light of the changing experience of their communities. The third implication arises from the fact that the greater “distance” between the experiences and expectations of children and the school is also experienced by the parents (Dyson & Robson, 1999) and, of course, the community. This does not mean, as Dyson and Robson point out, that there is a lack of interest in education on parents’ part. Indeed, in the few studies where parents living in poverty, for example, have been interviewed about their children’s education, whatever problems they have been found to be experiencing with school, they usually see education as a “way out” and essential to avoid their children’s living in the same circumstances in a generation’s time (see e.g., ATD Fourth World, 2000). The implication is that parents and the community need to be actively “enrolled” (Riddell, 2003) in the mission and purposes of the school, that is, not just consulted about the vision of the staff, but actively engaged in its development. Otherwise, and without the credibility this gives the staff, it will prove difficult for the school to sustain any study of and acquaintance with family and community modes of learning, linguistic patterns and expectations. The different ways in which middle and working class parents approach schooling from when their children are quite young (Lareau, 2000) mean that establishing any dialogue at all to start or continue this process is more challenging for bottom strata schools. But the reward for success is that parents think the school is “theirs” and head teachers in particular are able to move speedily out of their “negative honeymoon period” (Riddell, 2003, p. 57). Fourth, to aid the construction of physical and mental routes into school learning and back again, community-based learning activities for young people need to be
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developed in conjunction with, and sometimes under the leadership of, the community. As Dyson and Robson also say, there has been a huge increase in such activities since 1997, often referred to as “study support,” to emphasize their (expected positive) relationship with classroom learning, attainment, and school attendance (DfES, 2002a). Their importance, besides being part of the “route” into and out of school learning, is that they provide learning (or can do so) which complements, extends and strengthens that in school, in a way that the learning of middle class children outside school also often does. Learning time is gained; the “translatable” learning stance and strategies of young people are developed, again in terms of the Pollard with Filer (1996) model, and their “potential and resources” to aid further learning in the classroom and elsewhere increased. Fifth, schools need to collaborate with each other if they are to address adequately the needs of families with children at a number of schools and ensure consistent, helpful and thoughtful expectations are placed on them, particularly during transition. But there are further reasons to collaborate – it is an important way of sustaining improvements in schools, or reform. MacGilchrist (2007) writes about the difficulties of ensuring that upward trajectories in attainment continue after about 3 years; we know from Fullan’s research (2001) that the role of the district is crucial to sustaining improvement – finding time and resources after programmes and national funding cease, for example, and providing encouragement to principals. To this must be added the importance of developing Fullan’s notion of a “professional learning community” across a number of schools, particularly where senior (and other) staff understand the circumstances in which their colleagues work at other schools and are able to share their mutual experiences as a basis for both learning and maintaining morale. In pure common sense terms, however, no individual school (unless exceptional and hence a dubious model for development) can be expected to develop in isolation a picture of its community learning and funds of knowledge, or an urban thinking skills curriculum. This too has to be done in collaboration – it is simply more efficient. Sixth, and more broadly than this, schools need to work closely with other public and voluntary agencies which are, or should be, active in the community and provide a variety of services and venues. For the most troubled young people, it will be difficult to develop a “full picture” of them in school unless such collaboration takes place. Bottom strata schools have many such pupils, a large proportion of them subject to the statutory procedures of other agencies, for example Social Services and the Police, and some of them will be in the public care. But even for young people who are not troubled, or socially or materially disadvantaged, schools cannot learn about the communities they serve without such joint working (young people only spend about 24% of their time in school by the time they are 16, for example – National Research Council, 2000); if they do not share experiences and understanding with other agencies, including community and voluntary sector ones, then their community footprint is much restricted. Again, such thinking is not new and is represented in the concept of the “full service school” (see, e.g., Campbell & Whitty, 2002) and UK notions such as the “extended school” (DfES, 2005a). In the UK, the extended school is intended not only to provide a focus for services provided by other agencies (e.g., health care and parent education,
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which could be seen as another manifestation of deficit ideology) but study support as well; that is the provision of enrichment and complementary curriculum opportunities. Many schools in urban areas have in any case sought and obtained bases on their premises under their own initiative for professions employed by other agencies, for example social workers and police officers (Riddell, 2003). Wider than this still, and rather than being just confined to learning, the role of schools is also conceived to be fundamental to the regeneration on a broader front of some communities, partly because poor education attainment is seen as one of the characteristics of such communities (Social Exclusion Unit, 2001) and partly because they are such significant local resources. The active engagement of schools in their local communities is seen by some as vital to reduce their communities’ social exclusion.
Achieving Urban Curricula and Pedagogies So What Will it Look Like? Briefly, on the basis of the arguments presented here, the urban school in the lower or bottom strata of its local schools system will provide time and training for all its staff to be working and learning in the community – running learning events for adults and/or children collaboratively, with or in support of members of the community. Others will be working alongside other agencies such as youth officers, the police and welfare officers in developing out of school activities to be included in the “76%” of time available. Sometimes these will be practical community-based activities – sport, music, caring and performing for elderly people, developing a new playground, working in a local children’s centre – designed to ensure young people engage actively with their community and neighbors. Other community-based activities will be part of the “normal” school curriculum, with staff and young people studying aspects of the community together, as part of geography, for example, or science, the citizenship curriculum, art or English. Often this will involve travel into different communities – either neighboring ones or town or city centers – to enable reflection on the contrast with the home community, the way civic decisions are made (and can be influenced) and how services in the private, voluntary and public sector are provided. There will be a major emphasis on joint events with other schools, especially where this makes possible work with students from contrasting social or aspirational or ethnic backgrounds (or all three), with an emphasis on following up these contacts electronically, via SMS messaging and in person. In school itself, young people (and adults and neighbours) will see images of their community (and others), of themselves, of work and projects elsewhere to which local members of the community and graduates of the school have contributed, and the signs and symbols of their cultural experiences and background, including languages other than English if appropriate. The decor will be of mixed colours, but allowing of rooms where the furnishings and surroundings are more comfortable and appropriate for more reflective activities. In any case, where possible, rooms will allow of a variety of arrangements so that interactions between teachers and students can be of a varied
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nature; different groupings of young people (plus young people and adults) can be accommodated and lessons of varying degrees of practical, formal or silent activity enabled. Background music will be possible in all rooms, appropriate to the activity. The classroom pedagogy itself will vary – often during the same day for particular pupils or groups of pupils – but will include both direct delivery involving a high degree of engagement and discussion with young people, often on abstract and challenging issues; skill acquisition, repetition, and development (e.g., in literacy, numeracy, and thinking skills); and more facilitative lessons where young people are coached in longer term assignments. The balance for young people will depend on their own progress and interest, which will be tracked and planned with them. Teachers will have thought hard – on the basis of the school’s developing understanding of the community – about how the content of their lessons can be rooted in the pupils’ understanding and experience, including the results of aspirational work with them such as that done through gifted and talented programmes. The goals and objects of study – including “thinking skills” – will be prominently displayed and illustrated in the school and will be often be raised in conversation and meetings with young people by staff at all levels. Finally, the direction of the school – its planned developments for the medium term – will be understood and again displayed prominently. It will not be unusual to see working groups of students, staff and members of the community addressing some of the hurdles in the face of these planned developments with an enthusiasm only born of personal investment. This is neither compensatory education nor preparation for employment.
Can This be Done? Many urban schools will recognize a number of the elements in this brief description, some many, and others will agree on the desirability of this “vision” consistent with their own missions, but feel it cannot be accomplished in the current climate; yet others will feel it not necessary. A realistic assessment needs to be made of achieving this, therefore, in the current UK national context and, in particular, to avoid the short term triumph of the “optimism of the will” over the “pessimism of intellect,” as Grace (2007) expresses it. There is no doubt that some urban schools, particularly in the upper strata, will not need to engage in quite the way described in this chapter. In some major UK conurbations, where parents (mainly middle class) feel pleased to obtain a place at a particular school for their children and have a clearly developed notion of the instrumentality of schooling in preserving social position and preparing for a good career, the development of urban pedagogies and curricula will not be necessary to maintain schools’ relative position in the quasi-market and in terms of external assessments. Some schools will nevertheless want to do this, however, as all need to be clear that what they offer allows all their pupils to flourish. For those schools which are not so secure, there are a number of matters which have to be considered if the development of appropriate urban curricula and pedagogies is to be possible. The first is whether schools are likely to have the “capacity” to be reflective in the ways suggested and be able to study their local community. Second,
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there is the issue whether this is at all possible in the era of the third phase of reform – the detailed prescription of classroom and program activity. Third and finally, in a quasimarket, is it possible for schools to realistically collaborate in the ways suggested?
Capacity School capacity has a number of components: there needs to be the time, resources, the skills and enthusiastic staff. To take the last point first, staff do need to be positively orientated towards this work, because it is hard. This is also harder to measure, and less so to predict. For these staff, Fullan’s “moral purpose” (1993) needs to encompass change in disadvantaged communities, a sympathy for their young people and a desire to help them improve. All that can be said is that some staff will most likely always seek jobs in challenging schools, either because they are in communities similar to the ones in which they were brought up, or generally because they want to “make a difference.” What would help, however, is the promotion by academics, national officials and politicians and the media of these schools as some of the most worthwhile to work in. Some of the schemes in the “London Challenge” (discussed by Johnson; DfES, 2003d) may promote such a positive image. Extra pay will no doubt help, as far as we can tell; although this seems unlikely nationally, schools do have the discretion to pay more in recognition of some work. Reducing workload will also help in view of the day to day context and has been a key theme of “workforce development” (see DfES, 2002c; Johnson, 2007). At the time of writing, it would appear that some progress is being made. The questions of time and resources are caught up with each other. On the positive side, one of the greatest changes in the UK since 1997 has been the availability of large funding streams targeted primarily, but not exclusively, at urban areas. Excellence in Cities (DfEE, 1999), the multi-strand scheme made progressively available to English urban areas mentioned by Johnson (2007), is the most obvious of these, but others had begun life as projects largely mounted in (urban) areas because of poor performance. However, unlike in the United States, the local authorities where most urban schools are located tend to be better funded (because of national grant arrangements) and are required to pass this funding on to their schools. And some of the currently nationallyheld funds (such as that for Excellence in Cities) will also be gradually devolved by the end of the decade. So there is some margin, highly significant in some areas; the question is whether schools are able to create the capacity for getting into the community and develop urban pedagogy, rather than spending it on more compensatory schemes or smaller class sizes – or will want to. The debate will continue, but crucially will depend on the communication of its importance to school leadership teams, in the broader sense, and their own commitment. However, it must be said that the notion of the “learning school” has become prominent in national professional narratives (Fullan, 2001; Riddell, 2003; Senge et al., 2000). Finally, there is the issue of skill in reflexivity. Leaving aside the literature, these are skills that teachers do not use extensively in the community at the moment, although they have no choice but to exercise them in their own classrooms when things “bomb out” (see above and Huberman, 1983), even if only tacitly. These skills could be built on in a different context, therefore, with the right sort of support and provision.
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Achieving Reflexivity in Third Phase Reform: The Era of Detailed Prescription As Johnson (2007) says in this volume, there is no doubt that the desire to implement nationally a given lesson structure marked a new stage in prescription. And there is no doubt that implementing some one else’s prescription or programme needs to go through Fullan’s three phases (2001). There has been some concern in the UK about not enough teachers achieving the third stage (understanding the pedagogical principles underlying the change so that they can be modified to the classroom’s specific circumstances) by the team evaluating the national literacy and numeracy strategies (Earl et al., 2003), but there has been a clear realization in central government for some time that less prescription is required and more professional trust; schools are now seen as the key “partners of reform,” there is to be greater flexibility of school funding, including between the big national programs mentioned, and there is a renewed emphasis on the need for change to be school-driven (see DfES, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b). The real question will be whether this is felt to be the case in schools (Riddell, 2003). Certainly, the “New Relationship” with schools (DfES, 2004b; DfES & Ofsted, 2004) with “lighter touch” and shorter inspection based on self-evaluation may lead schools to believe it so and, hence, not feel as great a need to pursue their own view of national orthodoxy across the curriculum. However, one of the consequences for bottom strata schools in a performativityrelated environment with league tables and even lighter touch inspection is that their poorer performance in raw score terms elicits greater interest by outside bodies and, in particular, graded intervention (Riddell, 2003). Even the “New Relationship” is based on the principle that “inspection, accountability, and intervention to tackle failure are essential” (DfES, 2004b, p. 8) and the 2005 Schools White Paper (DfES, 2005c) makes clear that schools requiring “special measures” will need to make substantial progress within 12 months, otherwise there will be further intervention, including by the replacement of the leadership team. As a consequence, these schools find themselves responding to externally-imposed short term requirements which will not in themselves generate capacity (Riddell, 2003), or allow of reflection about the sorts of schools they should be long term to respond to the needs of their communities. This argues for the two stages of leadership (at least), as advocated by Hopkins (2001) – first to ensure that the school does respond to the short term imperative, which is important; and second, when it has done so, helping set the long term directions for the school in the ways described here, and developing the capacity for putting into place urban curricula and pedagogies. This seems to reflect some current practice; it should nevertheless not be forgotten that this process will continue to be damaging for some, and needs to be planned carefully to avoid long term damage to reflexivity.
Is Collaboration Possible Between Schools and Other Agencies and Between Schools? This question has been given added relevance with the publication of the Schools White paper referred to above (DfES, 2005c) and the important development of “trust schools,”
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that is, schools responsible to bodies which are specifically set up by parents, business, communities, churches, or other faith organizations, as opposed to the more traditional governing body in England and Wales. One of the crucial differences is that these schools will control their own admissions, that is, will publish the criteria by which school places will be allocated in the case of over-subscription. As far as working with other agencies is concerned, there is no doubt that this is the national expectation. Following a particularly disastrous series of events which led to the death of a child in the public care, the UK Government published its “Every Child Matters” reform in 2004 (DfES, 2004a), which will develop joint management responsibility for all services for children. Similarly, a national “prospectus” for extended schools has been published, with similar expectations for joint working (DfES, 2005a). Both of these reforms are accompanied by funding; collaboration will develop, therefore, but no doubt at different paces, because it is difficult – the reconciling of different professional cultures is challenging, as Tett (2007) points out. But what of collaboration between schools? It is likely, as Woods (2007) points out in this volume, that head teachers will continue to see both competition and collaboration featuring prominently in their professional lives. And there is no doubt that some features of the 2005 White Paper – the further differentiation of “products” as Johnson puts it, and the seeming end to limits on expansion of “popular schools” (Riddell, 2005) could potentially heighten competition for pupils in some places, especially where schools decide which children are offered places against the background of falling pupil numbers. In some large conurbations, this will make it personally difficult (as it is now) for some head teachers to sit down together, never mind work together effectively. However, this is against the background of much longer expectations to collaborate: for example, as part of Excellence in Cities (DfEE, 1999), secondary head teachers had to vote on which resources they and their colleagues received (Ibid.); in Education Action Zones (Power et al., 2005), groups of primary and secondary schools have been expected to ally themselves with business and design programs to raise attainment; for the 14–19 reforms (DfES, 2002b), groups of secondary and special schools and further education colleges together design their 14–19 phase of education so that all young people can put together an appropriate program, even where this is provided by more than one institution; and more recently, for “Education Improvement Partnerships” (DfES, 2003c, 2005b), the expectation is groups of schools work together, often under the leadership of a more “successful” one, to develop good practice and learn together. It would seem odd if this history were to disappear overnight, especially where the provision of extra funding is involved. As Woods says, therefore, it is not possible to say with any conviction what will happen over the next few years in the view of these countervailing tendencies. Leaving aside the governance issue, however, schools have been able to acquire most of the powers available to trust schools for some time – a change of status by a single vote, for example, was enshrined in the 2002 Act of Parliament, and foundation schools have existed since the late 1990s. Notwithstanding such, dramatic changes have not been seen as yet. And admissions to schools will be more tightly regulated, possibly by statute. In addition, the White Paper does set out, as part of the new role of speaking on behalf of parents and children, some requirements on local authorities with respect
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to collaboration. They will need to “encourage” voluntary collaboratives for wider school improvement, behaviour and extended services, “require” failing schools to collaborate and “specify” how new or replacement schools should work in partnership with other schools and services (DfES, 2005c, p. 109, 103).
Nine Things to Do to Make a Difference to Bottom Strata Schools As with all national-policy-led adjustments to social and political structures, therefore, how they develop in reality and what we will be saying about them in ten years’ time will depend at least in part on the role played by local agency. So this chapter concludes with advice to those with hands on the levers of power and influence, or with significant contributions to make at all levels: (1) To central government, local authorities, universities, the voluntary and private sectors, and all schools: ●
●
Promote the mission of schools in the lower strata of our urban school systems. Theirs is potentially one of greatest contributions to the achievement of social justice. Stop seeing them as a problem and recognize staff experience in them in their salaries.
(2) To central government, universities, the National College for School Leadership, local authorities and schools: ●
●
●
Develop accredited learning packages, as part of national arrangements, to promote learning schools and the study of community modes of learning and funds of knowledge. Promote non-standard approaches to leading, teaching and learning, including by recognition in national awards ceremonies. Promote the teaching and learning of thinking skills.
(3) To central government: ●
End detailed prescription and ensure external inspection does not reinforce it even by default.
(4) To local authorities: ●
Where this has not been done, develop a vision with schools and significant stakeholders for collaboration between schools, based not just on the need for better “services” but on its necessary contribution to collective improvement, including of high performing schools, and the achievement of social justice.
(5) To secondary head teachers: ●
Ensure you not lose sight of collaboration for the good of your students, especially from socially deprived or low aspirational backgrounds.
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(6) To all teachers: ●
Spend some time as part of your career in a bottom strata school.
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Power, S., Edwards, T., Whitty, G., & Wigfall, V. (2003). Education and the middle class. Buckingham: Open University Press. Power, S., Rees, G., & Taylor, C. (2005). New labour and educational disadvantage: The limits of areabased initiatives. Unpublished paper. Power, S., Warren, S., Gillborn, D., Clark, A., Thomas, S., & Coate, K. (2002). Education in deprived areas – outcomes, inputs and processes. London: The Institute of Education, University of London. Riddell, R. (2003). Schools for our cities: Urban learning for the twenty-first century. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Riddell, R. (2005). Government policy, stratification and urban schools: A commentary on the Five-year strategy for children and learners. Journal of Education Policy, 20(2), 237–241. Roberts, K. (2001). Class in modern Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrove. Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J., & Kleiner, A. (2000). Schools that learn – a fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Savage, M., Barlow, J., Dickens, P., & Fielding, T. (1992). Property, bureaucracy and culture: Middle-class formation in contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Social Exclusion Unit. (2001). A new commitment to neighbourhood renewal – national strategy action plan. London: The Social Exclusion Unit. Tett, L. (2007). Multi-agency working in urban education and social justice. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 1139–1156). Dordrecht: Springer. Thomson, P. (2002). Schooling the Rustbelt kids. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Thomson, P. (2007). Leading schools in high poverty neighborhoods: The national college for school leadership and beyond. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 1049–1078). Dordrecht: Springer. Thrupp, M. (1999). Schools making a difference: Let’s be realistic – school, mix, school effectiveness and the social limits of reform. Buckingham: Open University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Thought and language. New York: Wiley Whitty, G., Power, S., & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education – the school, the state and the market. Buckingham: The Open University Press. Woods, P., Bagley, C., & Glatter, R. (1998). School choice and competition: Markets in the public interest? London: Routledge. Woods, P. A. (2007). Urban schools: Performance, competition and collaboration. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 1105–1122). Dordrecht: Springer.
54 LEADING SCHOOLS IN HIGH POVERTY NEIGHBORHOODS: THE NATIONAL COLLEGE FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP AND BEYOND Pat Thomson School of Education, The University of Nottingham, U.K.
Hi Pat I won’t be able to meet up this coming Friday. I’ve broken my ankle playing badminton (too competitively!) and cannot drive. I’ve had a pretty tough few weeks one way and another – the more than usual trials and tribulations of being a head in a SFCC … (School Facing Challenging Circumstances) Can I catch up in a few weeks time with my draft? — Dave I was not surprised to get this email. Ever since I’d become his supervisor David had struggled to fit the Doctor of Education program into his life. I went to visit him in his school early on in our supervision relationship so I could meet him in his professional context, rather than always in mine. When I arrived in the school he met me saying that he’d considered ringing me to tell me not to come. Pointing to a small pile of forms on his desk, reports from teachers of “critical incidents” with students, he told me that the morning had been entirely taken up working through the aftermath of a new drug shipment on the large council estate surrounding the school. The dealers were doing special offers, and, while only a tiny minority of the students were involved, it was enough to take that morning, and the following few days, to sort out. David and I often spend at least part of our supervision meetings, when they do happen, talking about the reality of his job. It is integral to his research project and it overlaps with some of the research that I do. I don’t know how much it matters that I too once used to do this job and know how it is to have idealistic expectations and crushing days when it seems nothing is possible. I’m not sure how important it is to his research that I want to find ways to tell-it-like-it-is without adding to the rampant stereotypes of hopeless, anti-social young people and families, and out of control neighborhoods. I continue to find it curious that my own 20 years as head and deputy in Australian “disadvantaged schools” resonates so strongly with Dave’s current experiences with the casualties of England’s ruthless and rapid de-industrialization. But that 1049 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1049–1078. © 2007 Springer.
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is not our only point of commonality. Dave and I both shake our heads at the apparent incapacity of most of the popularly quoted leadership and management literatures to really come to grips with the ways in which leading, managing and teaching, in schools that serve locations made poor, actually occur as everyday social practice. In this chapter, I examine a set of English texts about leadership in urban schools and examine the gap between the representations of urban schooling and the experiences of some head-teachers who work in such settings. I suggest that this gap matters because it sets false expectations of what heads can accomplish while also removing from view some of the things that matter in making a difference. It is important to state here that this chapter is not about “what works,” nor is it about “promising directions.” I argue instead for working towards an adequate recognition of the actual material conditions of leadership in urban settings, better theorizations, more reasonable demands and judgments made about head-teacher practice, and an expanded policy agenda for urban school reform. I combine textual analysis with insights drawn from interviews with head teachers in schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.1 I begin by discussing a quantum of leadership texts sponsored by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), and address the terminology used to describe schools that serve neighborhoods made poor. I then consider sets of NCSL work which specifically deal with schools like David’s. I suggest why the problems I have signaled with these approaches matter.
The NCSL and its Work The National College for School Leadership (NCSL) was officially announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998 and launched in 2000. With its home base in Nottingham and satellite centers scattered all over England, it offers, or increasingly manages the offering of, a suite of face-to-face and online programs. These include a mandatory head teacher preparation qualification (NPQH), training for school Bursars and middle-level leaders, induction for newly appointed heads (HIP) and ongoing professional development opportunities for serving heads. The NCSL also has a research and development wing. In 2004, at the initiative of the Standing Conference on Research on Educational Leadership and Management (SCRELM), the NCSL commissioned a survey about the funding for inquiry into leadership and inquiry in England from 1998 to 2003 (Weindling, 2004). The results showed a dramatic overall increase in the amount of money spent on the field, the largest amount being in 2002. This is testament to the impact of the policy emphasis on improving leadership in order to improve schools. As well, and almost overnight, Weindling asserts, the NCSL became the largest single funder of leadership and management research activity in England. It also funded an increasing proportion of the work, moving from roughly one third of the total in 2001 and 2002, to nearer a half in 2003 (see Figure 1). It is important to note that Weindling’s survey covered a limited number of participants largely associated with SCRELM, did not take into account research conducted by NCSL research associates (practitioners released from their schools to undertake particular
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Other sources NCSL Total Figure 1.
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1999
2000
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2003
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40
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Distribution of funding for leadership and management research (from Weindling, 2004)
projects), and did not examine the quality of the research itself. In reality, projects funded by the NCSL were almost always short-term small projects with little in-depth investigation or elaborated critical analysis. Indeed to call some of this work research is a misnomer. But the quality of scholarship was not disconnected from the purpose of these activities, namely, to provide support for, and a steer on, an established government agenda of improving standards of school performance via raising the test results at key stages of schooling (Thrupp, 2005a, 2005b; Thrupp & Wilmott, 2003). Regardless of its quality, the corpus of work is important because of its: (1) Practical use: it informs and supports the framework for head teacher training, over which the NCSL has a near monopoly (Bush, 2004). It also influences selection processes. (2) Discursive power: it provides a language through which the activities of heads are not only described but also prescribed and inscribed. I am particularly concerned with those NCSL texts which address the specific circumstances of urban schools (see annexe for the list of those consulted). The fact that there is such a body of work represents a positive move beyond thinking that all schools and school leaders’ work are the same across all localities. It is a welcome recognition that there is something different about leading and managing an urban school located in a community living with hardship.
Methodological Approach In this chapter, I treat the NCSL research output as part of a policy assemblage which is both “text and discourse” (Ball, 1993). Foucault (1991, pp. 59–60) suggests that in specific periods of time there are socially constructed discursive formations which limit and form: what is sayable (what it is possible to speak about; what is conserved); what disappears and what is repeated and circulated; what is remembered (what is recognized and validated, what is regarded as able to be dismissed; what is reactivated); what is transformed from foreign cultures or past epochs and what is done with them; and what is appropriated (what discourses are accessible to particular individuals and groups), and the institutionalization of discourses and the struggles for control over them. Using this Foucaultian notion of discourse, questions I asked of the NCSL texts were: ● ● ●
How are the schools and urban neighborhoods in these texts described? What is said to be the problem in these schools and neighborhoods? What are their leaders supposed to do?
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What evidence base is used? What kind of theorization is this? What is left out of this problematization? How else might this be theorized?
The first point of analysis then is to consider the “problematization” of schools and neighborhoods offered in NCSL texts.
Urban Schools and Contexts: A Case of Impoverished Discourse In the anecdote with which I began this chapter, I introduced the current English policy term for schools which serve locations and populations that are struggling to make do in an apparently comfortable time – schools facing challenging circumstance (SFCC). This term is also used by the NCSL: it does not challenge or reframe the category, thus signaling its relationship to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and its role in the policy implementation chain. The Department for Education and Skills defines SFCCs as those where 25% or fewer of the pupils achieved five or more grades A*–C in GCSE and/or equivalent examinations. Similar definitions apply to primary schools, using key stage assessments as the benchmark. Here then, there is a move away from taking traditional measures of poverty such as income or family qualifications, to a measure of achievement output in schools. In reality, the vast majority of schools that fit the DfES definition are also schools in which there are a concentration of students from families with modest educational qualifications and low incomes.2 The shift to the focus on educational “outputs” is significant. Originally part of a Thatcherite discourse in which any talk of social and economic circumstances was characterized as “excuse making,” the use of exam and test results as indicators of “educational disadvantage” is now incorporated into “official” school improvement policy and practice. The accompanying rationale is that while the circumstances of schools cannot be dismissed, the important point is to focus on what schools can do. This is measured by “progress” against learning “targets” as represented by the tests. There is considerable debate in the academic literatures about how much improvement against the odds is actually possible (see Slee, Weiner, & Tomlinson, 1998; Thrupp, 1999 for critique of the idea), but the DfES point to differences in student attainment in apparently “like schools.” These “like” schools calculations are based on statistical probability bands using student and neighborhood population data (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, race and ethnicity, language spoken). Thus, measures of poverty and wealth are not far removed from the official definition of challenging circumstances, but they are not necessarily the first point of reference. They do not exist on the surface of the text which points resolutely to the school and its actions. There are two textual aspects of the SFCC term worthy of further discussion: (1) challenging, and (2) context/circumstances.
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Challenging “Challenging” is a most interesting word to use to ascribe to schools which are situated in high-poverty neighborhoods. It has several possible meanings: (1) A dare – this implies that those who work in “challenging schools” are dared to forget about the question of poverty and dared to do better than might be expected. (2) A confrontation – this acknowledges that teachers may find themselves confronted literally and metaphorically by the lives of students and their families. (3) A risk and a frustration – this a recognition that work in such schools is not easy, quick or subject to simple solutions. Courage is required. (4) A summons – as in times when gentlemen challenged each other to a duel, work in these schools is a call to fight against the odds. All of these possible meanings sit within the term and readers may interpret them in any or all of these ways. “Challenging” has replaced/displaced other previous policy terms, such as deprivation and disadvantage, which are now deemed to be altogether too negative. It has also removed sociological and ethical language associated with poverty and entitlements from policy rhetoric in favor of something which is simultaneously more vague but also focused on the experiences and obligations to act of schools and their staff.
Context/Circumstances I recently interviewed heads as part of a larger study examining exclusion (Thomson, Harris, Vincent, & Toalster, 2005). One of the heads was in a school in “special measures.” A school gets to be in “special measures” if it has first of all been deemed a school with “serious weaknesses” after inspection by OfSTED. If it fails to improve after being put into “special measures” then it becomes a “failing school.” Schools in “special measures” are subject to continued inspection and the threat of closure within five months, and they also get additional funding and generally entirely new leadership teams. Being a head in a school in “serious weaknesses” is thus often a high risk career move if the school cannot be “turned around” (i.e., get the students’ test scores and exam results up) quickly. Needless to say there are many more SFCCs in these various categories than other types of schools. A snippet from the interview I conducted with the head in the school in special measures is instructive.
Pat:
Can you tell me about the students, their families and the neighborhood – the context of the school, I guess you could say … Head: Are you a sociologist? Pat: (pause) I used to work in a school that seems to be like this one, and I’m interested. Head: What matters here is that we could do better than we are.
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I will not dispute the head’s judgment that there were things about the school that needed attention. My walk around several dirty and vandalized corridors revealed more than one class in which teachers and students were shouting at each other and nooks in which there was graffiti suggesting what several teachers should do with themselves. What interested me was the head’s immediate (and accurate it has to be said) assumption that a question about context had something to do with a sociological interest in class and poverty – and that this was somehow problematic or not to be talked about. Another head in a similarly located school which was doing much better in the GCSE and OfSTED stakes, thus bearing out the point that the first school could do better, apologized for telling me about the school community, saying I’m not making excuses here, but the context is important. It does matter. It makes a difference to what we can do. We are stuck at 32% A*–C and we want to get to 40 but we just don’t know what we have to do to get there. On any other measure you might think about we are doing really, really well. Both of these head’s responses, one not wanting to engage with context and the other apologetic for introducing it into the conversation, are testament to the power and pervasiveness of the official discourse that discussion of context equates to excusemaking. But the latter head raises obliquely a critique of the dominant success measures used, pointing to other things that are important but not counted. Unlike these heads’ responses, NSCL reports often do elaborate on the context of SFCCs. Keys and colleagues (2003, p. 4) for example, note that challenging circumstances includes “social deprivation” in the local neighborhood: Children … drawn from families on low incomes (with parents either in low-paid manual/service jobs or unemployed), in poor housing, and from families with little experience of education beyond compulsory schooling. In some cases, families were found to be exceptionally troubled. The communities served by the schools were often affected by elements of deprivation, such as bleak surroundings, poor facilities, poor health, dislocation and disaffection, and high levels of drug and alcohol abuse. Crime rates in the areas were often high. The report does not go on to say why or how this mattered. The detail is used to point to the power of the practices exercised by the leaders to “overcome” the context. In contrast, Englefield (2002), an NCSL research associate and a practitioner, makes the case that what heads can do is connected with context. He analyses one local authority’s test results and shows a match between results and a school’s position in a ranked order of “need.” the impact upon the schools of these features, particularly in the area of academic outcomes, was obviously pivotal in the identification of the level of success of the school. It is clear nationally that there is a strong correlation between primary schools in a challenging context and those schools with lower than average academic achievement, as defined by the Key Stage 2 National Assessment Tests. (2002, p. 3)
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In words that resonate with the second head I interviewed, Englefield mounts a passionate case for alternative forms of judgment of the success of urban schools. However, despite noting the material realities of urban neighborhoods, neither Englefield nor any other of the NCSL studies in question (see annexe) explain how it is that these contextual circumstances actually make an impact on students’ achievement. The connection is simply asserted or made via statistical correlation. It is as if the context is a kind of malevolent container in which the school is located, a container which mysteriously causes the school to falter in its mission and against which the leader must struggle. One of the NSCL texts advances what it is that leaders must do. In the introduction to A model of school leadership in challenging urban environments (National College for School Leadership, 2005b), a model being developed as the basis for both the selection and professional development of heads in inner cities, contextual factors are laid out with supporting statistics. Schools in neighborhood renewal areas (NRAs), for example, have three times as many children in poverty as the national average. On average their communities have 30% higher mortality rates and thee times as much burglary. Schools in NRAs often face very low attainment on entry and may have high numbers of pupils on the at-risk register. (2005b, p. 5) The text sheets home to heads and other school leaders the task of redressing these issues via school improvement. There are limits to the power of government to solve these problems from the centre. Central reform efforts find it hard to respond to local circumstances and can diminish the motivation of professionals by reducing their freedom to act. Sustained improvement in schools must be led by schools themselves. (2005b, p. 5) The slide here from contextual explanation to school improvement is telling. Despite the cited statistics, the job of heads is to focus on their schools. Poverty, health and burglary are somehow to be ignored in favor of learning the national curriculum. Citing a speech by then Minister David Miliband (2004), the paragraph concludes that the task of central government is to “build capacity” in schools. “Capacity” here refers to the number of teachers able to “deliver” the mandated curriculum to pupils and raise the test results. The text also suggests that central policy influence must be reduced. This is disingenuous. All schools in England are tightly bound by a range of central policy prescriptions, some of which (e.g., admissions policies) operate differentially to disadvantage specific schools. But the emphasis in this text on local agency and responsibility for implementation is entirely in keeping with the official government rhetoric of devolution, in which the role of government is to set policy, guidelines and targets, and audit the performance of separate devolved units. In this situation, individual schools, hospitals and welfare services have considerable responsibility and, some suggest, insufficient power to actually do what is needed. It must be noted of course, that under conditions of devolution interesting opportunities for new ways of working democratically with the
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local community are potentially opened up (Bell, Halpin, & Neill, 1996; Strathern, 2000; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998) but the point of doing this nor how it might be done are not explored by these NCSL texts. Not all of the NCSL texts ignore the power of central policy. As the earlier NCSL text written by Keys, Sharp, Greene, and Grayson (2003, p. 4) suggests: Other challenges may arise from the school’s history of underachievement and the operation of “market forces.” These include: low levels of pupil attainment on entry; high proportions of pupils excluded from other schools; the existence of other, more popular schools in the area; the threat of closure; and a lack of public confidence in the school. Keys et al. (2003) do note an important area of policy that directly affects what local schools can do – the unqualified policy support for parent choice. Researchers (Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1996; Edwards & Whitty, 1992; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995) suggest that while local authorities may be able to mediate some of the effects of school markets there is certainly pressure placed on schools in high poverty locations in ways that distract from the educational effort. Keys et al. thus draw attention to what central policy might do to make a difference to urban schools, but do not make this explicit. But why and how does failure to explain the connection between urban context and urban schools matter?
Problems and Solutions Carol Bacchi (1999), in a study examining policies which attempt to produce greater equality between women and men, argues that every policy “solution” contains an implied “question.” She proposes that it is not only possible to ask “What is the problem for which this policy is the answer?” as a means of deconstructing existing policies, but it is also possible to improve policy by taking great care with problems posed during the formulation of policy. She suggests that it is critical that those engaged in policy-making spend time interrogating the taken-for-granted ways in which they categorize and analyze social phenomena, since these are not neutral practices, but discursive (Bacchi, 2000). Names and frames contain within them predetermined courses of action. While the NCSL documents do not constitute a policy per se, they do belong to a broader policy discourse about urban schools. The problematization contained within them does imply solutions which are educational and, as noted, are largely in the hands of local school staff and the school leadership. In our recent study noted earlier (Thomson et al., 2005), heads, deputies and teachers produced a common set of suggestions and remedies related to the nature of the “context” (see Figure 2). These are (perhaps not surprisingly) almost precisely what is prescribed by and funded through current Third Way English education policy. These solutions referred directly to perceived problems. Few of our interviewees considered that the apparent problems of living with a sole parent or blended family might not be about family structure but be caused by low
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Figure 2.
Problem
School based solution
Children come from broken homes Parenting is poor The community has low aspirations The community watches too much TV The children get no discipline at home Children can’t/won’t learn
School based welfare services Parenting classes Student mentoring and career counseling Send books home Contracts with parents Ability grouping
Children bored and disruptive
Remedial classes and courses
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levels of welfare income support and stresses produced from continually being in debt. None of them entertained the possibility that at least some of the judgments they made were derived from middle class norms and therefore somewhat problematic. Comparable to the syntax of the phrase “schools facing challenging circumstances” which works to locate problems outside of the school and to assert that learning problems could only be caused by the deficiencies of families and communities,3 the staffs of these urban schools saw themselves as the providers of solutions to problems residing in the communities. Like the NCSL texts, staff did not countenance the idea that the community might see a different set of problems and might also have the capacity to offer solutions. The continued dismissal of the strengths and assets of the people who constitute “context” is redolent of an ongoing paternalism and colonialism which dates back to pre-Victorian England. It justifies continued welfarism and fails to recognize, value and build on local institutional, organizational and leadership capacities within communities (McKnight & Kretzmann, 1996). It is assumed that it is professionals who must provide for the community, rather than the community being assisted to sort things out for itself (Gilchrist, 2004; McKnight, 1995). There are three important consequences of this benevolent welfarist SFCC problem and solution posing which I now outline.
Lack of Evidence There is little basis in national or international research for some of the “problems” noted by heads and in the wider policy discourse of SFCCs. Parents are painted as uncaring and inadequate. However, research suggests that the vast majority of working class parents are not uncaring or hostile to education (e.g., Connell, Ashenden, Kessler, & Dowsett, 1982; Crozier & Reay, 2004; David, Edwards, Hughes, & Ribbens, 1993; Devine, 2004; Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles, Elder, & Sameroff, 1999; Reay, 1998). Like any other parent, those struggling to make ends meet also want the best for their children, including a good education, even though they might be skeptical about the capacity of schooling to achieve this. Thus, teacher judgments about poor parenting equate to crude generalizations which ignore cultural differences and local ways of “making do” (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Ellsworth & Ames, 1998; Sanderson & Thomson, 2003).
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Children living in neighborhoods made poor are said to be illiterate and their homes devoid of literacy resources. But research suggests that working class children have word, number, image and knowledge resources and practices equal but different to those of middle class peers (e.g., Comber, Badger, Barnett, Nixon, & Pitt, 2001; Dyson, 1993; Freebody, Ludwig, & Gunn, 1995; Hill, Comber, Louden, Reid, & Rivalland, 1998; Moll, 1992). This body of work argues that parents are unable to do the kind of complementary education work on which success at school largely depends (Griffith & Smith, 2005) because the school does not recognize these resources and practices. What is required therefore is a shift in school approaches to home-school and classroom pedagogies (Cairney, 2002; Comber, Thomson, & Wells, 2001; Daspit & Weaver, 2000; Finn, 1999). Failing to take account of such evidence, schools arrive at “solutions” that perpetuate rather than redress inequities.
Lack of Explanation for the Contextual Phenomena Paying attention to the ways in which the context and the school are connected is important. But because the problematization offered by SFCC is one in which it is individual families and their children that are at fault and require remediation, the connections between the neighborhood and the school are “misrecognised.” Just as the heads in our study suggested, it is the case that in urban schools there are numbers of children and families under pressure: some will be in crisis, some will exhibit anger, depression and alienation. But rather than these being idiosyncratic and personal attributes and responses, they are in reality patterned. Social structures become embodied both in people and in school practices. Seeing the embodied and institutionalized patterns in the contextual phenomena draws attention to some of the things that teachers and schools need to do, and it also reveals other forms of public policy intervention which would make the jobs of urban schools different and easier. My own research (Thomson, 1999, 2000, 2002; Thomson & Comber, 2003) suggests strongly that what schools can do to address various combinations of embodied socio-structural issues is framed and limited by the “school mix”4 and the resources available in the neighborhood. In this next section I draw attention to the ways in which the context and school “problems” are produced and show how this sociological explanation highlights public policy issues that are not normally seen as connected with education. I refer to school responses in the following section.
The School Mix Urban schools have pupils whose families are affected by:
Changes in the labor market Family unemployment/underemployment/tenuous employment (the local working out of global economic shifts and macro and microeconomic reform policies of the national and state governments) play out in schools in a range of ways – many students have no money for educational expenses; some children are the only ones in their
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household who have to get up regularly everyday and frequently don’t; some parents show acute levels of anxiety and depression arising from their lack of security – this is manifest in health problems and angry outbursts in schools. There are young people who firmly believe that they will not find any work at all, and they see little point in compliance to school rules nor in application to curriculum. This produces significant “behaviour” problems which are seldom adequately addressed by vocational programs. There are also often regular and disillusioned unemployed visitors to schools, urging their younger counterparts to join them in the mall. Many students also have to work part time and these wages are often a necessary addition to the family income; casual work requirements of employers however often conflict with homework, and regular attendance requirements. There are implications here for government policies around taxation, job creation and urban regeneration. An integration of adult retraining with urban education could also be a beneficial policy direction.
Changes in families The increase in the numbers of diverse families many of whom are dependent on government income support, particularly those for lone parents and those designated as the “working poor” with young children, are manifest in urban schools. Significant numbers of children have to deal with the pressures of living in domestic situations which are not only unstable but also strained from serious financial worries. Urban schools report regular incidences of “staying with grandma,” and children moving between family members. There is often significant family and student transience and some children exhibit evidence of considerable insecurity and anxiety. This requires regular time away from instruction, and involves classroom teachers and administrators alike. Teachers struggle with the task of establishing pedagogical relationships with children new to their class, only to see many of them leave within a short space of time to begin in yet another school. There are public policy issues here related to levels of income support, management of credit and debt, and housing. Concentration of families in crisis Low income neighbourhoods often become trapped in vicious downward spirals, in which those who are able to move out, do, and those who have no choice stay put. Small businesses close, and those who move into the area do so because it is all they can afford. Such areas often have a large quantum of housing funded from the public purse, some of which may be available for emergency shelter. These schools have to spend more time on pastoral and welfare activities than others – even the presence of good interagency services still requires additional school time to process and manage. Such neighbourhoods also often become home to continuing intakes of refugees fleeing intolerable political situations. Schools in such localities face additional demands for translation and interpreting and support in a range of welfare and immigration related activities (see also Thomson, Ellison, Byrom, & Bulman, 2004), and there are sometimes significant shortfalls between the resources available and the demand for services.
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While the current government policy emphasis on integrated children’s services will go some way to meeting with welfare issues, there is much more that might be done via housing, physical and mental health and immigration policy that might ease the situation in urban schools.
Resources Available to the School in the Neighborhood The capacity of each school to run the mandated, as well as desirable co-curricular programs and to provide equally and equitably for students, is tied to neighborhood resources. The following are important:
Community infrastructure Schools and students rely on local health and welfare services, public library provision, youth services, migrant support programs, recreation facilities and organizations and public transport. These are part of the neighborhood assets (McKnight, 1995) that support not only learning in and out of school but also general well-being. Urban neighborhoods may have few of these facilities, the lucky few have them in abundance. Urban regeneration programs in the most deprived areas often provide such amenities, but there are still many “unregenerated” locations which have such provisions. Greater effort in such neighborhoods will play out in schools. Employment and employment networks Schools depend on numbers of small, medium and large business to provide not only jobs for parents and school leavers, but also work placements and mentoring for pupils. Pupils also look to local employment networks to help them get part time work and jobs post school (cf. Newman, 1999; Willis, 1977). One of the characteristics of de-industrialized areas is the fracturing of employment networks, and it is a continued source of anxiety for many parents that they cannot assist their children to get work in ways that their families and friends did for them (cf. Fine & Weis, 1998; Newman, 1999). Local businesses also supply civic leadership in the local area. They make contributions to the local micro-economy through local purchasing arrangements creating more work opportunities as they do so. The long term downturn of manufacturing and small business in urban locations means that local schools are variously able to call on such leadership for governance. Again, employment programs, retraining and adult education, and various forms of social and cooperative enterprise sponsorship would play out as benefits for urban schools. In sum then the equation of poverty with individual social isolation and powerlessness misrecognises the residential and economic sequestration of entire estates (Gibson et al., 1996; Lister, 2004; Pacione, 1997) produced by the interplay of housing markets, transport policies and local authority policies and demography (Lupton, 2003). The assumption that it is individualized poverty that is the problem, renders invisible the argument that social and economic inequality is what is at stake (Wilkinson, 2005). Furthermore, as noted earlier, the failure to recognize that working class communities,
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despite being plunged into poverty by the abrupt closure of mines, factories and mills, still have knowledge, leaders and skills means that communities remain as categories of “need” rather than as potential sources of “solutions” (de Carvalho, 1997; Moll, Tapia, & Whitmore, 1993). Understanding the patterning that produces the difficulties in urban schools leads to understanding the ways in which public policy agendas might better support urban education. It also suggests schools can benefit from getting to understand their local circumstances rather than assume that what they see is the result of individual deficiencies or homogenized cultures of poverty. This kind of sociological analysis should also lead to a more nuanced and better theorized notion of what the task of urban leaders must be. But, as I will now suggest, the third problem with SFCC discourse is that it does not sufficiently pay sufficient attention to the implications for leadership of the structural issues that produce specific school mixes and neighborhoods.
Leadership, Leadership, Leadership The establishment of the NCSL heralded an unprecedented policy emphasis on the importance of school leadership. One of the first initiatives was to establish a set of standards for head teachers, around which training programs could be based. The Hay McBer model (2000) proposed a set of personal/professional characteristics for heads in different settings. These were said to work holistically but not prescriptively. This was followed by a review of major training programs and an accompanying Leadership Development Framework (LDF) (National College for School Leadership, 2002a), which added ten key propositions to underpin training: these included the necessity for leadership to be values driven, learning focused, distributed throughout the school and oriented to building capacity. These are points which appear in multiple NCSL texts. Nested within this overall LDF and standards framework, the NCSL offers two distinct approaches to the task of explaining what heads in high-poverty schools must do. The first is drawn from school improvement approaches and focuses on actions and/or practices while the second is based on a notion of “qualities” that leaders possess and refers directly back to the Hay McBer foundational text. There some overlaps between the two sets of SFCC texts. I discuss each in turn.
Improving SFCC Leaders NSCL work on SFCC draws on the field of school improvement (SI). SI is both an international research field and an official policy discourse. As an area of research it is co-located with school effectiveness (SE), and it sometimes said to be the means by which SE is accomplished (Stoll & Fink, 1996). SI has a focus on school practice and on “what works.” Many of its key proponents are active as consultants to schools and, as in the case of NCSL itself, there is inevitably a connection between the research these SI advocates conduct and what they do in their consultancy businesses. Two of the key planks of SI are its commitment to process, and a growing belief that there is no one single model of school change or indeed school leadership. Each school is
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unique, particularly those which are SFCC. Nevertheless, SI scholars hold that some generalizations about SI are possible. In Figure 3, some SI texts are compared. Harris and Chapman’s (2002) research on leadership in SFCC for the NCSL is used as the fulcrum against which two other NCSL texts and a comparison of two SI programs is made. IQEA/MSIP comparison (Harris, 2000)
NCSL Leithwood and Reihl (2003)
NCS Harris and Chapman (2000)
NCSL Keys et al. (2003)
Setting direction – vision and meanings
Vision and Values
Create shared vision
Devolved leadership
Leadership across the school Collaboration
Distributed Leadership
Involve staff in leadership
Focus on specific teaching and learning goals
Monitor performance, outcomes and expectations Respond to diverse students
Leading Learning
Improve curriculum, learning and teaching quality Raise achievement
Teacher development and professional growth
Developing people
Investment in staff development
Time for CPD
Relationships Build social capital of students and families
Community Building
Involve others in school improvement
Improve the environment Summative evaluation
Respond productively to external requirements and environment
Temporary structures Formative evaluation
Developing the organization – structures and culture Raise standard of pupil behavior
External agency
Figure 3.
Comparison of SI texts
External support from advisors and LEA Funding
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Figure 3 shows areas of substantial agreement between each of the SI approaches. The three NCSL texts for example all talk of vision. All four discuss the importance of high teacher expectations and a strong push for improved teaching and learning. Here however, I will focus on only two issues of agreed importance, teacher development and shared leadership.
Teacher development SI argues for the professional learning of staff and their opportunity to lead school development. There can be no doubt that having the best possible teachers makes a difference to working class students. SI makes improvements to students’ learning the purpose of staff training. SI teacher development does not simply mean the transmission of “best practice” developed elsewhere. Some SI researchers advocate the extensive use of action research as a means of staff development, growing professional knowledge at the same time as changing actual practice in classrooms (cf. CUREE, 2003a, 2003b; Hopkins et al., 1994; Hopkins, 2001). This is a welcome shift from seeing teaching more as a set of scripted presentations as in high ticket policy initiatives such as the National Literacy Strategy. But there are some significant omissions from the SI-NCSL approach: ●
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The focus on learning equates to dealing with the targets set through the National Curriculum rather than suggesting that teachers might mediate such imposts through alternative conceptualizations of knowledge which productively use the understandings and experiences of children living in urban neighborhoods. The sociological and pedagogical research literatures noted earlier create strong requirements for teachers and leaders who are expert in matters of literacy, numeracy and pedagogy: they suggest that teachers and leaders need to become ethnographers of their local neighborhoods. There is little here of the debates that vex urban school heads about class size (Achilles, 1999; Blatchford, 2003), or about ability grouping (Hart, Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004; Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997) and nothing to assist them to help their staffs manage and mediate testing, league tables and the educational “triage” demanded by 5 A*–Cs (Gillbourn & Youdell, 2000). There is nothing about how to do more with less, nor how to manage competition from a new smart “city academy”5 with an impressive signature building just up the road. There is no reminder of the history of interagency projects and what might be learnt from them. Head teacher supply and retention is also an issue in urban schools (see Howson, 2004 for the connection between student achievement and turnover). But questions of retention and succession planning do not figure as a matter for successful SFCC leaders according to these SI texts, even thought leadership turnover is recognized as a key barrier to improvement (Fullan, 2005; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006).
And there is a startling lack of attention to problems of teacher supply and teacher quality. This is a live issue in urban schools. One head told me (Thomson et al., 2005)
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in interview “They look at our GCSE results and see where we are and decide they just don’t want to come.” Another regaled me with stories about the time when his school was in the throes of a new building program after amalgamating with another school (both were considered at 600 students to be too small). As he put it, “So there we were, first day, 600 new pupils walking down the drive, the foundations of the new building not even started and 14 teachers short.” There was little doubt that this shortage was a major contributor to the school being placed in “special measures” a mere two years later. While it is the case that there are now more teachers in the system than a few years ago, and there is debate about whether there is a crisis in teacher supply or not (See, Gorard & White, 2004), there is no evidence to suggest anything other than it being harder for schools in with particular populations to get their full complement of wellqualified and willing staff (Ansell, 2004). Each location brings with it its own issues. Riley (2004, p. 6) notes the problems with retention: Leadership in London is characterized by pace, complexity and movement, the juxtaposition of great poverty and wealth. A transient pupil population is typically matched by a transient teacher population. The high costs of London living, as well as the demands of the job generate staff mobility and teacher shortages. And in contrast, a head in a former Midlands mining community told me “We’re just a town. We’re too far away from the things that young teachers want to do at night. Why come here when you could go somewhere more exciting?” (Thomson et al., 2005) Professional development is strongly connected to the question of retention of staff in urban schools, as noted, but this connection is not explained or specified. One has to ask of these SI texts, teacher development about what? Staff in urban settings must first of all understand the children and families that they are to serve. The teaching task is not one of “delivery” or of “personalisation” of a given curriculum. It is one of adaptation and of transformation. Staff must thus have a large repertoire of pedagogies for connecting students’ own resources with the mandated curriculum, for embedding literacy and numeracy learning across the curriculum, and for offering a rich array of tasks and groupings which allow students to learn with and from each other. They also need to know how to work with children and young people whose families are under pressure: they need sound counseling and pastoral care practices. The kinds of professional development that matters in urban education is partly known and documented, but this “content” is dodged in the SI NCSL literatures in favor of “process.”6
Shared leadership All of the NCSL SFCC and SI texts share a view that leadership must be “distributed” across the school, rather than reside in the person of the head. This is in part a rejection of the idea of the charismatic school leader. It is also driven by the notions that: staff have good ideas and unique perspectives to contribute to improvement; change is impossible without “buy in” from staff; and sharing jobs around means more gets done. SFCC and SI-NCSL has a pragmatic basis for leadership distribution, as well
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making a political move against the autocratic styles of headship implied in policy moves, such as the appointment of “super-heads” to allegedly failing schools. Some SI scholars go further with the idea of distribution. They suggest that distributed leadership means that leadership is not a property of any single person but rather exists through and as shared activity (Crowther, 1997; Frost & Harris, 2003; Lambert et al., 1995; McPherson, Elliott, Aspland, & Brooker, 1999; Moller & Katzenmayer, 1996). SI researchers use this perspective to argue for building collaborative teams and for giving teachers, time, recognition and responsibilities. They find in their research with schools that it is one of the key components of successful change. There are critiques of this position and they relate in part to the ways in which leadership is highlighted to the detriment of management. Researchers in the US (Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2003; Spillane & Zoltner-Sherer, 2004) and Australia (Gronn, 2003) have, with a more hands off approach to the study of school leadership and school change and a greater immersion in theory, been able to demonstrate something of what is actually involved in “distribution.” Halverson (2003) for example, focuses on the role of policies, practices and programs as the activities which do the work of initiating and sustaining distribution. Spillane et al. (2003) highlight structures, such as meeting agendas and timetables, which serve to construct and regulate activity through framing and supporting the ways in which people come together regularly to accomplish particular tasks. It is systems such as these which are potentially associated with what Leithwood and Reihl (2003) call building organizational structure and culture – and what many heads would simply call management. Money, time, meetings, information, policies, rewards and sanctions are a head teacher’s major change levers in the school. While changing school culture, as highlighted by the SI and SFCC leadership literatures is important, this goes nowhere unless there is attention to the systems that hold the school together. Working on management issues is often a key activity for heads in schools that are judged to be in “serious weaknesses” or in “special measures.” NCSL associate Brown (2002) looked at the first 100 days of a head in a such a situation and noted how much of her time had to be spent simply making the school functional by addressing secretarial support, plant and resourcing. The distinct lack of attention to these issues in SI-NCSL literatures means that heads could be left without stimulus in thinking about how to shift the infrastructure which holds the school together. The NCSL has however also produced a document which does give some strategies for heads in SFCC (National College for School Leadership, 2002b) although these are not theorized in the ways that Spillane et al. (2003) would suggest. Nevertheless, Hatcher (2005) has queried the rationale for and the very possibility of distributive leadership. He suggests that SI scholars, including those who use activity theory, have tried to separate leadership out from management. Leadership becomes a democratic practice while school management remains as the exercise of hierarchical power. In SI shared leadership, power now renamed influence, can be distributed, even though the school remains subject to highly centralized institutional practices, such as testing, performance management and inspection which is managed institutionally by the school senior administration. This “loose coupling,” Hatcher suggests, is theoretically unsustainable since the trajectory of power within and without the school over-determines
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all other practices. Nor does it match the reality of schools in which heads “circumscribe leadership and subordinate it to managerial authority” (p. 260). Hatcher joins with Wright (2001) and Thrupp and Wilmott (2003) in suggesting that there has been a “capture of leadership by the managerialist agenda” ( p. 261). He proposes a shift to democratic participation as a right rather than as a privilege, and to self management rather than devolution. Hatcher thus replaces managerialism with participatory management which takes account of the realpolitik of current policy. This kind of debate finds no place within the NCSL. There is no trace of it within the SFCC texts. This leaves urban heads, who struggle with the risks of giving away responsibilities to teachers when it is they who might lose their jobs, to wrestle alone with the dilemmas of democracy and power.
Urban Leader Standards Urban leadership texts (Brighouse, 2005; National College for School Leadership, 2005a, 2005b) were designed to support the specific needs of local authorities and schools in inner cities. Piloted initially in London, they are being extended to 12 other localities in England. The texts consist of details of a “model of school leadership in challenging urban environments” and guidance and a toolkit for governors using the model for selection purposes. Existing heads can choose to offer themselves for assessment and be awarded the title of chartered urban leader. This occurs through an assessment centre in which candidates undertake a series of exercises watched and judged by a panel of assessors. The same assessment center can be used to evaluate potential heads, in which case they receive detailed feedback, and are given one year during which they undertake targeted professional development, to meet the standards. The standards can also be used as the basis for selection of heads by governing bodies, and as a professional development and talent-spotting rubric. The “qualities” that form the standards are a mix of traits inherent to the urban leader (e.g., resilience, courage) and things that they do (e.g., influencing people, filtering, judging and acting). They differ from the Hay McBer standards on which they are based in that they include courage and resilience and community engagement. But more importantly, the two texts also use different language. The urban leader charter is more educational and less managerial in its rhetoric than Hay McBer. It also backs its broad categories through sets of positive indicators which refer to the specificity of headship in schools with high poverty concentrations. For example, the qualities of courage and conviction are said to be indicated positively by leaders: standing up for beliefs and defending them in the face of opposition and entrenched interest, articulating a compelling sense of justice and urgency, and communicating their sense of moral purpose to inspire others with their convictions and by example. (National College for School Leadership, 2005b, p. 12) Nevertheless, there are similarities between Hay McBer and the chartered urban leader categories (see Figure 4).
Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods Chartered urban leader
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Enduring resilience Courage and conviction
Personal values and passionate conviction
Focus and simplicity
Creating the vision
Community engagement Open and connected leadership
Getting people on board
Leading learning
Planning for delivery and
Filtering, judging and acting
Planning for delivery and monitoring and improvement
Accountability and consistency
Planning for delivery and monitoring and improvement
Purposeful influencing
Gathering information and gaining understanding
monitoring and improvement
Figure 4.
Urban leadership and Hay McBer
The urban leader standards were developed with serving head teachers and drew on NCSL sponsored and associated research. I have no doubt that the professional development enjoyed by those heads who developed the standards was considerable. However, how much the results can support future professional development of others remains a moot point (cf. Bogotch, 2002). It is by no means clear that urban heads are best “trained” outside of their schools in ways that the NCSL texts indicate. An evaluation of the Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH) (Reeves, Turner, Morris, & Forde, 2005) suggests that leadership professional development is a complex practice. What candidates for the SQH made of the leadership and management resources on offer was closely related to their workplace and to their own experiences. Changing candidates’ behavior was framed and constrained by the willingness of others to change at the same time. The SQH evaluation suggests that, in order to meet its goals of enhancing recruitment as well as actual urban leadership, the NCSL might need to move beyond heads and governors to consider the totality of the setting in which potential and existing leaders work. As Reeves et al. (2005) have it this means “opening up spaces to allow sustained professional growth on the part of both the participants and their colleagues” (p. 271). This suggests that the most situated professional development is likely to occur not by heads working together out of school, but on site, in the company of parents, students and staff. Ultimately, the standards as they stand, regardless of any concern about their potential disciplinary or “cloning” potentials via selection and professional development (Anderson, 2001; Blackmore, Thomson, & Barty, 2006), are long on process and short on content. As such, they provide bald and atomized representations of the work of leading and managing urban schools that are barely recognizable to many who actually do the job.
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Better Representations of the Work are Needed David, whose email began this chapter, is appointed to a school in which GCSE results have improved. In addition to running the school, he is now the manager of an urban renewal project through which a number of government agencies are to be amalgamated on an extended site. He is excited about this and has taken on hours of additional work each week in order to make it happen. But David is having difficulty with the school community. Too often for his liking, angry parents storm into the school. Too often at meetings he is accused of being “too posh” to understand what it is like for people living on the estate. He worries about this a lot. David is struggling with something that the standards do not address – the question of power and the powerful position of heads in particular. On the estate David is a representative of a government which has singularly failed to provide employment opportunities, despite the rhetoric of regeneration. He is also the most visible and obvious representative of the middle class “helping professional” who has the capacity to trigger interventions that might result in loss of income, the removal of children, or the imposition of behaviour orders. And, regardless of his own humble origins, he is seen, by virtue of his education, as the embodiment of a middle class which describes inner city residents as an homogenous and unsavory “other.” Despite possessing the qualities of courage, resilience and conviction, David’s capacity to engage this community is constrained – but not by any lack of skills. Rather, the unhappy interactions he experiences are a product of the historical relations between a working class community and institutional and social structures/cultures. David understands this, and while this helps, it makes the actual everyday tasks no easier. He does not know how long he can continue in the job. I suspect that the experiences of many heads are like those of David who recently remarked that he had found the SI literatures helpful for the first year of his headship, but then they ran out. For David, the standards may well simply work as a mark of failure – they suggest that a head who gives up does so because she/he lacks some fundamental capacity or personal quality. But this is not the case. Texts which seek to address urban, town or rural leadership in high-poverty locations must surely address the irresolvable tensions and contradictions that derive from these broader social relations. Failure to address social and economic injustices and questions of power in favor of looking only at what schools and their leaders can do actually does no favors for those who work to make a positive difference. David looks at these texts and feels himself deficient – this is neither productive nor helpful. Autobiographies of successful heads (Gilbert, 2004; O’Connor, Hales, Davies, & Tomlinson, 1999; Stubbs, 2003; Winkley, 2002) show how the process and content of urban leadership come together. In these more populist texts, there is the recognizable complex tangle of school, the everyday lives of children and their families and social, political, cultural and economic forces. There is recognition that educational policy alone is insufficient to make the kinds of changes that will bring lasting benefits to high-poverty neighborhoods. And there is the sense of agency that SI hopes to foster but here it is directed towards specific person centered goals – not DfES designated or organizational ones. There is a purpose for leadership which is profoundly ethical, and
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just. Writing about the process of getting a school out of “special measures” Alison Peacock (2005) points to the importance of “a sense of fun, some joy.” The teachers were exhausted. I gave them non-teaching time and quality feedback so that they knew they had a voice and were being listened to. Wherever possible their requests for new resources were responded to and the school began to feel more loved. The children were demotivated. Determined to show them that things could be different, we brought in drama specialists, artists, a teenage rock band, anyone we could think of to enliven the atmosphere. Everyone needed to know that this school could be an exciting place to be. These visits gave the staff the opportunity to witness their children responding differently and provided rich CPD opportunities that were nothing to do with criticism of their teaching or providing targets for improvement. (Peacock, 2005, p. 6) Peacock’s example shows clearly how leading and managing must be thought and done together, and how an emphasis on the feelings and beings of the teachers and children were an important means of addressing teacher’s deficit views of children, and the children’s sense of alienation. These kinds of snapshots of leading and managing in inner urban schools show that questions of how, why and what are integrated into an everyday – and achievable – practice. What Peacock does is not the work of charisma but it is about taking on the work of integrating justice and care (Held, 1995) within constraints, relations of power, and neighborhoods made poor by combinations of economy, demography and policy.
A Better Problematization is Needed Appreciating that inequality is part of the logic of schooling, that it is produced and reproduced through a complex tangle of bodies, space/time division, selected knowledge and subjects, pedagogies, student groupings and assessment practices, and that this inequitable state of affairs has a long history (Apple, 1982; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Connell et al., 1982), can go some way towards creating a more pragmatic and grounded sense of what is possible in short time-frames. This kind of appreciation does not suggest that it is impossible to act at the local level, but rather that what can be done is not only constrained, but also likely to be hard work. There is a leadership and management corpus which takes this kind of socio-cultural approach and which has begun to develop approaches to the work of heads and other educational leaders in communities facing trying times. Such work marries purpose, process and content and does not create false divisions between them. For example: ●
Shields (2003) examines the cultural diversity of students and teachers. She takes the view that heads must develop cultural expertise that is both intellectual and lived. Moblising Bahktin, Freiere, Gadamer and Habermas, she argues for a headship that is as theoretically sophisticated as it is practically sensitive. She suggests
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that heads need to understand debates about justice and multiculturalism and to explicitly position themselves and their actions in the school in an ethico-political manner. She promotes the idea of grounded dialogue and thinking of the school as a public sphere (Shields & Edwards, 2005). Ryan (2003, 2005) argues not for distributed leadership but for anti-hierarchical schools in which the different contributions of people with different skills and perspectives are honored. He outlines levels of potential involvement, the different roles that students, parents and teachers might take, and possible areas of participation. He suggests that questions of inclusion and diversity, again related to the populations of urban schools, are keys to successful reform. The Sage Handbook of Educational Leadership (English, 2003) contains several chapters that outline alternative approaches to leading and managing schools in high poverty locations. The chapter by Gold, Simon and Brown (2005) for example, contains case studies of community organizing in education. Gold et al. (2005) have developed an indicators framework which measures the development of trust across asymmetrical lines of power. They call this a shift from parent involvement to parent engagement. They advocate teachers becoming “community organisers” who work to support action on broader fronts as well as through education. Lyman and Villani (2004) stress the importance of understanding the economic and political causes of poverty, their imbrication with localities and race, and the need for heads to become advocates for democracy and human rights. Miron and Lauria (2005) suggest that schools in inner cities need to focus on the political identities of their students and how these are formed in and through schooling. Through examination of successful and unsuccessful inner city schools, they focus on the question of collective (gendered, raced, classed) identity. Schools can, they suggest, help students to build positive and resistant identities in which educational success equates to success against oppressive social structures.
In each of these texts, and unlike the NCSL body of writing, researchers have started from a theorized view of the (re)production of poverty, the role of schooling, an explicit conceptualization of justice, a grounded view of everyday life in inner urban schools and a realistic view of leading and managing. These are directions which the NCSL could pursue.
Conclusion In this chapter, I have focused on texts produced by the National College for School Leadership. I have argued that the work on school facing challenging circumstances is part of a large policy discourse which demonizes inner urban children, families and neighborhoods while individualizing their behaviors and needs and ignoring their strengths and assets. Through an examination of a corpus of texts about leadership in SFCC I demonstrated that the context of schools was either ignored or misrecognised. Focusing on the social patterning of inner urban contexts allows both the broader
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public policy implications and the possibilities and directions for school leadership and management to be seen more clearly. I showed that the NCSL texts did not address these issues and instead separated out leadership from management, and split process, content and purpose from each other. I concluded that more robust theorizations of inner urban contexts were possible, and suggested that better representations of the work of leaders were needed, along with more nuanced and holistic leadership scholarship. The NCSL has recently been under review and its activities scaled down. It still has a role however in research and in the naming and framing of leadership development across the country. Whether it continues to pursue a DfES dominated agenda or sets out now to influence policy by challenging some of the dominant dismissals of the realities or urban heads and their schools remains to be seen.
Postscript David has now given up doctoral study. He just can’t find the time beyond his job to get to his field work.
Annexe: NCSL Texts Consulted Leadership in Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances Series Ansell, D. (2003). Improving schools facing challenging circumstances. Perspectives from leading thinkers.* Englefield, S. (2002). Leading to success: judging success in primary schools in challenging circumstances.* Harris and Chapman (2002). Effective leadership in schools facing challenging circumstances. Keys, W., Sharp, C., Greene, K., & Grayson, H. (2003). Successful leadership of schools in urban and challenging contexts. NCSL. (2002). Making the difference. Successful leadership in challenging contexts.
Urban Leadership Series Brighouse, T. (undated). Urban leadership: A toolkit for governors. NCSL. (2005). A model of school leadership in challenging urban environments. NCSL. (2005). Chartered urban leader status.
Research Engaged School Project in Process CUREE. (undated). Leading the research engaged school case studies.* CUREE. (undated). Leading the research-engaged school: Why and how school leaders engage with educational research.*
Miscellaneous Texts Brown, P. (2002). The first 100 days. An enquiry into the first 100 days of headship in a failing school.* Hay McBer. (2000). Models of Excellence for school leaders.*
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Leithwood, K., & Reihl. (2003). What do we know about successful school leadership? National College for School Leadership. (2002). Leadership Development Framework.
* Research associate report All texts are available on the NSCL website www.ncsl.org.uk
Notes 1. I began to accumulate these interviews in Australia in 1997 as part of doctoral study; I have continued to add to them. With the addition of 21 English heads, there are now 73 individual transcripts which have been thematized and coded (Silverman, 1993). 2. Interestingly, the inspection agency, the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED) have extended the SFCC definition to include all schools with 35% or more pupils on free school meals – a direct measure of family income (2002). 3. The existence of such deficit discourse is not new. It has been noted regularly in English research on parents, schools and young people for example, (Bullen, Kenway, & Hay, 2000; Crozier, 2000; Reay, 1998; Vincent & Tomlinson, 1997). It is also apparent in other climes, for example, in the US (see Fine, 1995; Valencia, 1997) and in Australia (e.g., Bessant, 1995; Comber, 1997). 4. See Connell et al. (1982) and Thrupp (1999) for the argument about the importance of school mix. 5. City Academies are an initiative of the third term Blair government through which “failing schools” are closed to make way for new schools sponsored by private enterprise: city academies have more freedoms than others including the capacity to develop new curriculum. See Ball (2005) for a critique. 6. Some SI researchers do much more in their own work than in their NCSL commissioned texts. See Harris (Harris, James, Gunraj, Clarke, & Harris, 2006) and Chapman (2005) for example, who do get beyond descriptions of process and onto some questions of content.
References Achilles, C. (1999). Let’s put kids first, finally. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Anderson, G. (2001). Disciplining leaders: A critical discourse analysis of the ISLLC National Examination and Performance Standards in educational administration. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 4(3), 199–216. Ansell, D. (2004). Improving schools facing challenging circumstances: Insights from leading thinkers. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Apple, M. (1982). Cultural and economic reproduction in education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bacchi, C. L. (1999). Women, policy and politics. The construction of policy problems. London: Sage. Bacchi, C. L. (2000). Policy as discourse: What does it mean? Where does it get us? Discourse, 21(1), 45–57. Ball, S. (1993). What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse, 13(2), 3–11. Ball, S. (2005). Radical policies, progressive modernisation and deepening democracy: The Academies programme in action. Forum, 47(2/3), 215–222. Ball, S., Bowe, R., & Gewirtz, S. (1996). School choice, social class and distinction: The realisation of social advantage in education. Journal of Education Policy, 11(1), 89–112. Bell, L., Halpin, D., & Neill, S. (1996). Managing self governing primary schools in the local authority, grant maintained and private sectors. British Journal of Educational Studies, 41(2), 106–121. Bessant, J. (1995). The discovery of an Australian “juvenile underclass.” Australia and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 31(1), 32–48. Blackmore, J., Thomson, P., & Barty, K. (2006). Principal selection: Homosociability, the search for security and they production of normalised principals identities. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 34(3), 297–337. Blatchford, P. (2003). The class size debate. Is small better? Buckingham: Open University Press.
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Bogotch, I. (2002). Enmeshed in the work: The educative power of developing standards. Journal of School Leadership, 12(5), 503–525. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in society, education and culture. London: Sage. Brighouse, T. (2005). Urban leadership: A toolkit for governors. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Brown, P. (2002). The first 100 days: An enquiry into the first 100 days of headship in a failing school. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Bullen, E., Kenway, J., & Hay, V. (2000). New labour, social exclusion and educational risk management: The case of “gymslip mums.” British Educational Research Journal, 26(4), 441–456. Bush, T. (2004). Editorial: The National College for School Leadership. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 32(3), 243–249. Cairney, T. (2002). Bridging home and school literacy: In search of transformative approaches to curriculum. Early Child Development and Care, 172(2), 153–172. Chapman, C. (2005). Improving schools through external intervention. London: Continuum. Comber, B. (1997). Literacy, poverty and schooling: Working against deficit equations. English in Australia, 119–120, 22–34. Also available on: http://www.aate.org.au/E_in_A/Oct%209/972comb.html Comber, B., Badger, L., Barnett, J., Nixon, H., & Pitt, J. (2001). Socio-economically disadvantaged students and the development of literacies in school. A longitudinal study. Vols 1–3. Adelaide: Department of Education, Training and Employment (SA) & University of South Australia. Comber, B., Thomson, P., & Wells, M. (2001). Critical literacy finds a “place.” Writing and social action in a low income Australian grade 2/3 classroom. Elementary School Journal, 101(4), 451–464. Connell, R., Ashenden, D., Kessler, S., & Dowsett, G. (1982). Making the difference. Schools, families and social divisions. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Crowther, F. (1997). Teacher leadership: Explorations in theory and practice. Leading and Managing, 2(4), 304–321. Crozier, G. (2000). Parents and schools. Partners or protagonists? Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. Crozier, G., & Reay, D. (Eds.). (2004). Activating participation. Parents and teachers working towards partnership. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. CUREE. (2003a). Leading the research engaged school. National College for School Leadership: Nottingham. CUREE. (2003b). Leading the research engaged school: A literature review. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Daspit, T., & Weaver, J. A. (Eds.). (2000). Popular culture and critical pedagogy. Reading, constructing, connecting. New York: Garland Publishing. David, M., Edwards, R., Hughes, M., & Ribbens, J. (1993). Mothers and education: Inside out? exploring family-education policy and experience. New York: St Martins Press. de Carvalho, M. (1997). Rethinking family-school relations: A critique of parental involvement in schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Devine, F. (2004). Class practices. How parents help their children get good jobs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Dyson, A. H. (1993). The social worlds of children. Learning to write in an urban primary school. New York: Teachers College Press. Edwards, T., & Whitty, G. (1992). Parental choice and educational reform in Britain and the United States. British Journal of Educational Studies, 40(2), 297–313. Ellsworth, J., & Ames, L. (Eds.). (1998). Critical perspectives on Project Head Start. Revisioning hope and challenge. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Englefield, S. (2002). Leading to success: Judging success in primary schools in challenging contexts. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. English, F. (Ed.). (2003). The SAGE handbook of educational leadership. Advances in theory, research and practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Fine, M. (1995). The politics of who’s “at risk.” In B. Swadener, & S. Lubeck (Eds.), Children and families “at promise.” Deconstructing the discourse of risk (pp. 76–94). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
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Fine, M., & Weis, L. (1998). The unknown city. The lives of poor and working class young adults. Boston: Beacon Press. Finn, P. (1999). Literacy with an attitude. Educating working-class children in their own self interest. New York: State University of New York Press. Foucault, M. (1991). Politics and the study of discourse. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 53–72). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freebody, P., Ludwig, C., & Gunn, S. (1995). Everyday literacy practices in and out of schools in low socioeconomic urban communities. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, Curriculum Corporation. Frost, D., & Harris, A. (2003). Teacher leadership. Cambridge Journal of Education, 33, 479–498. Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and sustainabilty. System thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Ontario Principals Council & Corwin Press. Furstenberg, F., Cook, T., Eccles, J., Elder, G., & Sameroff, A. (1999). Managing to make it. Urban families and adolescent success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gewirtz, S., Ball, S., & Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, choice and equity in education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gibson, K., Huxley, M., Cameron, J., Costello, L., Fincher, R., Jacobs, J. et al. (1996). Restructuring difference: Social polarisation and the city. Melbourne: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Gilbert, F. (2004). I’m a teacher, get me out of here. London: Short Books. Gilchrist, A. (2004). The well connected community. A networking approach to community development. Bristol: The Policy Press. Gillbourn, D., & Youdell, D. (2000). Rationing education. Policy, practice, reform and equity. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gold, E., Simon, E., & Brown, C. (2005). A new conception of parent engagement. Community organising for school reform. In F. English (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of educational leadership. Advances in theory, research and practice (pp. 237–268). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Griffith, A., & Smith, D. (2005). Mothering for schooling. New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Gronn, P. (2003). The new work of educational leaders. Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Halverson, R. (2003). Systems of practice: How leaders use artifacts to create professional communities in schools. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 11(37), www.epaa.asu.edu/epaa.v11n37/ Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable leadership. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Harris, A. (2000). Successful school improvement in the United Kingdom and Canada. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration, (15), Available on: http://www.unmanitoba.ca/publications/cjeap/articles/ harris.html Harris, A., & Chapman, C. (2002). Effective leadership in schools facing challenging circumstances. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Harris, A., James, S., Gunraj, J., Clarke, P., & Harris, B. (2006). Improving schools in exceptionally challenging circumstances. Tales from the frontline. London: Continuum. Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without limits. Buckingham: Open University Press. Hatcher, R. (2005). The distribution of leadership and power in schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(2), 253–267. Hay McBer. (2000). Models of excellence for school leaders. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Held, V. (Ed.). (1995). Justice and care. Essential readings in feminist ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hill, S., Comber, B., Louden, B., Reid, J., & Rivalland, J. (1998). 100 Children go to school: Connections and disconnections in the literacy experience prior to school and in the first year of school. Vols 1–3. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. Hopkins, D. (2001). School improvement for real. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Hopkins, D., Ainscow, M., & West, M. (1994). School improvement in an era of change. London: Cassell. Howson, J. (2004). The relationship between headteachers’ length of service in primary and secondary schools and selected PANDA grades. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.
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Keys, W., Sharp, C., Greene, K., & Grayson, H. (2003). Successful leadership of schools in urban and challenging contexts. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Lambert, L., Walker, D., Zimmerman, D., Cooper, J., Lambert, M., Gardner, M., et al. (1995). The constructivist leader. New York: Teachers College Press. Leithwood, K., & Reihl, C. (2003). What we know about successful school leadership. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Lister, R. (2004). Poverty. Cambridge: Polity. Lupton, R. (2003). Poverty street. The dynamics of neighbourhood decline and renewal. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. Lyman, L., & Villani, C. (2004). Best leadership practices for high-poverty schools. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow. McKnight, J. (1995). The careless society. Community and its counterfeits. New York: Basic Books. McKnight, J., & Kretzmann, J. (1996). Mapping community capacity. Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research. Northwestern University. McPherson, I., Elliott, R., Aspland, T., & Brooker, R. (1999). Places and spaces for teachers in curriculum leadership. Canberra: Australian Curriculum Studies Association. Miliband, D. (2004, May 18). Choice and voice in personalised learning. Paper presented at the DfES Innovation Unit/DEMOS/OECD Conference “Personalising education: The future of public section reform,” London. Miron, L., & Lauria, M. (2005). Urban schools: The new social spaces of resistance. New York: Peter Lang. Moll, L. (1992). Literacy research in community and classrooms: A sociocultural approach. In R. Beach, J. Green, M. Kamil, & T. Shanahan (Eds.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on literacy research (pp. 211–244). Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. Moll, L., Tapia, J., & Whitmore, K. (1993). Living knowledge: The social distribution of cultural resources for thinking. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions (pp. 139–163). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moller, G., & Katzenmayer, M. (Eds.). (1996). Every teacher as a leader: Realising the potential of teacher leadership. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. National College for School Leadership. (2002a). Leadership Development Framework. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. National College for School Leadership. (2002b). Making the difference. Successful leadership in challenging contexts. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. National College for School Leadership. (2005a). Chartered urban leader status. Guidance for governors, headteachers and aspiring school leaders. Nottingham, UK: National College for School Leadership. National College for School Leadership. (2005b). A model of school leadership in challenging urban environments. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Newman, K. (1999). No shame in my game. The working poor in the inner city. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, Alfred Knopf. Oakes, J., Wells, A. S., Jones, M., & Datnow, A. (1997). Detracking: The social construction of ability, cultural politics, and resistance to reform. Teachers College Record, 98(3), 482–510. O’Connor, M., Hales, E., Davies, J., & Tomlinson, S. (1999). Hackney Downs. The school that dared to fight. London: Cassell. Office for Standards in Education [OfSTED]. (2002). The annual report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools 2000/2001: Standards and quality in education. London: OfSTED. Pacione, M. (Ed.). (1997). Britain’s cities. Geographies of division in urban Britain. London: Routledge. Peacock, A. (2005). Raising standards: What do we really want? Forum, 47(2/3), 91–96. Reay, D. (1998). Class work: Mother’s involvement in their children’s schooling. London: University College Press. Reeves, J., Turner, E., Morris, B., & Forde, C. (2005). Changing their minds: The social dynamics of school leaders’ learning. Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2), 253–273. Riley, K. (2004, April). Leading challenging urban schools. Demands, dilemmas and dreams. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Diego.
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55 URBAN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
Barbara MacGilchrist Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
… we don’t really know how much more difficult it is for schools serving disadvantaged communities to improve because much of the improvement research has ignored this dimension – that it is more difficult, however, seems unquestionable. (Gray, 2001, p. 33)
Introduction Urban school improvement is a complex issue that has exercised those involved in school effectiveness and school improvement research worldwide. A clear message from this international research community is that there are no “quick fixes” (Stoll & Myers, 1998) and that breaking the historic link between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes remains a central challenge. Urban settings in the United Kingdom (UK) have noticeably changed, particularly in the last two decades. They now comprise a complex mix of social, ethnic and religious groupings in which socio-economically disadvantaged communities facing serious issues related to poverty, health, unemployment, poor housing and crime are juxtaposed with wealthy, highly advantaged, socially mobile communities. The gentrification of some parts of inner cities, for example, in London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow, has exacerbated this situation. The schools serving these communities also represent a complex mix of educational institutions. This is particularly the case in England where, due to recent government policy, schools in urban settings have changed or are changing rapidly. They currently comprise a mix of community schools, foundation schools, city technology colleges, specialist schools, academies, denominational schools, grammar schools and private schools all within close proximity with one another and sometimes with overlapping catchment areas. In a political environment which emphasizes choice, diversity and marketization, the socially mobile, unlike their disadvantaged counterparts, have taken 1079 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1079–1104. © 2007 Springer.
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full advantage of the opportunity to choose the school of their choice. Not surprisingly, this has had a significant impact on the social mix of pupils in any particular school. The need to raise standards across the UK education system as a whole, and in schools serving disadvantaged communities in particular, many of which are in urban areas, has been the focus of attention for several decades. When benchmarked against other countries there was evidence at the turn of the century that standards were improving. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) international study (OECD, 2002) of the test results of 265,000 15 year olds in 2000 found that British pupils had noticeably improved their ranking in the world league tables for mathematics, reading and science. However, the study revealed a worrying gap between the performance of rich and poor pupils. Whilst the UK’s performance overall was good, the OECD warned that there was still a class divide in the education system. Only 5 of the 32 countries involved in the study had a wider gap between children from professional homes and those from deprived backgrounds. Following a review of initiatives to improve schools, in particular, schools serving disadvantaged areas, Reynolds and Teddlie (2001) concluded that: The most persistent finding of all post-war attempts at education reform is that social class inequality in educational qualifications has been largely unchanged by educational improvements on both quantity and quality dimensions. (p. 333) Approaches to school improvement in the UK and ways of tackling underachievement have been influenced in recent years by some of the findings that have emerged from school effectiveness and school improvement research. There has been a tendency for policy makers to cherry pick those findings and assume that “what works” in schools deemed to be effective in terms of their test and examination results can be superimposed on ineffective schools, many of which are serving disadvantaged communities in urban areas. To understand current approaches to urban school improvement this chapter traces the origins and development of school effectiveness and school improvement research in the UK, and in England in particular, from their genesis back in the 1960s to the present day. It identifies some of the main themes that have emerged from the school effectiveness literature and pays particular attention to significant longitudinal studies of schools in urban areas. As a backdrop to this analysis, it traces changes in government educational policy over the same time period and highlights specific initiatives to raise standards and improve schools many of which have been targeted at schools in urban settings. It then draws out some of the key lessons learnt about urban school improvement. As a result of this analysis, it argues that the way these two research paradigms have developed, and their somewhat unquestioning interrelationship with government policy on school improvement, have prevented, albeit with some notable exceptions, the aspirations of the school improvement movement from being achieved. The reasons for this are explored including paying attention to those who have criticized school effectiveness and school improvement research for not recognizing the powerful impact of the social and cultural settings from which pupils in any given school are drawn.
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The chapter concludes by arguing that current approaches to school improvement in urban settings need a radical re-think as does the current definition of an effective school. It then suggests that there is potentially an opportunity in England at the turn of the twenty-first century to have a joined-up holistic approach to breaking the link between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes that could bring about sustained improvements over time. It suggests four building blocks for achieving this. These concern: the government’s Children’s Agenda; the New Deal for Communities program; the importance of high quality early childhood education; and the need to rethink the curriculum and assessment arrangements in the 14–19 phase of schooling. It explores some of the factors that need to be overcome for these strategies to be effective in urban settings.
The Origins of School Effectiveness Research School effectiveness research found its origins in the 1960s. It grew out of a concern for equality of educational opportunity and a desire to use schooling to combat social and racial divisions. At that time, a longitudinal study in the UK by Douglas (1964) provided evidence about the link between pupils’ background and their progress and attainment in school. For a period of ten years the study followed the progress of all the children born in the same week in March 1946. Using the Registrar General’s categories for social class, the research found that for middle class children the combination of home and school experience led to improvements in progress and attainment. For children from working class families who were already coming to school disadvantaged compared with their middle class peer group, the school did not make up that disadvantage and by age 8 considerable differences in school performance, particularly with regard to reading were found. When the cohort was re-tested at age 11 the differences had increased. It was found that whilst it was difficult to separate out the significance of the influence of home and school, there was evidence to show that in the schools with “a good academic record,” children from working class as well as middle class backgrounds were academically more successful. The implication was that if a school was a “good” school, then this could have a more significant influence on achievement regardless of home background. Research into the impact and effectiveness of schools had a faltering start. The first two major school effectiveness studies in the United States of America (US) by Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972) concluded that the influence of home background was far greater than that of the school. The Plowden (1967) report in the United Kingdom (UK) added weight to this argument as did those who were claiming that hereditary influences were strong (Jensen, 1969). By the late 1970s however, the social determinist view was being challenged and a consensus began to emerge that schools can and do make a difference. School effectiveness researchers (Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston, 1979) began to compare schools with similar intakes to ascertain if some were more effective than others and to identify the characteristics of schools that were making a difference (Edmonds & Frederiksen, 1979).
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The groundbreaking study by Rutter et al. (1979) paved the way for the school effectiveness movement in the UK. The study set out to compare the effectiveness of 12 inner city secondary schools in a London Borough with high levels of social deprivation. It looked at differences between the schools using a variety of student outcome measures including academic achievement, delinquency, attendance and behaviour. The research identified a range of factors such as academic emphasis, incentives and rewards and general learning conditions and concluded that schools that had a combination of these factors created an ‘ethos’ that made a positive difference to pupil outcomes. Rutter et al. acknowledged that another variable which concerned the balance of intake in each of the schools could be a factor influencing pupil outcomes. The presence of a relatively high concentration of pupils in the upper ability groups may work to the advantage not only of the pupils themselves but also to their peers. In a similar way, a largely disadvantaged intake might depress outcomes in some cumulative way over and above the effects of a disadvantaged background on the individual pupil. (Rutter et al., 1979, p. 154) However, in the event, it was the “ethos” variable that became equated with effectiveness. Thrupp (2001) has criticized this research for “eventually privileging ethos over balance of intake” (p. 23) and there is no doubt that the published findings led the school effectiveness community down a certain path. Politically 1979 also heralded a change in government. A Conservative government came into power and remained so for the next 18 years. The previous Labour government had already initiated a debate (Callaghan, 1976) about education. The need for a centrally controlled curriculum and for schools to be opened up to public scrutiny became the focus of attention. The outcome was the 1988 Education Reform Act which heralded the introduction in England and Wales of a National Curriculum and new mandatory assessment arrangements for primary children and pupils in the early years of secondary schooling. At the same time, the Act also introduced Local Management of Schools whereby schools were required to take more control over their day-to-day management. A subsequent outcome was the Education (Schools) Act in 1992 which established the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) in England and Wales. The remit of Ofsted was to inspect every school on a four-year cycle and to produce a published report on each school in which, for example, the quality of leadership and teaching and the outcome of pupil test and examination results would be made publicly available. It was anticipated that in an open market situation, parental choice of schools, influenced by Ofsted reports, would drive up standards. In the meantime, a growing amount of international research evidence (Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob, 1988; Scheerens, 1997; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) became available confirming that there is a school “effect.” One such research in the UK was the longitudinal junior school study by Mortimore et al. (1988). The research focused on approximately 2000 children in 50 inner London schools and traced their progress over the four years of junior schooling from age 7. At the end of the junior years the research team measured the children’s educational outcomes which included
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a mix of test results and non-cognitive outcomes such as behavior. The research team were particularly interested in establishing: … whether some schools were more effective than others in promoting pupils’ learning and development, once account had been taken of variations in the characteristics of pupils in the intakes to schools. (p. 3) The study attempted to control for background factors using free schools meals, for example, as a proxy for poverty. It was found that over the four-year period disadvantaged pupils made more progress in more effective schools than similar pupils in the least effective schools. Twelve factors over which schools had control such as “purposeful leadership by the headteacher,” “intellectually challenging teaching” and the creation of a “positive climate” were identified in the effective schools. The study mapped pupil progress and attainment across the dimensions of class, ethnicity, sex and age. The research revealed significant differences in children’s attainment outcomes during the junior years and found, for example, that children’s level of reading attainment at age 7 was a good predictor of their level of attainment at age 11. At age 7, those children whose parents worked in non-manual jobs were nearly 10 months ahead in reading than pupils from unskilled manual homes. By the end of the junior years, the gap had widened. Overall, the study found that of age, sex, race and social class, it was the social class dimension that accounted for the main difference in attainment between groups of pupils. Thomas and Mortimore (1994) calculated the potential significance of these findings for pupils at the end of their time in school. They considered that the results could mean a difference for the average pupil of seven grade Cs instead of six grade Es for the General Certificate in Secondary Education (GCSE). Another longitudinal study by Tizard, Blatchford, Burke, Farquhar, and Plewis (1988), also conducted in inner London, examined the influences of home and school on young children’s educational attainment and progress between the ages of 4 to 7. The study was particularly interested in identifying factors that might account for gender and ethnicity differences in pupil outcomes. The research concluded that there were certain school factors that exerted a greater influence on progress than home background. Two in particular were identified as being especially important: the range of literacy and numeracy taught and teachers’ expectations. The research team found that the school a child attended proved to be an overriding factor in terms of the amount of progress a child made. In a third UK study, Smith and Tomlinson (1989) followed 3000 children over a five year period who transferred from their primary schools at age 11 to 20 multi-racial comprehensive schools in the early 1980s. All the schools were urban and were located in different parts of England. The main purpose of the study was to measure differences between schools in the examination results achieved by the pupils at age 16 after taking account of differences in the attainment and background of the children at their point of transfer. The results confirmed the findings of the Rutter et al. research. It was found that children who were deemed to be comparable in terms of background and
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attainment at age 11 achieved very different results depending on the school they attended with some schools being noticeably more effective than others for both white and minority ethnic pupils. As a result of the emerging research evidence at that time, an effective school was defined as: … one in which pupils progress further than might be expected from consideration of its intake. (Mortimore, 1991, p. 9) How much effect a school can have on pupil outcomes and what accounts for these effects have been the subject of much subsequent research. A complex picture has emerged. The junior school study (Mortimore et al., 1988) confirmed that, in general, an effective school tended to have a positive impact on all the pupils whereas an ineffective school tended to have a negative impact. However, they also found that whilst in absolute terms the effective schools raised the overall achievement levels of the children, they did not narrow the relative gap between the achievement levels of the disadvantaged and privileged groups. Pupils from advantaged backgrounds still out performed those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Mortimore and Whitty (2000) in commenting on the findings said that: It would appear that, if all primary schools were to improve so that they performed at the level of the most effective, the difference between the overall achievement of the most advantaged social groups and that of the disadvantaged might actually increase. (p. 22) Beneath the finding that schools can make a difference lies an even more complicated picture. Some studies have found that schools can have different effects on pupils of different abilities and on pupils from different social, ethnic and gender groups (Nuttall, Goldstein, Prosser, & Rasbash, 1989; Sammons, Thomas, & Mortimore, 1997; Willms & Kerr, 1987) and that the interrelationship between social class, ethnicity and gender is complex (Gillborn, 2002; Gillborn & Gipps, 1996; MacBeath, 1999). Longitudinal studies following pupils from primary to secondary school have also shown that progress among different groups varies over time, with some ethnic groups falling behind in primary school, but beginning to catch up at secondary school (Sammons, 1995). MacBeath and Mortimore (2001) noted that: “the longer that pupils stay in school, the more pronounced becomes the influence of social class” (p. 12). They asked the question: Is this a school effect or a background effect? That is, does the social background that pupils bring with them exert itself more strongly over time, or is a school constructed in such a way as to accentuate the difference progressively? (p. 12) Teddlie and Reynolds (2000) in their review of the international school effectiveness literature, and in their response to critics of the school effectiveness movement (Slee, Tomlinson, & Weiner, 1998; Thrupp, 1999), concluded that more attention in the future
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needs to be paid to a wider range of contextual factors than has been the case in the past. Thrupp (2001) in his critique of school effectiveness research stressed the importance of recognising that whilst schools can make some difference, there is strong evidence that the social background of pupils has a powerful influence on academic achievement. During the 1980s school effectiveness research began to have an impact on school improvement research. Initially, however, the two paradigms worked in parallel with one another.
The Origins of School Improvement Research The school improvement movement found its origins in the 1970s. It grew out of a concern to identify those factors and processes within and beyond schools that can be changed or introduced in such a way as to bring about improvement. To begin with, school improvement projects and programs developed in an uncoordinated way within individual schools and districts. However, in the 1980s, spurred on by the emerging findings from school effectiveness research about the “school effect,” a more coordinated approach to school improvement gathered momentum. Local education authorities and school districts began to develop a more coherent strategy for school improvement programs and individual countries came together to work on common projects (van Velzen, Miles, Ekholm, Hameyer, & Robin, 1985). By the mid 1980s, school improvement was being defined as: A systematic, sustained effort aimed at change in learning conditions and other related conditions in one or more schools with the ultimate aim of accomplishing educational goals more effectively. (van Velzen et al., 1985, p. 34) One of the first significant urban school improvement studies to emerge was an American study that focused on improving urban high schools (Louis & Miles, 1990). At that time, in common with the UK, there was serious concern in the US about underachievement in cities and there were moves to encourage school-based decision making and to bring about improvements in the curriculum and the way it was taught. In the context of knowledge about the characteristics of effective schools, Louis and Miles wanted to find out how successful urban school improvement really worked. They paid particular attention to the leadership and management of change. They conducted five in-depth case studies of high schools in five different cities that were improving. They also did a national survey of the principals of large city high schools whose schools had been engaged in serious school improvement efforts. Louis and Miles identified the characteristics of effective change and highlighted the importance of “articulating a vision,” “getting shared vision ownership” and “using evolutionary planning.” They drew attention to the particular “deep-coping” strategies needed to manage in an urban setting. A mixed picture emerged. Of the five schools, two were found to have been successful in bringing about noticeable improvements, two were only partially successful and one was unsuccessful because, as Louis and Miles put it, “the odds against success were too high” (p. 148). This research was one of many to
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follow that endeavoured, through the study of successful, effective schools, to identify what worked and disseminate the findings to practitioners and policy makers alike.
The Coming Together of School Effectiveness and School Improvement During the 1990s, school improvement researchers and those engaged in school improvement at a local level, be they in schools or in local education districts, were becoming increasingly influenced by findings emanating from studies of effective schools. There was evidence emerging that effective schools appeared to have a number of common characteristics. In 1995, Sammons et al. were commissioned by the Office for Standards in Education in England to undertake a review of international school effectiveness literature, particularly from the UK, US and the Netherlands. They were asked to assess whether or not, despite the many differences in approaches to education from one country to the next, it was possible to find distinctive features that successful schools have in common. The definition of “success” that underpinned the review focused in the main on improvements in test and examination performance which reflected the fact that school effectiveness studies had tended to concentrate on a narrow set of measures. The review confirmed that there appear to be at least 11 characteristics such as, high quality leadership, high expectations and effective teaching that are present in those schools where pupils perform particularly well. How schools can develop these characteristics became the focus of attention for those engaged in school improvement. This focus of attention encouraged the coming together of school effectiveness and school improvement research (Gray, Goldstein, & Jesson, 1996) that was already beginning to take place (Hopkins, 1996; Reynolds, Hopkins, & Stoll, 1993). It resulted in a redefinition of school improvement. In 1996, Hopkins defined it as: A strategy for educational change that enhances student outcomes as well as strengthening the school’s capacity for managing change. (p. 32) In this definition, school improvement processes were linked directly with pupil outcomes. Politically, during the 1990s school improvement began to take centre stage in the UK. In the first half of the decade central control over the curriculum continued whilst accountability at school level was strengthened. Secondary schools began to be held publicly accountable for their examination results regardless of the communities they served. In 1991 the government published a Parents’ Charter in which the publication of performance tables for secondary schools was heralded as part of the drive to give parents choices in the market place. From 1992 examination results were published on an annual basis. The “league tables” as they became known, were seen as a way of levering up standards. They were aligned with the government’s policy on a market economy in which competition and enterprise were encouraged. The league tables were based on raw scores and were not adjusted to take account of a school’s intake. They attracted and continue to attract high levels of media interest. Poor results, particularly
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in schools in urban areas were highlighted. Attention was focused on the poor results achieved by comprehensive schools, many of which were in urban areas, compared with grammar and private schools. The future of comprehensive education was questioned by the government and the media alike. During the same time period, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) began publishing an annual report based on the findings of Ofsted school inspections. The first report was published in 1993 (Ofsted, 1993) and included, as all subsequent reports have done, the names of schools deemed to be effective particularly in terms of examination results. From 1996 onwards (Ofsted, 1996) HMCI’s annual reports also named the schools which had come out of special measures and defined them as improving schools. A high percentage of these latter schools were in urban areas. It became the expectation that following an intensive period of intervention by Her Majesty’s Inspectors, such schools would be turned around in less than two years. Those unable to do so were threatened with closure or a fresh start with new leadership and a new name. In his study of schools in “special measures,” Gray (2000) found that they responded to intensive intervention with a short burst of improvement in test or examination results but their rates of improvement in subsequent years rapidly tailed off. The “naming and shaming” of schools was a school improvement strategy that attracted high profile, national media coverage. By the mid 1990s an effective school was being defined as one which: Adds extra value to its students’ outcomes in comparison with schools serving similar intakes. (Sammons, Hillman, & Mortimore, 1995, p. 3) The definition encouraged a focus on the effect schools can have on pupils’ progress as well as their outcomes. This coincided with concerns being raised by school effectiveness researchers and practitioners about the validity of the league tables (Foxman, 1997; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). There was particular concern about the fact that raw outcome results made it impossible to assess the “value added” by a school in terms of the academic progress made by the pupils since entry. Many schools in urban areas were claiming that whilst on the surface their results were poor, in real terms many of the pupils had made significant progress over their time in the school. Assessing the value-added by a school has proved to be complex. Value-added measures began to be used by researchers to demonstrate how effective a school was in promoting pupils’ academic attainment. There was a recognition, however, that such results needed to have a “health warning” attached to them. It was pointed out, for example, that they could mask a high turnover of pupils (Goldstein, 1996). Also, because of the limited number of pupils normally included in the sample, there are inherent limitations built into the technique when using it to make comparisons between schools. It was argued that a multi-level modeling statistical approach could be used as a screening device to identify very low performing or very high performing schools. However, it was not able to provide finely graded differences between schools (Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). It was thought that about three years of attainment data could signal a trend with a fair degree of confidence. This was at a time when researchers had no access to substantial longitudinal data on pupil performance.
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From the mid 1990s, policy makers began to draw more and more on the findings of school effectiveness and school improvement research. A study that attracted much attention at that time emanated from a National Commission. In the early 1990s a UK National Commission on Education was established to consider all phases of education and training throughout the UK and to identify and examine key issues likely to arise over the next 25 years. The Commission’s report which was entitled “Learning to Succeed” (National Commission on Education, 1993) identified underachievement in deprived areas, particularly in inner cities, as a serious problem. The Commission was of the view that in situations of multiple disadvantage the “dice are loaded” against educational success. As part of the follow-up to this report a study was commissioned to investigate how schools in disadvantaged areas can and do succeed against the odds (National Commission on Education, 1996). Between them a group of education experts, business figures and people from the wider community visited 11 successful primary, secondary and special schools located in cities across the UK and wrote up case studies on each. The lessons learnt concentrated on visions of success, whole-school policies and practice, the inclusive nature of the schools and their leadership and management. It was stated that the major lesson of the study is that “every school has the opportunity to succeed against the odds” (p. 362). It concluded that: At the very heart of the professionalism of the headteacher and all other teachers lies that sense of the need to set in motion processes which lead to achievement of a goal: the learning of pupils, and hence their growth towards the fulfilment of their true capabilities. The fascination of these studies lies in the way they demonstrate how the goal, can be achieved, no matter what the obstacles. (p. 363) The conclusion drawn that every school can succeed and, by implication, “buck the trend” of underachievement in urban areas, set the bar high for urban schools and policy makers were quick to capitalise on these findings. The previous research findings on the persistent relationship between social class and educational achievement tended to be put on one side. The notion that schools can make a difference was the main driver for improvement. In 1997 a New Labour government came into power and within a few months of taking up office had published a White Paper on “Excellence in Schools” (DfEE, 1997a) setting out the government’s proposals for raising standards. Equality of opportunity and high standards for all underpinned the Paper. To overcome economic and social disadvantage and to make equality of opportunity a reality, we must strive to eliminate, and never excuse, under-achievement in the most deprived parts of our country. (p. 3) Attention was focussed in particular on raising levels of achievement in primary schools in England. In 1997, according to the results of the Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs), introduced by the previous government, at least 25% of primary children were leaving school at age 11 unable to read at a level that would enable them to access the
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secondary school curriculum. A similar percentage of primary children at age 11 were underachieving in numeracy. Attention was drawn to the fact that many of these children were from disadvantaged urban communities. To address these problems, an ambitious system-wide school improvement programme was introduced in the form of National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. These strategies had several components. They concerned the setting of national annual targets with built-in year-on-year improvement expected. Each local education authority (LEA) was set an annual target and in turn the LEAs set individual annual targets for the schools in their district. Again, the expectation was one of year-on-year improvement in test results at LEA and school level. National guidelines for all schools on how to teach literacy and numeracy were published with the expectation that this guidance would be followed and its implementation monitored by Ofsted. A national compulsory training programme for schools on how to “deliver” the strategies was implemented. From 1997 performance tables based on SATs results were published annually and the “naming and shaming” of primary schools with poor SATs results began. The government commissioned a number of studies of improving schools (DfEE, 1997b; Gray, 2000). The emphasis was on “what works” and underachieving and failing schools were encouraged to adopt the practices being used by successful schools. Successful urban schools were held up as examples of good practice for less successful urban schools to emulate. Standards-based reform of the education system in which individual schools and districts were held publicly accountable for test and examination outcomes became a fundamental part of education policy in England (Earl et al., 2003) and also in the US (Elmore, 2000; Hill, 2001). Caldwell and Spinks (1998) described this change in approach to educational reform as having an unrelenting focus on learning outcomes. It was during this period that the academic performance of pupils became a key success criterion for an improving school. By this time, school effectiveness and school improvement research had all but merged. By 1999, an improving school was being defined as: One which secures year-on-year improvements in the outcomes of successive cohorts of “similar” pupils … in other words, it increases in its effectiveness over time (p. 48) and what matters is how much progress they (schools) make from their respective starting points. (Gray et al., 1999, p. 11) By the late 1990s, as longitudinal school performance outcome data became available, the expectation that schools can improve their test and examination results year-onyear, became challenged. In a substantial school improvement research, Gray et al. (1999) premised their study of 12 secondary schools on the notion of an improving school being one that increases its effectiveness over time. It was the first study of its kind to define school improvement in this way. Gray et al. set out to study the schools’ rates of improvement in their effectiveness over time using value-added data. They also examined some of the factors and strategies associated with changes in performance. Five of the 12 schools were urban. The research team were looking at naturally occurring improvement, not improvements linked directly with external intervention. They used a combination of qualitative
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and quantitative methods drawn from both school effectiveness and school improvement research methodology. They also used knowledge from these two paradigms to identify factors that might have contributed to the changes and improvement processes in the 12 schools. They looked at changes in a school’s effectiveness over time, that is, from one cohort to the next, something rarely done in previous studies, and they were interested in rates of change over time. They placed the schools in terms of their value-added performance data at the beginning of the study at one of three levels of effectiveness: above average, average or below average and looked to see whether the schools had made rapid, steady or slow progress. They found that up to three years of continuous improvement at the same level seemed to be the norm after which a school tended to reach a plateau or regressed. For a school to move up a level of effectiveness, however, required four or five years of sustained improvement. In practice, they found that a five-year run of continuous improvement was quite exceptional. They concluded that there was limited evidence of sustained improvement over time. Subsequent studies using longitudinal pupil data have added weight to these findings. Gray, Goldstein, and Thomas (2001), for example, focused on trying to establish not only the extent to which sustained trends in effectiveness can be identified, but also the extent to which such trends can reliably predict the future performance of schools. What was particularly significant about this study was that, unlike previous studies, which were small-scale and local, this one used a very large nationally representative sample. Using data provided by the Department for Education and Employment, the sample comprised nearly 700,000 pupils representing 4 successive cohorts in 2,500 institutions. Performance in the years leading up to Advanced/Advanced Subsidiary (A/AS) levels was the focus and the context nationally was one of very stable A/AS results in England from year-to-year. They found that only in a very small minority of cases did schools have consistent trajectories either up or down. Such trends as were identified appeared to be relatively short lived and to come in bursts and very rarely went beyond three years. The Gray et al., 1999 study also provided useful insights into the context and change processes within the schools. The research team found clear evidence of differential rates of improvement across the schools. Three different approaches to improvement were identified. Nearly all the schools used short-term tactics to improve examination results, for example, providing additional support for borderline GCSE C/D candidates. Not surprisingly, such responses did not lead to sustained improvement over time. In contrast, those schools improving more rapidly showed evidence of also using a more strategic approach to improvement. For example, they were involved in developing whole-school policies and were using a planned approach to development to enable them to focus on areas in need of improvement. They were trying to have a co-coordinated approach to improvement with varying success. Only two schools were also engaged in capacity building. They had gone beyond incremental approaches to change and were trying to focus on ways of improving learning and teaching in classrooms. However, in only one of the schools did the research team feel that the practices in place were sufficiently embedded for them to be confident that the school really did have the capacity to improve in the longer term.
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The research team looked at the power of contextual factors. They surmised that it may well be the case that schools serving particularly disadvantaged socio-economic communities experience constraints that are additional to any shared with schools that have comparably low attaining intakes. They identified a range of contextual factors that appeared to have a particular impact on rates of improvement. These included: head teachers having to cope with a mix of personalities and attitudes on the staff; the age profile of staff; the turnover of staff; and the competition in the local market place affecting the social mix of the intake. They argued that the next wave of school improvement or “third age” as they called it needs to focus on classrooms and the improvement of learning and teaching. From the evidence emerging, school improvement as it is currently defined appears to come more often than not in short bursts, and capacity building, especially in schools serving disadvantaged areas, is particularly challenging. This raises questions as to what the contextual factors are that are creating this situation – are they long term, medium term or short term? Is the social mix of pupils a determining factor? Can particular school improvement strategies buck these trends? Are there systemic changes beyond schools that can make a difference? To help answer these questions it is useful, before drawing together the current lessons learnt about urban school improvement to draw on one more longitudinal urban school improvement study and to highlight recent initiatives since New Labour came into office aimed at helping to combat underachievement in urban areas in England. The longitudinal urban school study concerns a return visit five years later to the 11 “success against the odds” schools described earlier (National Commission on Education, 1996) and the writing up of subsequent case studies (Maden, 2001). The research team were interested in how the schools had maintained and sustained the momentum for improvement. What was noticeable about this return visit was that the “odds” had changed during the period, so had the nature of the “successes” not least because there had been a change in government. As Gray commented in the introduction to the case studies, “improving against the odds is now the name of the game” (p. 2). He was of the view that schools serving disadvantaged areas still have the odds stacked against them, despite external attempts both to intervene and support. He urged caution in respect of attempts to weaken the link between disadvantage and educational performance in which there is a tendency for unrealistic expectations to be placed on schools to achieve this. More recent studies have shown that there is often a collective effect of “social” mix over and above that which would be indicated by individuals’ characteristics alone. (Gray in Maden, 2001, p. 33) Gray commented that schools in challenging circumstances appear to have to work even harder than other schools to bring about improvement, a finding supported by a subsequent analysis of the research evidence on improving schools in socio-economically disadvantaged areas (Muijs, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2004). Gray, in drawing on some of the research evidence already described concluded that: “To succeed in sustaining improvement is the exception rather than the rule” (p. 26). By implication, this
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makes sustaining improvement in urban schools even more challenging. Gray rehearsed some of the particular difficulties schools serving disadvantaged areas can have such as, high teacher turnover, difficulties in teacher recruitment and retention, getting the pupils to attend and then to engage in learning, creating a safe, orderly environment and coping with challenging pupil behavior. In her commentary on the case studies, Maden described how they showed that “what had happened to the 11 schools in the previous five years revealed significant variations in the amount and kind of success and improvement experienced” (p. 309). The case studies illustrated the relationship and the tension between a school’s internal context and actions and the external context locally and nationally. They also highlighted the efforts the schools had to make simply to maintain current levels of improvement and the challenges they faced in trying to continue to build their capacity for improvement. Maden concluded that: “We do not know enough about sustaining and maintaining school success and ‘capacity’ in such (urban) settings” (p. 337). The case studies were able to throw light on the impact of some of the specific initiatives introduced by New Labour to raise standards in urban areas. These included attempts by Ofsted to provide schools with value added data in recognition of the concerns raised earlier in this chapter about judging schools on raw outcome data rather than on progress made by pupils during their time in a particular school. Since the late 1990s Ofsted has provided annual performance and assessment reports (PANDAs) for every school. These set out in great detail an analysis of the school’s SATs and/or examination results against the national average and “benchmark” the school against schools of a similar kind using free school meals to group schools. They also assess progress in relation to pupils’ prior attainment. PANDAs were seen as an attempt to take account of a school’s context but are a rough and ready measure. They are particularly problematical for schools serving disadvantaged communities because of the definition of “similar schools.” All schools with more than 50% of children entitled to free school meals are considered “similar schools” despite the evidence of the cumulative effect of a higher percentage of disadvantaged pupils attending a school. From their first White Paper (DfEE, 1997a) onwards, New Labour made it clear that raising standards was a top priority. At one level the government was encouraging and expecting all schools, irrespective of their type or pupil intake, to improve and immediately established a Standards and Effectiveness Unit (SEU) in the Department for Education and Employment within a few months of coming into office. An unprecedented systemic approach to educational change was rolled out. The SEU injected a sense of urgency for improvement across the education sector as a whole, exemplified as described earlier by the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies and related target setting in primary schools which were subsequently introduced into the early years of secondary schooling. Poverty was not accepted as a reason for school failure and “zero tolerance” of failure, as described by Brighouse and Fullick in their chapter, became the order of the day. At another level however, there was a recognition of the need to reduce the odds against success by tackling socio-economic disadvantage in urban (and rural) areas and a raft of initiatives were introduced. These initiatives included “Education Action Zones” targeted at urban areas of educational underperformance and “Excellence in
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Cities,” the aim of which was to raise standards and aspirations in inner city schools. The mixed and somewhat predictable results of these initiatives are described in detail in other chapters in this section (see Johnson, Woods and Brighouse and Fullick). Drawing on the experience of the US, Sure Start programs were introduced from 2000. The aim was to improve services to families and pre-school young children in areas of need to combat social exclusion, raise standards and reduce inequality in health and social care. The government also decided to continue with the Single Regeneration Budget introduced in the early 1990s by the Conservative government. This budget provided funding for multi-agency regeneration projects to improve employment prospects, the physical environment and public services, including education, in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Resource allocation was related to an index of local deprivation. In 1999 the New Deal for Communities (NDC) program was launched by the government involving an investment of £2 billion over 10 years targeted at 39 of the most deprived neighborhoods in England. Community-centered boards were established with the aim of investing in sustainable projects to tackle the problems of multiple deprivation. In a report on the progress of the NDC program (National Audit Office, 2004) whilst some positive progress was identified a number of concerns were raised not least about operational problems around the difficulties of bringing different groups together to create robust, accountable partnerships. In the five “success against the odds” case studies (Maden, 2001) there was evidence of the schools located in England taking advantage of these different initiatives and using them to further their own improvement endeavors. However, given the fragmented nature of these initiatives and the complex funding streams and timescales attached to them, it is not surprising that their impact was limited. Since the follow-up study, the government has focused on transforming secondary schools in urban areas through an ambitious rolling program of establishing specialist schools and, more recently, academies. This has created a situation in which the schools which are not part of this program are in danger of becoming ghettoized which in turn can further disadvantage those who are not socially mobile. Woods, in his chapter, cites evidence to the effect that specialist schools and academies have been selective in their intakes and colonized in the main by middle class pupils. In the absence of standard admissions criteria across the diverse types of secondary schools situated in urban areas and in a system driven by competition and accountability, such findings are understandable. They make the London Challenge initiative described by Brighouse and Fullick even more of a challenge not least because much of it is based on bringing together initiatives that have had questionable success in the past. The recognition more recently of the need to have targeted support and intervention in schools in challenging circumstances does acknowledge that a one-size fits all model of school improvement is simply not appropriate for schools in urban areas. The tension between diversity, choice and market forces has resulted in the stratification of schools, as described in the chapter by Riddell, with a noticeable middle class/working class divide. It is not surprising therefore that despite all the initiatives described in this and other chapters in this section, the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” in the UK has widened. Too many schools in urban areas have a social mix that is going against the grain of school improvement efforts judged externally by pupil performance in tests and examination results.
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Mortimore and Whitty (2000) point to the fact that the concepts of meritocracy and competition that underpin the UK test and examination system have disadvantaged pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Just as poverty is a relative concept, we are faced with a situation in which educational success also appears to be partly relative. (p. 22) A good example of this is the 2004 SATs results for primary pupils at age 11. While all pupils did better in 2004 than in 1998, those from higher income families made more progress than those on free school meals, even though schools in deprived areas improved more than those in wealthier neighborhoods. This is hardly surprising. In 1997, Mortimore and Whitty, in the first edition of their paper in which they asked the question “Can school improvement overcome the effects of disadvantage?,” sent a warning to New Labour. They pointed out that research indicated that, if all schools were brought up to the level of the best, the class gap in performance could be even starker than it is now. They urged the government to take positive action to address this problem. Mortimore and Whitty subsequently went on to argue that the UK education system is built on a culture of “exclusiveness” and that efforts to reverse this have not borne fruit. It could be argued that the current definition of school improvement is, by its very nature, elitist in that it perpetuates the concept of meritocracy built into the public examination system in England whereby the expectation is that anyone with talent can do well and “rise to the top” (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000). It keeps a disproportionate focus on the school as the main locus for improving the life chances of children from working class backgrounds. In common with Bernstein (1970), MacBeath and Mortimore (2001) have highlighted the failure of such a system for the majority and the way notions of choice and competition have exacerbated the situation. School education cannot compensate for society and that in making high demands of teachers and raising our expectations of schools we must have scrupulous respect for the evidence on socio-economic inequality and the changing nature of family and community life. (p. 2) So what are the lessons that can be learnt about urban school improvement? Muijs et al. (2004) in their review of the evidence related to improving schools in disadvantaged areas concluded that the specific contextual circumstances of such schools: … suggest that different improvement strategies are required for schools in difficult or challenging circumstances than for those in more advantaged circumstances. (p. 151) They used a three-pronged theoretical framework to help make sense of school improvement in disadvantaged areas. The first was contingency theory “based on the premise that what makes an organization effective is dependent on situational factors” (p. 151) both internal and external. They recognized that the socio-economic context could be the most crucial factor. The second theoretical framework was a compensatory
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model whereby schools in disadvantaged areas need to compensate for the lack of resources in pupils’ homes. The third was the hypothesis of additivity of school and background factor effects. This hypothesis was built on research evidence that indicated that even after controlling for pupil background factors, schools in disadvantaged areas still do worse than schools in advantaged areas. Muijs et al. (2004) undertook their analysis with an implicit acceptance of the current definition of an effective school. From the analysis of the research evidence, they identified nine factors: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
A focus on teaching and learning. Leadership. Creating an information rich environment. Creating a positive school culture. Building a learning community. Continuous professional development. Involving parents. External support. Resources.
It could be argued that such factors are equally important for schools in advantaged areas. However, the research evidence analyzed by Muijs et al. (2004) appears to indicate that these nine factors are important in improving schools in disadvantaged areas. Like others already alluded to, Muijs et al. acknowledged the challenge of sustainability of improvement in disadvantaged settings. They argued however that “there is an emerging evidence base to suggest that there are certain strategies schools can adopt that are successful” (p. 168). In respect of the theoretical models, some evidence was found to give some support to the contingency theory and the compensatory model. Little support was found for the additivity hypothesis. Muijs et al. concluded that more research is needed to develop and test theories and to examine the relative strength of the nine factors identified using more sophisticated research techniques and longitudinal data. What was disappointing about this review was the limited acknowledgement of the power of external factors. Evidence from school effectiveness studies indicates that the size of the school effect on pupil attainment can be up to 15% (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). Whilst this is important, more attention needs to be paid to the 85% impact of background factors by working to improve the social, cultural and economic capital of disadvantaged communities to help create a more level playing field. Whilst there has been an acknowledgement that much more attention needs to be paid to contextual factors (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000), to date school effectiveness and school improvement research (SESI) have only given them limited attention and structural and cultural inequalities in the communities schools serve have been downplayed. Thrupp (2001) argues that family background is not a “given,” rather it is socially constructed and can be made worse or better depending on changing circumstances. He claims that it is: … the failure to question this underlying social inequality and the nature of policy that impacts on it which inevitably leads school effectiveness researchers to over emphasise school solutions. (p. 19)
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He then goes on to argue that the social mix of pupils in a school is critically important, citing his own study of this issue (Thrupp, 1999). He argues that the study puts a different perspective on school culture in that it provides evidence that schools with predominantly middle class intakes have “strongly supportive student cultures” which allow them to teach an academic, examination-based curriculum in contrast to schools with predominantly working class intakes. “… school effectiveness in an academic sense appears to rest upon the cultural resources and responses of students from middle class families” (p. 27). Thrupp then goes on to criticize the SESI research community for allowing politicians in the UK to use and abuse their research findings.
General Lessons about Urban School Improvement From the findings of school effectiveness and school improvement research identified in this chapter, from the critics of such research, and from an examination of government strategies focused on improving schools serving disadvantaged communities, some general lessons about urban school improvement can be drawn out. (1) In absolute terms, urban schools can make a difference and some schools can succeed against the odds due to the intensity of effort by those working in and with them, but in relative terms advantaged pupils still out perform their disadvantaged peers. There remains a relationship between social disadvantage and educational underachievement that up until now a range of different school improvement strategies has been unable to break. Therefore the approach to school improvement in urban settings needs a radical rethink. (2) The findings of the analysis of longitudinal data on pupil achievement reveals that the expectation that all schools, let alone schools in disadvantaged areas, can improve their test and examination results year-on-year is no longer tenable. This in turn, means that the current definition of an improving school needs to be challenged and changed. (3) Sustaining improvement over time in urban schools is particularly challenging because of the disproportionate effect that contextual factors can have on pupil outcomes. More coordinated and concentrated efforts to improve the social, cultural and economic capital of disadvantaged communities are required in an educational context that emphasizes collaboration and co-operation not competition. These general lessons indicate that the current “stick and carrot” approach to urban school improvement needs to be rethought because it has not worked. On the one hand, schools in challenging circumstances, as they are currently described, have been expected to continuously improve pupil attainment outcomes. At the same time they have been bombarded with a plethora of interventionist initiatives centrally and locally, often with different funding streams and timescales, which, whilst being well intentioned, have had limited impact on the core business of schools, namely, learning and teaching. Sustained improvement from within through pressure from without has not been achieved.
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Lupton (2005) is critical of the current “managerialist” approach to school improvement in urban settings. She argues as others have done (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000) that: A concern with social justice demands school improvement strategies that are based on an understanding of the critical importance of what goes on outside the school for the quality of education that is delivered within it. (p. 603) She goes on to argue that “high-poverty contexts exert downward pressures on quality” (p. 589) and that quality in schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods can only be assured through policies that focus on improving and changing the context within which the schools operate.
Building Blocks for Urban School Improvement The present government in England is endeavoring to put in place within-school and beyond-school building blocks to raise standards in an attempt to try and mitigate the impact of disadvantage on levels of achievement. However, these building blocks have yet to become embedded in such a way that they provide a coherent, solid foundation for improvement in which all the key players have a sense of ownership and are willing and able to work together. There are four building blocks in particular that are worthy of attention. The first concerns the government’s highly ambitious children’s agenda entitled “Every Child Matters” (Treasury, 2003). The long term vision of the program is to create coordinated children’s trusts that will integrate education, childcare, health and social care, including family support services, for children aged 0–19. The aim is to do this through the establishment of children’s centers, extended schools and improved services for young people along with better support for parents provided by appropriately qualified staff and a more effective interplay between universal and specialist services. It is a “wrap around care” approach to children with the aim of enabling them to: stay safe; be healthy; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution; and achieve economic well being. Standards and well being are seen to go hand in hand and schools are seen to be in a pivotal position. The potential tension between a highly accountable outcomes based system and the notion of inclusion embedded in the children’s agenda is not being addressed. The timescale for this transformation through the integration of children’s services is tight. There is also a real challenge in engaging schools in this process not least because there is no requirement on schools to co-operate with other services. In theory this agenda could remove past barriers to learning for children in disadvantaged areas but translating the vision into a reality will not be easy if past efforts to get different agencies to collaborate with one another and change deep seated practices are to go by. The second related building block concerns the New Deal for Communities program referred to earlier. The early progress report on this new approach to regeneration indicates that the NDC program is helping to tackle the problems of deprived communities and has the potential for future success. However, this program is being
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driven by a different arm of government from the children’s agenda and is already encountering a number of the difficulties often associated with top down initiatives that are then expected to be locally driven. However, if this initiative is integrated at a local level with the implementation of the children’s agenda, then the learning of young people in those communities could and should be enhanced. As Robinson (1997) has commented: A serious programme to alleviate child poverty might do far more for boosting attainment and literacy than any modest intervention in schooling. (p. 17) Given that more than half of the children in London live below the poverty line, the imperative for this kind of program is obvious. The third building block focuses on the importance of high quality early childhood education. The government is currently funding a longitudinal study on the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE). The initial focus of the study was the effects of pre-school education and care on children’s development between the ages of 3 and 7. The study involving 3,000 children examined the characteristics of effective practice and the pedagogy that underpinned it. Having tracked children’s progress to the end of key stage 1, the study (Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj-Blatchford, & Taggart, 2004) concluded that: Whilst not eliminating disadvantage, pre-school can help to ameliorate the effects of social disadvantage and can provide children with a better start to school. Therefore, investing in good quality pre-school provision can be seen as an effective means of achieving targets concerning social exclusion and breaking cycles of disadvantage. (p. iii) High quality pre-school provision was found to make a difference to the intellectual and social behavioral development of young children and this difference was sustained to the end of key stage 1 (age 7), particularly in respect of academic attainment. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds significantly benefited especially if they had access to pre-school provision from the age of 3. Nursery schools and integrated centers combining education with care that had a high proportion of trained teachers were found to be the most effective in promoting better intellectual outcomes for children. The study demonstrated that early intervention makes a difference. Other studies support these findings (US Department of Health and Human Service, 2004; Melhuish, 2004). An important element of the EPPE research was to study the influences of the home on children’s social and intellectual development. It was found that the quality of the home learning environment was more important for intellectual and social development than parental occupation, education or income: “What parents do is more important than who parents are” (p. ii). The work of Athey (1990) supports this finding. The EPPE project is the first large scale British study of the effects of pre-school experience and family support for children’s learning at home. The findings have made a significant contribution to “evidence-based” policy in the early years in England. A number of the findings have now become integral to the children’s agenda, in particular, the
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development of integrated children’s centers. The research is now continuing to assess the effects of early education through key stage 2 to the age of 11 which for most children in England is their point of transfer to secondary education. This building block is rooted in evidence and as long as the children’s centers are staffed by high quality early years teachers, then it could and should play a key role in promoting and sustaining achievement before children begin compulsory schooling at age 5. The fourth building block concerns the need to have a radical rethink of the curriculum within school and, as Mortimore and Whitty (2000) have suggested, a radical rethink of the approach to assessment. In 2004 a government commissioned working group on the reform of the 14–19 curriculum and qualifications issued its final report (Tomlinson, 2004). The report acknowledged that whilst the present system has some strengths it also has some significant weaknesses. It pointed to the fact that too few young people continue learning beyond compulsory schooling, that too few young people are properly equipped for work and that too few vocational qualifications meet the needs of learners and employers. The report also went on to stress that there is too much assessment and that the system is confusing and unclear. The report went onto state that: If we are to avoid wasting the talents of so many young people, and to meet the challenges and aspirations of a new generation, we must: ●
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Tackle the reasons why young people under achieve and leave education early, by providing lessons and courses that stretch and engage all learners including the most able. Equip all young people with the basic skills and attributes they need to succeed in life, and which our economy and society need for the future. This means ensuring that they can think creatively for themselves as well as being competent in mathematics, English and computing and other generic skills. (pp. 1–2)
The Tomlinson report proposed “a new diploma framework which would allow young people to progress at their own pace, stretching the most able and helping less able students to reach their potential” (p. 2). Despite the powerful arguments within the report and the support that the findings found within the professional community, the government has not been prepared to radically rethink the curriculum and assessment in the final stages of compulsory schooling and beyond. Instead, work-related learning programs and diplomas are being introduced with undue haste and against a background of a continuing emphasis on league tables. Ofsted (2005a, 2005b) has already begun to identify significant weaknesses in this approach. Holding on to the current nineteenth century elitist system has held sway over recognizing that there is a growing number of disaffected young people for whom school learning bears no relation to their learning beyond the school gate.
Conclusion The conclusion drawn from the analysis of urban school improvement is that what is needed is a joined-up, holistic approach to urban education in which long term sustained improvement as opposed to short term, short lived gains is achieved. Such an
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approach needs to have learning not just performance against a narrow set of attainment measures at its heart. The focus needs to be on improving learning opportunities for children and young people in which the “school” is a key player but not the only one. There is a need to move away from seeing within school improvement as the main answer to raising standards. Such a move needs to take place within the context of a serious debate about what is meant by effective schooling in and for the twenty first century. The time has come to cut loose from the vestiges of nineteenth century schooling (Lawton, 1996, 2003; Senge, 2000) to enable young people to maximize their life chances as citizens in the future. School improvement in urban settings requires therefore a change of focus and locus such as that represented by the four building blocks identified earlier. It requires a focus on maximizing the learning process as well as outcomes in which schooling plays an important part in an individual’s lifelong learning journey but not the only part. It requires a recognition that learning takes place in a wide range of settings and that to maximize school learning, improvement efforts need to focus simultaneously on pre-school learning and out of school learning locations. As has been argued: Drawing people into the community of learning is one of the most effective ways of tackling social exclusion. (Kennedy, 1997 p. 3) Mortimore and Whitty (2000), as indicated earlier, argue that the UK education system is built on a culture of exclusiveness not inclusiveness despite the rhetoric. They are of the view that how to change this culture probably represents the greatest challenge for government. This chapter has endeavored to point the way to meeting this challenge and thus breaking the historic link between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes.
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Treasury. (2003). Every child matters. Norwich: The Stationery Office. US Department of Health and Human Service. (2004). A brief history of the national head start public school early childhood transition demonstration project: Executive summary. Washington DC: Administration for children and families. van Velzen, W., Miles, M., Ekholm, M., Hameyer, U., & Robin, D. (1985). Making school improvement work: A conceptual guide to practice. Leuven, Belguim: Acco. Willms, J. D., & Kerr, M. (1987). Changes in sex differences in school examination results since 1975. Journal of Early Adolescence, June.
56 URBAN SCHOOLS: PERFORMANCE, COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION Philip A. Woods School of Education, University of Aberdeen, U.K.
This chapter briefly sets current educational policy on urban education in England in the context of policy developments over the past 25 years, highlighting certain continuities and disjunctures in the journey from Thatcherism to contemporary New Labour. (For a broader discussion of the history of education in the UK, see McCulloch, 2007.) It then examines approaches to urban education through a consideration of competition and collaboration as interlinked dimensions of the Department for Education and Skill’s (DfES’s) diversity policy. Discussion is illustrated by reference to specific programs tried or currently in operation.
Policy on Urban Education In the 1980s, policy on public services in England began to look towards the market and the private sector as models of governance and of how to pursue excellence and improvement. The introduction of choice, diversity and market forces into services such as health and education was the Thatcherite Conservative Government’s “big idea” to make services more responsive and effective and to diminish the role of the state. At the same time, it increased the direct control and influence of central government over education. The role of local education authorities (LEAs) – the local level of democratic oversight of education – became subservient in England to national frameworks set down by central government through Parliament. Market-like freedoms were accompanied by more central regulation. Devolution of management and budgets to schools, and giving parents the formal right to choose schools, accompanied by enhanced central systems of inspection and curriculum direction, shaped education to become “both much less subject to local democratic control and generally part of a more ‘state-centric’ system of public services” (Ball, 1994, p. 83). This paradoxical development is reflective of a tension in contemporary society between forces which “combine to produce a world which seems to be becoming 1105 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1105–1122. © 2007 Springer.
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controlled and standardized, while also more fragmented” (Bottery, 2005, p. 55). Regulation and autonomy exert frictional influences which collide and intermingle. These continued, as the UK Government changed from Conservative to Labour, to be polar forces pervading central policy. Indeed, they appear in the roots of the so-called “third way” approach characteristic of New Labour. If the label “third way” is less prominent now than in the years immediately following the Labour Government’s election to power in 1997, it still aptly describes a defining ideological aspiration of New Labour. Tony Blair’s (1998, p. 15) vision for the role of government illustrates how a “third way” orientation sees itself discriminating between good and bad strands within the respective extremes of control and freedom and attempting to combine the good from each in new ways: There will be no return to the old centralised command and control systems, which stifled innovation and responsibility, and we reject the creation of bureaucratic and pointless internal markets. Instead we favour partnerships at local level, with investment tied to targets and measured outcomes, with national standards but local freedom to manage and innovate. This remains a pretty good description of current UK government policy on public services, though the reference to internal markets as pointless underplays the role of choice and competitive pressures in public services. New Labour never did overturn the market-like features introduced into education in the late 1980s, such as parental rights to choice, diversity of schools, local management of schools and student-led funding (Power & Whitty, 1999; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998), and, as will be seen, they still continue to exert a significant influence on the character of urban education. The most recent proposals for educational reform re-emphasize New Labour’s belief that parental choice of school acts as a “powerful driver of improved standards” (Prime Minister Blair, in DfES, 2005a, p. 3). Equally consistent is the positive and supportive stance towards the private market as a mode of production and governance. Policy on public services, particularly education, displays a deep-seated market servitism (Woods, 2002): that is, a disposition to celebrate and privilege the market and to align people’s personal development, attitudes, values and behavior to the perceived needs of the private economy. A direct connection is made to school education. If we are to have enterprise in our boardrooms it must start in classrooms. (Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunday Telegraph 26th June 2005) Forming part of the backdrop to this stance are four key factors which, whilst not confined to the UK, are integral to understanding how the particular approach to public services that characterizes the UK has arisen. One is the resilience and expansion of the capitalist economy. Capitalism has shown a capability to absorb government interventions aimed at ameliorating some of the worst effects of the free market. This has blunted radical opposition and, at the same time, enabled capitalism to survive and exercise its capacity for growth, productivity and innovative power. A second factor is the weakening of an encompassing alternative vision of society. In part, this is the
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result of the capitalist economy’s resilience and expansion, just noted, as well as the collapse of revolutionary socialist alternatives in countries such as the former USSR and its satellites in Eastern Europe. A third is the growth in the diversity of modern Britain, particularly in urban areas. By 2001, almost one in ten of the UK population described themselves as belonging to an ethnic minority group, with the greatest concentrations in urban areas, including 29% of the population of London. Gillborn (2007), in his examination of the significance of race and inequality in the English education system, notes that the proportion of British residents from backgrounds outside the UK increased by around 48% between 1991 and 2001. The degree of cultural homogeneity has also lessened, typified by the significant proportions of the population – again mainly in urban areas – adhering to faiths and beliefs that are not Christian. Above all, changes in employment patterns (which meant that by 2004, due to the decline of manufacturing industries, less than a fifth of men in the UK were employed in manufacturing), trends towards smaller households, and transformed levels and patterns of consumer spending have altered dramatically traditional urban and industrial communities, which no longer provide the social platform for the collective politics of earlier times.1 The fourth factor is the persistence of sharp and stubborn inequalities, and of poverty, which characterize Britain’s urban landscape. These urban realities continue to demand a search for effective progressive policies wherever there is a concern to build a cohesive, participatory and socially just society. In education, students from higher professional families in England and Wales are more than twice as likely to gain the national benchmark 5 A*–C GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education)2 passes than students from families in “routine” (“unskilled”) occupations (77%, compared with 32%, in 2002). Moreover, the gap is stubbornly persistent. Certain ethnic groups (Black Caribbean, Black African and Pakistani for example) also attain significantly fewer, good educational qualifications than other groups. The highest underachievement is amongst Black Caribbean boys, who also have the highest rate of permanent exclusion from schools. Gillborn’s (2007) searching analysis of race and education highlights how enduring and substantial these inequalities are.3 One response to these interlinking factors – which has gained sway in the Labour leadership in the UK – is to champion a radical reshaping of traditional socialism: a new, or third, way. From this perspective, the inequalities that pervade British society, and which are especially acute in urban areas, will only be challenged by public services that work in a fundamentally different way from the old style of public welfare. In particular, it is argued, services which are collectively provided need to be infused with the capacity for innovation and continuous improvement that is associated with the market economy (see, e.g., Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Hence there has been a concern to modernize public institutions and their leadership (Woods & Woods, 2004, 2005). A “synergy between public and private sectors” is called for, “utilizing the dynamism of markets but with the public interest in mind” (Giddens, 1998, p. 100). Two defining features of the new, more entrepreneurial institution emerging from the trend (which is influencing public welfare organizations) away from rigid, bureaucratic organizations in the private sector are a flatter hierarchy and shorter time horizons (Sennett, 2006, p. 181). More entrepreneurialism is needed because, as some argue, “Schools are more like businesses and their leaders are more like business leaders” (Hentschke & Caldwell, 2005, p. 146).
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An aptitude and appetite for greater enterprise is to feature, as seen from this perspective, in three ways. Firstly, they are to be a characteristic of public services, reflected in how people and institutions in them conduct themselves. Secondly, they are to be an outcome of these services – in the case of education, through the kind of learning that is generated amongst students. Thirdly, such re-invigorated services are intended to have a disproportionate positive impact on the disadvantaged and thereby reduce inequality and the cycle of deprivation which results in children born into poor families reproducing this deprivation in their adulthood and in their own families. Giddens (2000), for example, places emphasis on striving to achieve equality of opportunity and, most crucially, on welfare systems tackling the processes that create social exclusion. This means enabling the excluded or would-be excluded to have access to resources and life chances that will enable them to develop the human and social capital which, in turn, gives them the opportunity to participate fully in society and the free market economy. Education is a key part of this strategy. Most especially, re-invigorating urban education is crucial to distributing chances to children in deprived communities and families which place them on the path to inclusion. A new egalitarianism, it is argued, can be forged which progresses towards equality in a way which is consistent with the demands of a post-modern economy and society (Giddens & Diamond, 2005).
Competition and Collaboration In this context, it is not surprising that competition and collaboration in education, as evolving policy themes in the UK, are not seen as “either/or” policy prescriptions. Rather, they are interwoven within the approach to urban education. Macbeath, McCreath, and Aitchison (1995, p. 4) concluded over a decade ago that, whilst there was considerable competition between schools at that time, inter-institutional competition was not the daily reality for most practitioners and that “forms of collaboration continue and emerge.” They proffered three reasons for this: parts of the education service inevitably overlap; collaboration assists competitiveness (learning from others helps you as a school); practitioners and parents tend to be in favor of collaborative approaches. These kinds of incentives to collaboration persist. What has changed in the past decade is that the idea of partnerships and collaboration has become considerably more prominent in the dominant policy discourse (Evans, Castle, Cooper, Glatter, & Woods, 2005). Partnerships and collaboration have come to be viewed as powerful levers for improving school performance. They promise a “partnership dividend” which includes higher rates of school improvement, a broader curriculum, sharing of resources and enhanced motivation amongst school staff (DfES, 2005b, p. 2). Moreover, the benefits being looked for are extending beyond distinctively educational outcomes to meeting the wider needs of children as partnerships and collaboration are encouraged which include a range of agencies. Multiagency collaboration which includes other services for children and local authorities is seen as a vehicle for achieving the broader outcomes for children set out by Government (DfES, 2004a): “being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being in life” (DfES, 2005b, p. 3). Some
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of the challenges and emerging practice of multi-agency working in urban contexts are analyzed by Tett (2007). Educational policy in England places collaboration within a set of interrelating themes which come under the heading of diversity policy (Woods, Castle et al., 2005): ●
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Positive “school personality” effect: A school having its own explicit and distinctive character is seen as having an important positive influence on its capacity to achieve its educational aims (DfES, 2001). Specialization: The aim is to give successful schools “the freedom they need to excel and innovate” (DfES, 2001, para 1.6) and increasingly enable all schools to play to their strengths. Collaboration and sharing: The system is intended to be one in which schools “constantly learn from each other” (DfES, 2001, para 5.6) by forging and participating in education improvement partnerships (DfES, 2005b). System improvement: Attention has shifted from exclusive concentration on school improvement to an emphasis on interdependent schools working together to improve all schools in a local area (DfES, 2004b, 2005b). Opportunities and choice: Through specialization and collaboration students are to be given wider educational opportunities and course options (DfES, 2004b). Personalized learning: Enhanced opportunities and choice are to be part of an educational strategy of personalization, so that the “system fits to the individual” (DfES, 2004b, p. 4) by meeting students’ differentiated needs and preferences. New entrants: Entry of new providers of schooling, such as independently managed academy schools, is facilitated, with the intention of introducing innovation, fresh expertise and a competitive stimulus to existing providers (DfES, 2001, 2004b). Inclusion: The multiple strands of diversity policy, summarized above, are to benefit all students and address the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students (DfES, 2001, 2004b).
These comprise a melding of market-like elements and collaborative culture and practice. At least, that is the aim. There are in fact tensions within this set. Not least is that between schools as relatively autonomous institutions dependent on student numbers for funding, and hence vulnerable to competitive pressures, and schools as collaborating institutions with as much interest in helping and sharing with other schools as in improving themselves. This tension may be exacerbated if current plans are implemented to encourage all state (primary and secondary) schools in England to become self-governing “Trust schools,” each with its own Trust (which may include community groups, charities, faith groups, schools in the private sector, etc.): such schools “will be, in effect, independent state schools” (DfES, 2005a, p. 28).
Competitive Pressures In urban areas the potential is strongest for incentives to compete to turn into actual competition between schools. However, the relationship between socio-geographical context and inter-school relations is not an automatic one. A study of over 300 secondary schools
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in contrasting English LEAs found only a weak relationship between head teachers’ perceptions of choice and population density of the areas in which their schools were located (Levacic & Woods, 2000). In other words, local variables, such as the history, culture and policies of the LEA, mediate between structural factors and competitive behavior. The degree and nature of inter-school competition is significantly influenced by the dynamics of local areas (see, e.g., Bagley, 2006; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995; Fitz, Tayler, & Gorard, 2002; Taylor, 2001; Woods et al., 1998). Nevertheless, there is little doubt that some degree of competition is experienced by the large majority of schools in England. A study of secondary schools in geographically contrasting LEAs concluded that more than eight out of ten were in a competitive context (Taylor, 2001). It also found that urban school hierarchies were more complex. Complexity is a recurring theme in trying to understand competition in education. The generation of competitive pressures and market-like relations is not a simple, linear process, but, as we have seen, is heavily mediated. Thus the result – the quasi-market in schools – is a variable phenomenon. And tracing the effects of competitive pressures amongst schools is equally complex. Perhaps one of the more straightforward effects is at the level of inter-institutional relations, where competitive pressures tend to hinder collaboration. There are indications from research that secondary schools are less likely to collaborate with neighboring secondaries than with primary schools (Bell & West, 2003; Penney, 2004). Where head teachers view local relations between schools as highly competitive, they are also more likely to report little or no co-operation between local schools (Levacic, Woods, Hardman, & Woods, 1998). However – affirming that the effect of competition is not a linear one – the same study by Levacic and colleagues found that a large majority of head teachers report both competition and co-operation to be characteristic of their local schools’ relations. Conceptually this phenomenon is crystallized in the notion of co-opetiton, which has its origins in studies of private markets that suggest that the optimal business strategy is a mix of competition and co-operation (Adnett & Davies, 2003).4 The impact of competition on socio-economic segregation between schools and on academic attainment is even more complicated to unravel than that on inter-school relations. On segregation, whilst, on the measure used by Taylor, Fitz, and Gorard (2005), socio-economic segregation amongst schools declined during the years under Thatcherite policies (from 1988 to 1997), it has increased slightly since 1997 under New Labour. Using a different form of modeling, Goldstein and Noden (2003) conclude that segregation between schools increased between 1994 and 1999. Moreover, there are indications that the specialist schools program has been accompanied by substantial proportions of schools becoming more privileged, that is, allocating fewer school places to students eligible for free school meals. Amongst all secondary schools, 29% were found by Taylor et al. (2005) to have become more privileged in this sense between 1994/1995 and 1990/2000, including 37% of specialist schools. The means of measuring change in segregation between schools is the subject of some controversy (see, e.g., Goldstein & Noden, 2003, 2004; Gorard, 2004). However, in whatever way it is measured statistically, the personal and social realities of school
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choice are often harsh and enduring in their consequences. Where they have a sense of rejection by the “better” schools and are confined to the “demonised” schools – an experience especially apparent in the complex school hierarchies in urban areas – children are emotionally affected. Imprinted in them is a sense of being classified as part of society’s “waste” (Lucey & Reay, 2002a; Reay & Lucey, 2004). Emotional effects are not exclusive to working class and disadvantaged families. Many middle class parents and their children are beset by intense anxieties in their quest to ensure that a place is gained at the “better” schools and to avoid the “bottom strata schools” (Riddell, 2007). In Lucey and Reay’s (2002b, p. 334) evocative phrase, “the spectre of failure blows through these policies like a chill wind, for they are based on an excellence that relies on exclusion and differentiation between pupils.” On academic attainment, there are differences of view concerning the impact of competition and how it can or might be measured (Gorard, 1999). Overall, Levacic and Woods (2000) concluded from a study of more than 300 English secondary schools that evidence for a positive impact of competition on school performance was very weak. This reinforces findings of more qualitative studies, such as that by Woods et al. (1998), that the effects of competitive pressures on educational attainment are not straightforward. A study of two towns by Davies, Adnett, and Mangan (2002) also captures some of the complexity that occurs at local level. Competitive tactics by a secondary school in one town was found to initiate: an emphasis on promotion in competitive behaviour that quite possibly has a negative effect on educational outcomes at GCSE level, yet it may also have heightened competition in the 16–19 market leading to an improvement there. (Davies et al., 2002, p. 105) On the other hand, in another town, collaboration between schools on education for 16–19 year olds: may not have been helpful in terms of attainment standards at A level, but it appears to have encouraged a competitive focus in the 11–16 market that is raising standards. (ibid.) In other words, competition between schools, according to local circumstances, may or may not have the effect of increasing school performance (as measured by examination results). Overall, we may conclude that evidence for competitive pressures acting generally to generate significant gains in educational achievement is weak. Encouragement of specialization and distinct types of school in urban areas, as a means of raising educational standards, is an integral part of the creation of quasimarkets in schooling. It is also integral to the “third way” diversity policy outlined above which is attempting to create a dynamic, collaborative culture. Specialization and difference amongst schools illustrates the diverse strands that run through current policy in England. In one light, specialization amongst schools can be viewed as a component of a neo-liberal agenda – when new entrants, such as academy schools, are viewed as providing a competitive stimulus and specialist schools enjoy a competitive advantage in
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local areas. In another light, it can be viewed as a means of invigorating the public sector (by encouraging the influx of new ideas) and promoting social cohesion (by extending the opportunity to have state-funded education in a faith ethos to newer faith groups, such as Muslim communities, as New Labour has done). Nevertheless, in whatever way these moves to enhance diversity and specialization are viewed, there is evidence, as has been noted, that increasing diversity in the form of specialist schools tends to increase segregation and selection (Taylor et al., 2005, pp. 60–61). It might be argued that any negative effects of specialization in terms of segregation and sharpened school hierarchies are offset by gains in educational achievement. However, the latter are by no means evident. There have been claims that specialist schools are performing significantly better and that this is the result of attaining specialist status (e.g., Jesson 2003, 2004). More sophisticated analyses of data on specialist schools by Levacic and Jenkins (2004), however, found that there is little evidence of specialist status having a transforming effect on educational attainment. There are data that show some specialist schools – such as those that have had this status the longest and more recent specialist technology and sports schools – performing better than non-specialist schools. But for others, such as specialist arts and language schools, no difference was found. Overall Levacic and Jenkins (2004, p. 30) conclude that the apparent effects of specialist status “are modest in size, not uniform across specialisms, and dependent on the assumption of no selection bias in specialist school recruitment.” If specialist schools are tending to recruit more of the advantaged, middle class students – for which, noted above, there is evidence to suggest that this may be the case – then even the modest gains that they appear to have may not be the result of their specialist ethos. Caution in concluding that schools with a special ethos and additional resources (like specialist schools) produce dramatically better performance is reinforced by the experience of grant-maintained schools. These were promoted between 1988 and 1997 and given more funding and autonomy, yet detailed analysis of their results relative to “standard” schools showed no difference (Levacic & Hardman, 1999). It is too early to reach conclusions about another strand of policy which is especially, though not exclusively, focused on deprived urban areas – that of facilitating new entrants. The most prominent feature of this policy currently is the academy schools program under which private sponsors contribute £2 million of the capital of a new school, in return for the opportunity to have a formal role in its governance and to influence its development and ethos, and central government contributes around £23 million capital expenditure and all the running costs. These are seen as building upon the city technology colleges initiative in England and developing the idea of charter schools in the US. A total of 200 or more academy schools are anticipated to be up and running by 2010. Whilst academy schools attract strong praise from their proponents – the then Secretary of State for Education described academies as “beginning to make solid progress in raising educational standards” (Kelly, 2005, p. 5) – there is no evidence to date that the performance of the first three which opened in 2002 is generally any better for equivalent students than the schools they replaced (Gorard, 2005) and the research available to date on all the operating academies (17 in 2004/2005) has to be treated as suggesting tentative conclusions only (Woods, Woods, & Gunter, 2007).
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Partnerships and Collaboration The mix of competition and collaboration is particularly marked in deprived urban areas. This is because the quasi-market features that allow parental choice of school, student-led funding, diversity of provision and so on are preserved nationally, whilst the dimensions of diversity policy – including partnerships and collaboration – are given a particular impetus where schools and local areas are perceived as under-performing. Hence, a number of specific strategies have been or are being tried in disadvantaged urban areas. Prominent in the early years of New Labour were education action zones (EAZs) – partnerships between secondary and primary schools, together with their LEA, local businesses, public bodies and other local organizations. The intention was that they would tackle underachievement and social exclusion in disadvantaged areas by developing and applying innovative methods and strategies and radical solutions. In response to an invitation to bid for EAZ status and funding, over 70 EAZs were established in two rounds (1998/1999 and 2000) to operate for a period of three years, usually extended to five. After that period, EAZs are being transformed into different kinds of partnership, under the umbrella of the Excellence in Cities (EiCs) scheme for example. Like EAZs, EiCs are a central initiative intended to address educational underachievement and social exclusion in disadvantaged urban areas. It is a more prescriptive and targeted program than the EAZ scheme, with central government identifying geographical areas for its implementation and requiring schools to use their additional funding to develop particular activities, such as learning mentors, provision for gifted and talented children and providing learning support units. The EiC program has been phased in since 1999 and currently involves around 1,000 secondary and more than 1,000 primary schools in 57 LEAs.5 Other forms of partnership and collaboration include learning partnerships (voluntary groupings of learner providers across the school, further education and adult learning sectors), federations (groups of schools with joint governance arrangements), networked learning communities (collaborative groups involving schools, local authorities, universities and others, linking up via ICT), the Leadership Incentive Grant (a DfES scheme intended to generate collaboration between schools to strengthen leadership), Leading Edge partnerships (another DfES scheme, in which high-performing schools work with other schools to improve standards), Diversity Pathfinders (a set of innovative forms of collaboration and specialization given small amounts of contributory DfES funding) and collegiate academies of schools (groups of schools that develop a collective identity and commitment to education throughout a local area whilst retaining their institutional identities).6 This diverse array of forms of partnership and collaboration are seen by the DfES (2005b) as falling under the umbrella heading of education improvement partnerships (EIPs). EAZs have not been the success hoped for by government (Halpin, Dickson, Power, Whitty, & Gewirtz, 2004; Reid & Brain, 2003). An official assessment of EAZs by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) concluded that their “effect has been stronger in tackling disaffection and promoting inclusion than in raising standards of achievement, especially in secondary schools” (Ofsted, 2003, p. 4). One of the problems
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with EAZs was the diffuseness of the agenda they were set up to pursue which led to a loss of focus. More radical critiques pointed to their failure to tackle fundamental social and economic inequalities that disadvantage the urban communities served by EAZs. Awareness of the importance of wider socio-economic characteristics of areas served by schools is, in fact, discernible in the policy discourse on educational improvement. There is a growing emphasis, evident in diversity policy, on systemic improvement and community transformation, as opposed to a concentration solely on school improvement (West-Burnham, 2003). The challenge of raising aspirations is seen as particularly acute in many deprived urban areas and the aim of tackling this surfaces in the various strands of diversity policy, including collaborative school groupings and the academy schools program. Assessment of EiCs has been more positive than that of EAZs. Ofsted (2003) concluded from its assessment that the EiC program has strengthened co-operation between schools, that schools are committed to and positive about the program, and that its specific elements, especially learning mentors, are offering better support to disaffected, underachieving and vulnerable students. There is evidence too that the EiC scheme is having a positive impact on student performance. Machin, McNally, and Meghir (2004), in a study of secondary schools in 47 EiC partnerships begun in 1999 and 2000 (compared with non-EiC schools), found that school attendance had increased and that attainment in mathematics and English had improved. Improvement was greatest in mathematics, and the positive effect in mathematics was larger for boys than girls. Machin and colleagues also point out, however, that the size of the improvement in performance was modest. EiCs are also cited as having a positive influence on collaboration – for example, encouraging specialist schools to collaborate (Bell & West, 2003, p. 286). EiCs can be seen, then, as a relatively effective means of reducing barriers to collaboration by mediating between the structural factors that provide incentives to compete and actual behavior. To this extent they are national initiatives which have shown some success in intervening in local competitive dynamics. Through the policy priority on partnerships and collaboration, there is again the interplay between regulation and freedom, between control and diversity. Measuring the success of individual institutions by means of high profile, public and specific measures, such as test and examination results as in England, inhibits in two ways. Firstly, it tends to narrow the focus of what is considered to be the performance and outcomes that matter. Secondly, it tends to limit the perceived pool of potential partners. With EAZs, for example, there is evidence that wider social and health agendas were restricted by schools’ concentration on educational results important for their league table placings and that, as a result, much inter-agency work remained school focused (Halpin et al., 2004). Although it is intended that specialist schools share good practice and work to help improve other local schools, practice falls short of expectations. It is seen as the most challenging area of their work by Government (Bell & West, 2003). Collaboration between specialist and non-specialist schools has not been absent, with, for example, head teachers of most of the non-specialist schools in Bell and West’s (2003) study reporting that there was collaborative activity. Only a minority, however, considered that it had a beneficial effect on their school. A low perception of benefits
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would be consistent with Levacic and Jenkins’ (2004, p. 30) study of specialist schools, which found “no evidence as yet of specialist schools adding value to pupils in non-specialist schools.”
Discussion The stranding together of choice and other market-like features on the one hand, and collaboration on the other, is intended to generate a transformation of urban education and tackle the deep-seated social inequalities that lead to and are fuelled by the gap in educational opportunities and attainment in urban schools. The overwhelming impression from what is known about the policy initiatives that have operationalized this reforming agenda so far is that, whilst there may be instances of success, overall gains in measurable performance are at best modest. In addition, deeply embedded socioeconomic differences in status, influence and resources act to maintain and even sharpen numerous local school hierarchies. Socio-economic segregation between schools seems, as we have seen, to be growing. Certainly, large numbers of schools serving disadvantaged students and families are caught in a “malign dyadic relationship” in which school character and performance and perceptions of that character and performance exacerbate each other and which, together with a range of cumulative problems (such as difficult and disruptive learning environments and local deprivation), creates a powerful barrier to educational improvement and closure of the achievement gap (Woods & Levacic, 2002, p. 245). To a point, national policy in England has shown some sensitivity and responsiveness to the frustratingly slow pace of change and the lessons learnt from policy initiatives to date. EAZs, found to be disappointing, are giving way to an array of forms of collaboration, some more focused (the EiCs) and some more flexible within the “broad church” of partnerships under the broad heading of EIPs (DfES 2005b). Some of these may lead to improved educational opportunities and attainment for the disadvantaged. Academy schools, although controversial, are intended to be a new attempt directly to challenge and break the malign dyadic relationship which entraps many schools serving the most deprived urban areas. There is a willingness in national policy to encourage and champion innovation (Glatter, Castle, Copper, Evans, & Woods, 2005), exactly because the problems have been so intractable. Indeed, enabling schools to “drive innovation” is a recurring theme infusing proposals to turn existing schools into independent state Trust schools (DfES, 2005a). Often, however, the policy rhetoric overlooks the mundane realities that mediate and obstruct the neat vision of progress. There is a tension between control on the one hand, and encouragement to be flexible and to take the risks inherent in trying the untried, on the other. Where local collaboration is an officially sanctioned policy, schools may end up following a conservative agenda because of the continuance of central regulation and inspection (Reid & Brain, 2003). Even (apparently free) competitive contexts can lead to tendencies to conform and eschew innovation (Woods et al., 1998). On top of that, innovation may not always translate into beneficial academic outcomes for students. In a study of one town, Davies et al. (2002, p. 104) conclude that
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a mixture of curriculum innovation and promotional activity by schools was associated “with comparatively weak academic outcomes for students and comparatively strong outcomes for schools in terms of increased roll.” There are also issues to do with democratic accountability where schools, like academies, are freed from central government control but include private and charitable sponsors in their governance. Sponsors are not accountable to the local area in the same way that elected local representatives are (Woods et al., 2007). Loosening of central controls may have positive effects. Nothing is assured, but it may have some benefits for educational attainment in disadvantaged urban areas. It also opens spaces for local public action. If relations between schools, and between schools and other agencies important for children’s education and well-being, are strongly mediated by local factors, then a local capacity for public action (e.g., in the form of the local authority) – sensitive and responsive to local realities – is an essential feature of progressive educational change. Davies et al. (2002, p. 105), for example, conclude that the “logic of our analysis argues for a strong local role in the design as well as the execution of policy.” And, despite the diminished powers of LEAs, there is evidence that their leadership at a local level is a significant factor in facilitating sustained collaborative relationships between schools: the strategic vision and practical support of the LEA have been important catalysts in a number of areas where innovative examples of collaborative school clusters have been initiated and developed (Woods et al., 2007). A more fundamental issue is the degree to which the developing education system in English urban areas is a harmonious melding of market elements and a collaborative culture. Infused through the development of educational policy since the 1980s is private participation in education. This refers both to the involvement of individuals, companies and the voluntary sector in urban education (through city technology colleges, academy schools and public-private partnerships, for example) and to the influence of models, ideas and the culture of the commercial sector. Developments such as these are having an impact on the views and conduct of those who work in education (see e.g., Bagley, 2006; Ball, 2005; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Woods & Woods, 2004, 2005). But is it creating a basic change in the organizing principle of urban education? To put it another way, do co-existing competitive and collaborative influences represent an unproblematic confluence of contrasting relationships, or does one or the other possess the greater social force over social agents in urban settings? Reid and Brain (2003, p. 198) describe the resultant local complex of relations as a “network market,” that is, a core of neo-liberal market-like features modified by “promotion of principles of collaboration” ( p. 199). The emphasis in this definition of the network market is on collaboration as a modifying influence on the essential mainstay of educational governance, namely market relations. Underlining the relevance of this perspective is the cautionary experience of one urban area over the decade from 1994 to 2004. The area had been part of a research study on choice and competition in the early 1990s and found to constitute a highly competitive arena for secondary schools (Woods et al., 1998). Research was undertaken in 2004 to find out whether and how competitive relations had changed (Bagley, 2006). Despite the transformation in the national policy discourse and initiatives to promote collaboration, competition had in
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fact intensified. This was due to the mixture of influences affecting schools – nationally, policies which retained the elements of a quasi-market, and, locally, the closure and re-building of the area’s “bottom strata” secondary school, resulting in its becoming more attractive to parents. Entrepreneurialism, as alluded to in the discussion of the policy context, is a key linking theme, and one analytical response to how the education system in urban England has developed is to critically engage with this concept. Conceptual and theoretical work is needed on the meanings and implications of different ways of understanding entrepreneurialism, not least in relation to urban educational settings that are susceptible to the formation of intense markets and complex hierarchies in schooling.7 Hentschke and Caldwell (2005, p. 148) articulate the call for greater entrepreneurialism as a need for public enterprise, defined as a propensity in new kinds of public organization to take “unusual risks” in creating new enterprises to address unmet needs and new markets. The idea of public enterprise recalls the essential dual character the public-market created in local areas in England (Woods & Bagley, 1996; Woods et al., 1998), namely that it contains both a political dimension and an individualistic dimension. The point, however, is to recognize that in itself the public-market as a hybrid concept lacks a clear organizing principle. To make it work in a progressive way, it needs a continual striving to integrate into the public-market active, local, democratic institutions that can engage in the work of determining public goals and achieving a balance with individual and institutional autonomy (Woods et al., 1998). This duality – involving a democratic dimension committed to the public good and an individualistic dimension – delineates the terrain of a particular kind of public entrepreneurialism. There are numerous ideas on what public entrepreneurialism is about (Bartlett & Dibben, 2002), but a conceptualization that I and colleagues have suggested in studying the academies program in England describes public entrepreneurialism as: the application of entrepreneurial flexibility and creativity in order to sustain and advance public ethos, values and aims, which include public sector values of public welfare and equality of treatment, public accountability and commitment to professional and social aims and values wider than those of any specific organisation. (Woods et al., 2007, p. 20) Seeing entrepreneurialism in this way has at least two implications. One concerns how the governance of urban education systems is understood. Such governance is less about a smooth convergence of collective and individualistic dimensions but inherently involves conflict between principles, between interests and between collective aspirations and individualistic motives (of people and organizations), conflict that has to be mediated in and addressed by the public realm. Policies which emphasize the individualistic status of schools – through granting specialist or academy status, for example – reinforce tendencies that pull against the collaborative intentions of policies such as the EiC initiative. Whilst schools having individual identities and differing organizational characteristics and cultures is not in itself inappropriate, the context in which this is accepted or encouraged needs to be one in which the core principle of the
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governance of the schools system is a democratic and collaborative one – in other words, the reverse of the “network market.” This would require a decisive shift in national policy in England for urban education. One of the ways that such a shift would be made manifest is through a stronger role for local, democratically accountable forums. At the moment, the role of LEAs, whilst still capable of exercising significant influence (as noted), is weighted more to being an agent of central government – a “branch office” of the DfES (Levacic, 1999, p. 8) – than an independent democratic authority counterbalancing both central government and the negative effects market forces which impinge upon local education. Strengthening the local democratic basis for education needs to be an explicit and high priority policy, with the specific aims, inter alia, of ensuring that the voices and aspirations of disadvantaged communities are properly represented and facilitating the deliberative, creative dialogues necessary to forge local and specific strategies which significantly enhance the opportunities for all students and communities to gain the best education. And this takes us to the second implication, which concerns how educational outcomes, and the very meaning of performance, are conceived and judged. What comprises the “best education?” One of the intended consequences of a more enterprising educational culture is to alter the outcomes of the school system: to form individuals with the attitudes, aptitude and skills for enterprise in a globally competitive world. But if we conceive of innovation and change in the framework of public entrepreneurialism, there are implications for our understanding of what constitutes valued learning. Public entrepreneurialism demands far more than the qualifications and skills measured by the performative culture. Whilst recognizing the need for abilities that are required by the economy, it is not dominated by a mission to instill the values of competitive individualism. Public entrepreneurialism implies that young people in urban communities develop democratic capabilities and skills which enable them to be active participants within local and national public spaces and a culture that values diversity and dialogue.8 A critical engagement with the meanings of entrepreneurialism unlocks educational questions about urban schooling and the relationship of these to its governance. Policy initiatives aimed at transforming urban education are not simply means to an end, but have consequences for the content and meaning of education. Accordingly, they need to be framed with this in mind. If we choose to seriously embrace public entrepreneurialism, the implication is that urban policy initiatives should reflect participatory democracy as a core organizing principle – not only because this is the appropriate context within which to lead, manage and provide education but also because this same principle should imbue the educational experience and learning of urban youth.
Notes 1. The source for the social trends and statistics identified in this paragraph, unless the text references them elsewhere, is the Office for National Statistics (2005). 2. As they come to the end of their compulsory education, most students in England are entered for GCSE examinations in a number of subjects. Success in GCSE subjects is the premier measure of academic attainment at age 16, with grades C or above being generally treated as good passes. For more detail, (see Gillborn, 2007: note 5).
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3. The source for the claims and statistics identified in this paragraph is the Office for National Statistics (2004). 4. The term “co-opetition” comes from Brandenberger and Nalebuff (1997). 5. In addition, there are a further 34 LEAs involved in Excellence Clusters, intended to apply the EiC programme in small pockets of deprivation, which were first launched in 2001, with further clusters started in subsequent years. The source for figures on EiC partnerships and Excellence Clusters is the DfES website: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/eic/EiCOverview, accessed 4th December 2005. 6. See DfES (2005b), plus Brighouse (2002) and DfES (2003) (on collegiate academies) and Woods, Castle et al. (2005) (on Diversity Pathfinders). 7. For the beginnings of an exploration of types of entrepreneurialism in relation to preliminary research on academies, see Woods et al. (2007). 8. A fuller discussion of the capabilities and skills which need to be developed by educators and students, in the context of the theory and the practical challenges and potential of developmental democracy, is presented in Woods (2005).
References Adnett, P., & Davies, N. (2003). Schooling reforms in England: From quasi-markets to co-opetition? Journal of Education Policy, 18(4), 393–406. Bagley, C. (2006). School choice and competition: A public-market in education revisited. Oxford Review of Education, 32(3), 347–362. Ball, S. J. (1994). Education reform: A critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham: Open University. Ball, S. J. (2005). Standards in education: Privatisation, profit and values. In S. J. Ball (Ed.), Education Policy and Social Class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball. London: Routledge. Bartlett, D., & Dibben, P. (2002). Public sector innovation and entrepreneurship: Case studies from local government. Local Government Studies, 28(4), 107–121. Bell, K., & West, A. (2003). Specialist schools: An exploration of competition and co-operation. Educational Studies, 29(3), 273–289. Blair, T. (1998). The third way: New politics for the new century. London: The Fabian Society. Bottery, M. (2005). The challenges of educational leadership. London: Sage. Brandenberger, A., & Nalebuff, B. (1997). Co-opetition. London: Harper Collins Business. Brighouse, T. (2002). Comprehensive schools then, now and in the future – is it time to draw a line in the sand and create a new ideal? The Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture, Institute of Education, University of London, 28th September 2002. Davies, P., Adnett, N., & Mangan, J. (2002). The diversity and dynamics of competition: Evidence from two local schooling markets. Oxford Review of Education, 28(1), 91–107. DfES. (2001). White paper schools – achieving success. London: DfES. DfES. (2003). London challenge: Transforming London secondary schools. London: DfES. DfES. (2004a). Every child matters: Next steps. London: DfES. DfES. (2004b). Five year strategy for children and learners: Putting people at the heart of public services. London: The Stationery Office. DfES. (2005a). Higher standards, better schools for all: More choice for parents and pupils. London: DfES. DfES. (2005b). Education improvement partnerships. London: DfES. Evans, J., Castle, F., Cooper, D., Glatter, R., & Woods, P. A. (2005). Collaboration: The big new idea for school improvement? Journal of Education Policy, 20(2), 223–235. Fitz, J., Taylor, C., & Gorard, S. (2002). Local education authorities and the regulation of educational markets: Four case studies. Research Papers in Education, 17(2), 125–146. Gewirtz, S., Ball, S., & Bowe, R. (1995). Markets, choice and equity in education. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Giddens, A. (1998). The third way: The renewal of social democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A. (2000). The third way and its critics. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A., & Diamond, P. (2005). The new egalitarianism. Cambridge: Polity.
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Gillborn, D. (2007). Combating racism in schooling: A critical perspective on contemporary policy and practice. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 979–1006). Dordrecht: Springer. Glatter, R., Castle, F., Cooper, D., Evans, F., & Woods, P. A. (2005). What’s New? Identifying innovation arising from school collaboration initiatives. Educational Management Administration Leadership, 33(4), 381–399. Goldstein, H., & Noden, P. (2003). Modelling social segregation. Oxford Review of Education, 29(2), 225–237. Goldstein, H., & Noden, P. (2004). A response to Gorard on social segregation. Oxford Review of Education, 30(3), 441–442. Gorard, S. (1999). `Well. That about wraps it up for school choice research’: A state of the art review. School Leadership & Management, 19(1), 25–47. Gorard, S. (2004). Comments on “Modelling social segregation” by Goldstein and Noden. Oxford Review of Education, 30(3), 435–440. Gorard, S. (2005). Academies as the “future of schooling”: Is this an evidence-based policy? Journal of Education Policy, 20(3), 369–377. Halpin, D., Dickson, M., Power, S., Whitty, G., & Gewirtz, S. (2004). Area-based approaches to educational regeneration: The case of the english education action zone experiment. Policy Studies, 25(2), 75–85. Hentschke, G. C., & Caldwell, B. (2005). Entrepreneurial leadership. In B. Davies (Ed.), The essentials of school leadership (pp. 145–159). London: Sage. Jesson, D. (2003). Educational outcomes and value added by specialist schools. London: Technology Colleges Trust. Jesson, D. (2004). Educational outcomes and value added by specialist schools. London: Technology Colleges Trust. Kelly, R. (2005). Foreword, in DfES, Department for education and skills response to the second annual report from the pricewaterhousecoopers evaluation of the academies programme. London: DfES. Levacic, R. (1999). New labour education policy in the United Kingdom: The third way. Jolimont, Victoria, Australia: Incorporated Association of Registered Teachers of Victoria. Levacic, R., & Hardman, J. (1999). The performance of grant maintained schools in England: An experiment in autonomy. Journal of Education Policy, 14(2), 185–212. Levacic, R., & Jenkins, A. (2004). Evaluating the effectiveness of specialist schools. London: Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics and Political Science. Levacic, R., & Woods, P. A. (2000). Quasi-markets and school performance: Evidence from a study of English secondary schools. In M. Weiss, & H. Weishaug (Eds.), Bildungsoekonomie und Neue Steurung (pp. 53–95). Frankfurt: Lang Levacic, R., Woods, P. A., Hardman, J., & Woods, G. J. (1998). Responses to competitive pressures on secondary schools: Headteachers’ perceptions. Milton Keynes: Centre for Educational Policy and Management, Open University. Lucey, H., & Reay, D. (2002a). A market in waste: Psychic and structural dimensions of school-choice policy in the UK and children’s narratives of “demonized” schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 23(3), 254–266. Lucey, H., & Reay, D. (2002b). Carrying the beacon of excellence: Social class differentiation and anxiety at a time of transition. Journal of Education Policy, 17(3), 321–336. Macbeath, A., McCreath, D., & Aitchison, J. (1995). Competition, Collaboration and Possible Futures. In A. Macbeath, D. McCreath, & J. Aitchison (Eds.), Collaborate or Compete? (pp. 1–15). London: Falmer. Machin, S., McNally, S., & Meghir, C. (2004). Improving pupil performance in english secondary schools: Excellence in cities. Journal of the European Economic Association, 2(2–3), 396–405. McCulloch, G. (2007). History of urban education in the United Kingdom. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 943–958). Dordrecht: Springer. Ofsted. (2003). Excellence in cities and education action zones: Management and impact. London: Ofsted. Office for National Statistics. (2004). Social inequalities. London: Office for Naional Statistics. Office for National Statistics. (2005). Social Trends, No. 35. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Osborne, D., & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing government. New York, Penguin. Penney, D. (2004). Policy tensions being played out in practice. The Specialist Schools initiative in England. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2(1). Available: http://www.jceps.com/index.php? pageIDarticle&articleID26
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Power, S., & Whitty, G. (1999). New labour’s education policy: First, second or third way? Journal of Education Policy, 14(5), 535–546. Reay, D., & Lucey, H. (2004). Stigmatised choices: Social class, social exclusion and secondary school markets in the inner city. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 12(1), 35–51. Reid, I., & Brain, K. (2003). Education action zones: Mission impossible? International Studies in Sociology of Education, 13(2), 195–214. Riddell, R. (2007). Urban learning and the need for varied urban curricula and pedagogies. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 1027–1048). Dordrecht: Springer. Sennett, R. (2006). The culture of the new capitalism. New Haven and London: Yale University. Taylor, C. (2001). Hierarchies and “local” markets: The geography of the “lived” market place in secondary education provision. Journal of Education Policy, 16(3), 197–214. Taylor, C., Fitz, J., & Gorard, S. (2005). Diversity, specialisation and equity in education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(1), 47–69. Tett, L. (2007). Multi-agency working in urban education and social justice. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 1139–1156). Dordrecht: Springer. West-Burnham, J. (2003). Education, leadership and the community. In T. Gelsthorpe, & J. West-Burnham (Eds.), Educational leadership and the community: Strategies for school improvement through community engagement. Harlow: Pearson Education. Woods, G. J., & Woods, P. A. (2005). At the hard edge of change: Views from secondary head teachers on a public-private partnership. Journal of Education Policy, 20(1), 23–28. Woods, P. A. (2002). Space for Idealism? Politics and Education in the United Kingdom. Educational Policy, 16(1), 118–138. Woods, P. A. (2005). Democratic leadership in education. London: Sage. Woods, P. A., & Bagley, C. (1996). Market elements in a public service: An analytical model for studying educational policy. Journal of Education Policy, 11(6), 641–653. Woods, P. A. & Levacic, R. (2002). Raising school performance in the league tables (Part 2): Barriers to responsiveness in three disadvantaged schools. British Educational Research Journal, 28(2), 227–247. Woods, P. A. & Woods, G. J. (2004). Modernizing leadership through private participation: A marriage of inconvenience with public ethos? Journal of Education Policy, 19(6), 643–672. Woods, P. A., Bagley, C., & Glatter, R. (1998). School choice and competition: Markets in the public interest? London: Routledge. Woods, P. A., Woods, G. J., & Gunter, H. (2007). Academy schools and entrepreneurialism in education. Journal of Education Policy, 22(2), 263–285. Woods, P. A., Castle, F., Cooper, D., Evans, F., Levacic, R., & Glatter, R. (2005). “Deep collaboration: Developing new collaborative relationships amongst schools in a time of specialisation and diversity.” Paper presented at Annual Conference of British Educational Research Association, University of Glamorgan, 15–17 September.
57 THE GOVERNANCE OF URBAN EDUCATION IN THE UK: A PUBLIC, PRIVATE OR PARTNERSHIP FUTURE? Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty† *
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.; Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
†
Introduction As is clear from many of the contributions to this section of the Handbook, a key theme of much of the debate about the future of urban education in the UK, and more especially in England, has been the possibility of harnessing private sector expertise and resources to compensate for a perceived failure of local democracy and state provision in this field. As Prime Minister Blair put it in addressing local government representatives early in his premiership: If you [local government] are unwilling to work to the modern agenda, then the government will have to look to other partners. At one extreme, there are those, who regard state involvement in education as a 150 year experiment that has failed and that the private sector should now have its chance to demonstrate that markets and social justice can be reconciled (Tooley, 2000). At the other extreme, there are those who argue that, had authorities in England and Wales not been systematically under-resourced and undermined by governments since 1979, they would have been able to concentrate better on meeting the very real social and educational challenges that have faced them (Waterman, 2004). In between are those who see the private sector as having a role in the renewal of urban education, but as merely one stakeholder alongside a variety of public and voluntary (third sector) players (Power, 2000). The current reality is that the private sector is increasingly involved at all levels of the system, but the nature and extent of its future role remains contested. Before discussing private sector involvement in urban education, we need to say something about how we understand “privatisation” in the UK. For example, it is important to distinguish between private sector involvement in service provision and privatization of the policy making process. Thus, contracting out of the management 1123 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1123–1138. © 2007 Springer.
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and provision of local authority services need not entail their removal from local democratic control. Indeed, there have been few, if any, clear examples of the latter in the UK to date, although adoption of the former approach in the short-term may prepare the ground for the latter in the longer term.
Modes of Private Sector Involvement At its simplest level, the organization of welfare services, including education, can be represented in terms of the relationship between sources of funding and provision (Figure 1). Rudolf Klein suggests that “the ‘pure’ model of comprehensive state welfare” is located in Cell 1, and has applied to most (though not all) mass education systems, where both funding and provision have traditionally been located firmly in the public sector. This might seem to suggest that privatization involves a straightforward movement out of Cell 1 into Cell 4. However, this presents rather too static a picture to capture the complex set of potentially privatizing processes involved in recent reforms in education. Steel and Heald (1984) argue that privatization is a multi-faceted set of processes, which could entail one or more of a number of shifts away from the “pure” welfare state model: ● ●
● ●
charging for public services previously paid for out of taxation (Klein’s Cell 2); letting the private sector run a service that continues to be paid for out of taxation (Cell 3); selling public services and transferring their functions to the private sector (Cell 4); liberalizing arrangements that previously prevented the private sector from competing with state-provided services (Cells 3/4 competing with Cells 1/2).
Even in the 1980s, Pring (1987) noted an increase in the purchasing at public expense of educational services provided in private schools, contracting out of services to private providers, an increasing requirement upon parents in state schools to pay for services that had hitherto been provided free at the point of consumption and the introduction of student loans into the higher education system. The pace has, of course, quickened since then, especially under New Labour.
FINANCE (FUNDING) Public
Private
Public
1
2
Private
3
4
PRODUCTION (PROVISION)
Figure 1.
Modes of welfare provision and funding (after Klein, 1984)
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Marketization is more widespread than privatization and is clearly not coterminous with it. As is discussed in Woods’, Riddell’s and Johnson’s chapters, marketization in the UK has involved the introduction of quasi-market forces to education through policies of parental choice, local management of schools, diversity of school provision, and funding linked to student numbers. In practice, although there are differences between privatization and marketization, they are more likely to complement rather than compete with each other. And some aspects of marketization contribute to privatization in an ideological if not a strictly economic sense, even where quasi-markets are confined to public sector providers. Aspects of ideological privatization include: ●
● ●
fostering the belief that the private sector approach is superior to that traditionally adopted in the public sector; requiring public sector institutions to operate more like those in the private sector; encouraging private (individual/family) decision-making in place of political and professional judgments.
Thus, even those reforms that merely foster competition between public sector providers may move provision away from the traditional welfare state model, while technically remaining within Klein’s Cell 1. While they might strictly be regarded as elements of marketization, they could also be considered “creeping privatisation,” a prelude to privatization in the fuller sense of the privately funded and privately provided education. Burchardt, Hills, & Propper (1999) have built some of these considerations into a more complicated map of welfare than that suggested by Klein. Their “wheel of welfare” shows different combinations of public and private provision, public and private finance and public and private decision-making (Figure 2). Onto this, they map various directions of movement out of the “all public” sector characterized by public provision, public finance and public decision (similar to Klein’s Cell 1). These movements include outright privatization, contracting out, the marketing of public services, the introduction of user charges and the use of vouchers. Most of the sorts of initiatives we discuss in this paper fall within segments 1a and 3a and, even where they entail private sector involvement, cannot be considered fullblown privatization in a conventional sense. Nevertheless, New Labour’s “third way” policies, public-private partnerships and a “what works rather than who does it” approach to education, may have long term consequences for the governance and provision of urban education that we need to be aware of. While Burchardt et al.’s (1999) schematic contributes to classifying and conceptualizing the different combinations and forms of public and private activity, in both policy and practice in the UK there have been some blurring of the boundaries. As Woods comments in his chapter, the rise of “coopetition” and “public entrepreneuralism” requires rethinking the governance of urban education in ways that extend beyond questions of whether the inputs and outcomes are public or private to fundamental questions about governance including who is setting the agenda and who is benefiting from these arrangements in practice.
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Public provision and public finance
1b
3b
2b 1a
2a
3a
4a
Public provision but private finance
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Private provision but public finance
Private provision and private finance
KEY Inner Circle – public decision 1a 2a 3a 4a
e.g., “pure public” services e.g., publicly provided services paid for by user charges e.g., contracted-out services purchased by the state e.g., contracted-out services paid for by consumer Outer Circle – private decision
1b 2b 3b 4b Figure 2.
e.g., publicly provided services bought with vouchers e.g., publicly provided services bought by individuals e.g., privately provided services bought with vouchers, tax reliefs or grants e.g., “free market” services
Classification of public and private welfare activity (after Burchardt et al., 1999)
Sustainability Issues Some of these consequences have been well rehearsed in the media and in the policy literature. For example, there are important lessons about conflict of interest and the dangers of creeping privatization to be learned from the experience of the Thatcher government’s privately sponsored City Technology Colleges (Whitty, Edwards, & Gewirtz, 1993) and some recent allegations1 surrounding New Labour’s equivalent, the Academies program (Woods, Woods, & Gunter, 2005). Similar issues were raised by corporate involvement in New Labour’s first major initiative in urban education, Education Action Zones (Hallgarten & Watling, 2001; Power, Dickson, Gewirtz, Halpin, & Whitty, 2002). Our main concerns here are about the extent to which the private sector offers commitment to the “public good” and about its long term capacity to support educational improvement. A few years ago, we came across a brochure entitled The Business of Education: An Analysis of Business Developments in the Education and Training Marketplace (Capital Strategies, 2000). This made it clear why companies that had no
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historic involvement in education were now finding it attractive. The brochure predicted a rise in the value of business opportunities from outsourcing in education from £2.5 billion to nearly £5 billion in the next few years. It reported that one new company was entering the market because it was becoming clear that: this government is genuinely committed to the use of the private sector in the delivery of public services … and there are currently few players with the capacity or track record to participate in this potentially massive market … . There is currently a window of opportunity to buy and build a substantial outsourcing business with an initial focus on education but with the clear future intention of moving into other government sectors. Given that private companies are not necessarily driven by the imperative of the public good, this raises the issue of what might happen to private sector involvement in education when other areas of investment become more attractive. Or, indeed, when education turns out to be a more demanding operating environment than envisaged by novice private sector operators, as happened in the case of W. S. Atkins who withdrew from a contract to provide education services in the inner city borough of Southwark in London. Furthermore, as some Public Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes of capital investment have demonstrated, even what may seem to be a “win-win” situation in the short-term, may not look the same later on due to contractual and procedural complexities. We also know that the human resource capacity in the private companies for work in education is at present so limited that most of the people who are actually involved are former local authority public sector employees and sometimes some of the best of those. In the short-term, this might mean that the private companies employing them successfully turn round failing provision, but in the longer term it can undermine public sector capacity. Successful public sector employees who move into high-profile jobs in the private sector contribute to this process and it may therefore be more helpful to find ways of enabling such people to assist others from within the public sector. Furthermore, the potential and actual role of such individuals raises questions about the importance of individual and collective capacity regardless of whether the organization is public or private. The Audit Commission (2002), for example, argued that the root cause of all public service failures was due to inadequate leadership which can be conceived at both an individual and systemic level within local authorities. If public sector capacity is undermined by the flow of key individuals with high skills and expertise to the private sector for education, what will happen in the longer term when the private sector moves on to seek easier profits elsewhere? This is one reason why it is important to maintain a strong public sector and, to that extent, the New Labour notion that it is what works rather than who does it that matters may prove to be misguided in the longer term. Indeed, while there is a possibility that there will be increasing levels of private involvement and privatization in urban education over time, there is also a danger that the private sector might pull out or leave the public sector with an impossible legacy. The consequent risk to the quality of education may thus not be so much now, but later on. There are those who ask whether any of that matters if private sector involvement raises achievement now. Up to a point this is a valid argument, provided we ensure
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equity by closing performance gaps between groups of students as well as raising achievement overall. However, the risks of privatization and even creeping privatization are considerable for the long-term sustainability of the public education system and, indeed, evidence on short-term benefits also remains limited. One must question both the short-term and long-term prospects for privatization benefiting student achievement and system sustainability. Furthermore, there remain fundamental questions about public values and local democracy in the provision of local education systems that may be threatened by privatization. Indeed, such public values and goals were integral to the founding arguments for the creation of local authority responsibility for local education systems. The case for extensive private sector involvement in urban education has certainly not been made. Indeed, examples of interventions that have led to improvement have not all entailed private sector involvement. As we shall argue later, interventions involving within-public sector or broad stakeholder approaches to improvement may offer more chance of sustainability. In no case is it clear that that private sector involvement has been the decisive factor. This is not to argue against partnership working that includes the private sector, provided there are adequate safeguards, but nor does it support the abandonment of local democratic control or the public service ethos within education. It is in this context that we consider it important to examine the viability of alternatives to private sector involvement and privatization of education in its more extensive forms. We are not concerned to defend the public sector status quo as such, but to remember and celebrate its positive features in a context where it is too often just assumed by politicians and the media that private is by definition best. In the longer term, untried private solutions to present problems might actually do more harm than good.
Supporting Local Capacity in and Through Local Authorities We want to focus particularly on the role of local authorities (LAs) in supporting local capacity for improvement in partnership with other stakeholders. LAs are effectively the “middle tier” in educational provision and reform with a role in both implementing national central government direction and supporting local school improvement. We use the term LAs, rather than the more conventional notion of LEAs (local education authorities), because the New Labour government’s Every Child Matters agenda has sought to combine the resources of local education and social services departments to meet the holistic needs of children through joined-up services (Department for Education and Skills [DfES], 2003). For the previous 20 years, the role of LAs in education had been under sustained attack from Conservative and Labour central governments. The combined process of a centralization of policy direction and a decentralization of responsibilities for managing education and delivering improvement targets at school level has challenged, and in some instances, by-passed the role of LAs in the governance of education (Campbell & Power, 2002). The room for maneuver for LAs has been considerably constrained by the accountability regimes and performance monitoring established by central government
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with questions about the capacity of LAs coming to the fore when there is a perceived failure in local education (Riley, Docking, & Rowles, 2000). There is, however, growing evidence (some of it in this section of the Handbook) of the limitations of the decentralization/centralization strategy, and of the important role for LAs to ensure educational improvement is systematic and coherent at the local level, rather than based on the isolated success or failures of an individual school’s actions (Fullan, 2004, 2005; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998). It appears that the key factor in the educational difference made by the LA is its capacity to provide a context for, and support of, school-level capacity to improve. According to Fullan (2005), developing new capacities for systemic reform at LA/district and school levels are vital for future successes involving both restructuring and reculturing the education system. In contrast to debates about decentralization and centralization, building capacity for systemic reform is not about either schools or LAs – it is fundamentally about both and about their working together to lead and deliver improvement around a collective commitment to raise the bar and close the gap for student attainment. LAs can create connections across the local education system – as Togneri and Anderson (2003, p. 49) concluded in their study of school districts creating improvement in challenging circumstances, such “districts can make a difference” by ensuring a move “beyond islands of excellent schools to systems of success.” While evidence of a direct link between LA effects and student outcomes remain inconclusive, it is evident that LAs can be more or less effective in their role, operation and impact and this can influence school improvement efforts (Ofsted, 2002). Based on an analysis of findings from 101 then LEA inspections, Ofsted concluded that effective LEAs had the following features: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
political and professional leadership; secure systems of strategic and educational planning; focus and management of school improvement; common commitment to improving educational standards; continuous improvement; local authority gave prominence and priority to education; very secure infrastructure (including school places and resources); reliability and sensitivity of their support to schools (Ofsted, 2002, p. 10).
While some interpretations of the pragmatic functions provided by a middle tier in education (Audit Commission, 1998) could suggest that this tier could be either private or public, the importance of political leadership identified by Ofsted suggests the ongoing importance of local democratic responsibilities. The integral relationship between local education and local government was certainly a founding and enduring principle of LEAs in the past. Bogdanor (1994) argued that local democratic control should ensure “legitimacy” and fulfil “moral” and “educational purpose.” The education system and individuals within are considered to benefit from the checks and balances provided by the oversight and strategic direction of such a public, democratic middle tier. A concern, however, is the extent to which democratic principles and conventional local authority practices actually engage local people and enable responsive and equitable local educational developments.
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Transforming Failing LAs: Solutions Tried We now explore alternative strategies for transforming so-called “failing” LAs. While these particular examples derive from central government interventions, they point to some possibilities for public alternatives to either privatization or conventional LA control. The Audit Commission (2002, p. 3) defined government intervention as: Cases where Government departments and/or Ministers have taken action that they would not otherwise have taken as a result of a critical inspection report or other external evidence of service failure. The Government’s arguments for intervention generally relate to inadequate capacity within the LA. Audit Commission (2002) evidence suggests the need for attention to local leadership and organizational factors from which failures in service delivery arise. Intervention therefore seeks to either replace or rebuild local capacity. At its most basic, according to Harris and Lambert (2003, p. 4) capacity building is “concerned with providing opportunities for people to work together in new ways.” Such a conceptualization resonated with Prime Minister Blair’s vision of a “third way” involving new partnerships between public, private and voluntary sectors – supposedly based on pragmatism and “what works”. A range of formal interventions, directed by the Government through the Secretary of State for Education and the Department for Education and Skills, have been implemented. The majority of these interventions have been in urban locations, including for whole cities’ education systems as in Bradford, Bristol, Liverpool and Leicester. The main forms of intervention vary in their balance between: ● ●
an emphasis on service provision or strategic direction; external challenge and internal support.
The first dimension refers to whether the intervention is primarily intended to reform service delivery, for example by privatizing elements or all of the LA’s service responsibilities, involving a shift towards Klein’s (1984) Cell 3 and Burchardt et al.’s (1999) quadrant 3a. The primary focus of reform, however, may be to reform strategic direction, including leadership and decision-making powers by bringing in new players to advise or direct local bodies. The second dimension contrasts whether the intervention relies mostly on bringing external agencies in to take on responsibility for ensuring local improvement or whether the intervention is intended to rebuild local capacity through the provision of additional support for existing local bodies. Examples of different interventions and their balance on these dimensions are outlined in Figure 3. Examples of private sector involvement tend to be on the right of the figure, at the most extreme through privatization/outsourcing of both service delivery and strategic responsibility, whereas the examples on the left of the diagram tend to involve within public sector solutions with an emphasis on working with the existing LA to support renewed capacity. Cutting across these dimensions is the extent of private sector involvement compared to reform from within the public sector. As we discussed earlier, the distinction
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SERVICE DELIVERY Contract between LA and schools
Outsourcing/privatisation
EXTERNAL CHALLENGE
Charitable trust taking over LA functions
Partnership with another LA
Internal improvement
INTERNAL SUPPORT
Stakeholder partnership board
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT Figure 3.
Focus of intervention in LA
between public and private can be blurred by the emergence of “ideological privatisation” which seeks to infuse public sector practice with private sector approaches and the tendency for private sector companies working in education to recruit former public sector employees. As Woods discusses in his chapter, the nature of private sector values within the public sector requires careful attention. We turn now to look in more detail at two alternative approach to addressing LA failure – one effectively replacing local capacity through private sector involvement and the other seeking to rebuild local capacity through public partnership working.
Replacing Local Capacity The New Labour government’s initially preferred strategy for failing LAs was to replace local public responsibility with private sector providers contracted for service delivery and/or strategic management. Examples include the high profile outsourcing of local education services such as to CEA in Islington and the range of similar contracts let to private contractors, including Amey (Waltham Forest), Capita (Haringey), Nord Anglia (Sandwell), Serco (Bradford, Walsall), Tribal (Swindon) and W. S. Atkins (Southwark). Speaking in March 2003, Secretary of State for Education at the time, Charles Clarke, reported that, under his direction, 23 interventions were in process at that time, of which 9 involved substantial outsourcing of LA functions. There are three main difficulties with such attempts to privatize local education. One is the principled argument about the threat to public sector values. Second is the pragmatic recognition that such interventions remain unproven in terms of bringing about the anticipated improvements or meeting academic targets (while also being profitable). Third, there are concerns also about the long-term effects of outsourcing arrangements, with contracts generally being let initially for 5–10 years. There is a lack of evidence of short-term benefits from outsourcing, indeed initial contracts can take over a year to put in place preventing swift recovery initially. In the
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medium term, some private sector providers under outsourcing arrangements have struggled to deliver targets and secure profits. And in the longer-term we have already noted the grounds for concerns about lasting implications for local public capacity. Outsourcing arrangements do not provide a “quick fix” solution – they are not “quick” to establish or to bring about improvement and they do not necessarily provide the “fix” required. Evidence from the US concerning substantial removal of local powers, through state takeover arrangements, gives cause for concern. The majority of large-scale takeover arrangements in the USA have not yet been able to reach a point where local control has been re-established. In New Jersey, where the first state legislation to enable local control to be removed for a minimum of five years was implemented, this has resulted in a longer-term removal of functions (over 15 years in Jersey City). Despite strong calls there for a return local control, a prolonged period of removal of powers has resulted in a lack of local capacity for the future (Tractenberg, 2002). Indeed, the longer local control is removed, the greater the risk of permanently undermining prospects for rebuilding local capacity as local actors become effectively excluded from the current process.
Rebuilding Local Capacity It may therefore be preferable to consider strategies which build local public capacity, rather than removing or replacing this with centralized or privatized solutions. One approach to rebuilding local capacity within the public sector in the UK is through Education Partnership Boards (EPBs). These are: Strategic advisory bodies, involving stakeholder membership, working in partnership with the LEA to support school improvement. (Campbell, Evans, Askew, Hughes, & McCallum, 2004). They involve independent Chairs, external to the LA, working with local stakeholders from across the local education system (and sometimes also with external members who are experienced educators). Hopkins (2002, p. 4) defines EPBs as offering a “public public partnership” for improvement with the following benefits: The unique feature of the public Partnership Board approach is the ability to work within existing structures of the LEA and Council. This has given the Partnership Board the ability to work immediately and swiftly on removing obstacles to recovery and improvement. And much more swiftly than the rather labored, in comparison, process involved in public private or wholly private interventions. A rationale for education partnership boards is that they provide time-limited support for LAs to accelerate progress and build capacity for sustainable improvement in the longer-term. They work with local politicians, officers, school leaders and communities, rather than replacing or by-passing them within local governance arrangements. However, alongside this local partnership, EPBs, through their Chairs, also have to
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develop a partnership with central government, including reporting to senior education Ministers and civil servants. In our evaluation of education partnership boards across England, 11 boards were identified as being in operation between 2000–2003. Of these five were the main form of intervention involving a public sector solution, whereas four were combined with partial outsourcing arrangements and two with major outsourcing. As indicated by Burchardt et al. (1999) (see Figure 2), these involve differing combinations of public and private provision funded by public finance. These examples represent different combinations of public/private involvement and the blurring of such boundaries in practice. The range of EPBs in the sample included those with: ● ●
No outsourcing: Bristol, Liverpool, Leicester, Northumberland, and South Tyneside. Partial outsourcing: – Short-term outsourcing of strategic management: Sandwell. – Medium-term outsourcing of strategic management: Haringey, Swindon. – Medium to long-term outsourcing of selected services: Waltham Forest.
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Major outsourcing: Bradford, Walsall.
Outsourcing involves contracting out responsibilities to alternative, frequently private, providers. Interestingly, it is those LAs where an EPB, rather than private sector solutions, was the main driver for improvement which have also been quickest to secure successful re-inspections from the national inspection agency in England (Ofsted) whose responsibilities include assessing LA performance. For example, Bristol, Liverpool, Leicester and South Tyneside moving from a period of initial intervention to successful Ofsted re-inspection within 1–3 years. The first education partnership boards were implemented in January 2000 – a small monitoring board in Liverpool and a larger stakeholder body in Leicester. In both cases, central government’s first preference had been to move to an outsourcing arrangement. The shift to a public sector partnership solution was fought for by local politicians and officers, rather than being a principled commitment from central government to a new public approach to reform. In some other LAs, where outsourcing had been initiated from 2000 onwards, over time education partnership boards have been established to hold private contractors to account and to rebuild local capacity by ensuring local public involvement in the strategic development of the education system. In Haringey, for example, a partnership board with wider stakeholder membership has evolved, to “facilitate a return to a proper voice for schools, politicians and community members” in the context of a LA aiming to move beyond outsourcing arrangements. One reason for this shift to developing public partnerships has been the growing recognition that, in the words of an interviewee, private sector outsourcing has “not delivered improvements” and, according to another, privatization had become a “juggernaut” that had to be rectified. EPBs can help to rebuild confidence in the capacity of the local education system and to create a sense of “community” with a “common purpose.” Successful EPBs draw on, and extend, the expertise of their members. EPBs contribute to informing and further developing the understanding of those involved and, when feasible, through them the
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wider groups that they communicate with. However, “it’s not just about being informed but about taking joint responsibility.” This has involved developing an understanding of the relative roles and responsibilities of the different partners (see Campbell et al., 2004). Therefore, while EPBs work within public processes to build local capacity, they entail also reforming conventional public processes to create new partnership working arrangements across individuals and institutions within the public sector. Implicit in Hopkins’ (2002) terminology of “public public partnership” is the recognition that this is about different parts of the public sector working with each other in new ways to stimulate and sustain improvement. Across the 74 individuals interviewed for our evaluation of EPBs (Campbell et al., 2004), there was a widespread view that EPBs offer a good approach to supporting LA improvement through public partnership working. Furthermore, evidence to date points to the relative effectiveness of EPBs in accelerating change within public partnerships, compared to many of the difficulties encountered in creating and sustaining change through privatization.
Governing Through New Public Partnerships The “partnership” nature of EPBs was welcomed by those involved and consistently identified as one of the main benefits of such an approach. However, it is vital that we explore more fully the nature and implications of such partnership working and recognize that current public partnership arrangements involve significant shifts in the nature of educational governance. This involves developing our interpretation of welfare reform beyond those we initially considered for distinguishing between public and private sectors. Klein’s (1984) categorization focuses on funding and provision, while Burchardt et al. (1999) add to those consideration of the locus of decision-making. Formally, EPBs do not directly fund local education, they do not provide education services and they tend not to have decision-making powers. They are advisory bodies, but highly influential. This requires our attention to who sets the agenda, who exerts influence and who benefits from the changing local governance of education. As discussed previously, this requires moving beyond examination simply of whether inputs are public and private and to the surface level of decision-making to deeper examination of the governance processes explicit, implicit and emergent under new arrangements. Writing in 1977, Regan argued that “partnership is a hackneyed term” (p. 35) and certainly in the period since, particularly within New Labour discourse, the term is prone to over-use and under-explanation, with multiple (and frequently contradictory) interpretations being invoked simultaneously in current policy discourses. What is evident is that, although EPBs remain within the nature of public sector activity identified by Klein (1984) and Burchardt et al.’s (1999) models, EPBs are not about retaining or replicating the status quo of traditional LA practices but rather about reforming new relationships between the central state and local state for local education. Some interpretations of these new forms of governance, for example Rhodes’ (1997) work on networks, argue that new self-governing and powerful partnerships are evolving which challenge the authority and capacity of the central state. Nevertheless,
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even Rhodes concedes that partnerships offer the opportunity to encourage compliance. Newman (2001, p. 125) similarly argues that “partnership arrangements have enabled a wider range of actors to be discursively constituted as participants in the delivery of government policy” and, therefore, local partnerships in the context of central steering can represent “dangerous liaisons” (Taylor, 1998) for local actors. Such tensions raise questions about the ongoing balance between local agency and both historical and current political, economic and social structural conditions that shape and influence local actions, including conflicts and contradictions relating to outcomes for urban education as discussed in Grace’s and McCulloch’s chapters. While privatization clearly removes local public and democratic bodies from control, new public partnerships seek to include but also transform the role of public bodies in the interests of a centrally determined national policy for urban educational reform.
Conclusion These tensions and risks do not, however, justify retention of the status quo. Although we can debate the language of LA “failure” and the methodology used by the national inspection agency to identify weaknesses and inadequacies at the local level, it is evident that there are LAs which have demonstrated a serious lack of local capacity. Frequently, such LAs are not simply failing in managerial terms, for example, having inadequate procedures and systems, but also in educational terms, with a lack of support for school improvement, and in democratic terms, with poor political leadership and a breakdown of trust and respect with local communities. In such circumstances, there is a need to look again at the working of LAs. One argument is that the alternative is to simply remove or by-pass the powers of LAs. A middle way is suggested in the New Labour government’s 2005 White Paper (DfES, 2005) and Education and Inspections Bill (Her Majesty’s Government [HMG], 2006). This retains a strategic role for LAs, but offers the opportunity for a school or group of schools to be run by Trusts. One version of this, suggested by the Secretary of State in her evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2006), would involve private, public and voluntary sector stakeholders, including universities, having a permanent and substantive involvement in the governance of schools. If such an arrangement were to involve a group of schools, say all those in an urban area, this would institutionalize the notion of a local stakeholder board in the governance of education. Although local capacity building can be more locally acceptable than removal of functions, it is important to recognize that interventions designed to support local improvements also entail significant changes in local governance. While justifications for external intervention in LAs frequently invoke arguments relating to educational outcomes and managerial capacity (Indepen and Bannock Consulting, 2003), the construction, implementation and experience of such reforms are inherently political – involving reformed relationships between the central state and local education. Thus, although public partnership arrangements are not really about privatization of local education in the conventional sense, and tend to emphasize the importance of public sector
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values and responsibilities, they do involve also a reform of public sector practices and processes. While shifts in local governance are presented in some interpretations as offering scope for considerable local agency (Rhodes, 1997), we would argue that the coupling of these new forms of governance with state steering raises new dilemmas for local democratic processes and local politics which require further investigation. In looking to develop alternative and appropriate approaches to support local capacity, we need not only to focus on the delivery of improved performance, but also take seriously implications for educational and political processes. For example, as Behn (1998, p. 132) argues about public sector reform more generally: The advocates of any new approach to the management of the public enterprise must not only demonstrate that their strategy is more effective or more efficient. They must also demonstrate that it is politically responsible. Those who seek to create a new paradigm of public management have the burden of providing a correlative concept of democratic accountability. This challenge has not been addressed by reforms which seek to privatize the delivery of, or decision-making for, public education. However, the solution is not simply to argue the case for public sector responsibility for the local education system, but also to construct public alternatives which appropriately embody and promote public values of equity and integrity, democratic responsibilities for representation and responsiveness, and educational improvements to support students’ development. Purposeful improvement in urban education must always be grounded in educational values. The various forms of partnership discussed here do not offer a panacea, but they seem more likely to offer a way forward that balances democratic accountability and managerial efficiency in urban education rather better than either conventional public sector approaches or privatization.
Note 1. As this chapter went to press, police were investigating allegations that potential sponsors had been offered honours, including peerages. See Toby Helm, “City academy fund-raiser held over cash for peerages,” Daily Telegraph, April 14, 2006.
References Audit Commission. (1998). Changing partners. London: Audit Commission. Audit Commission. (2002). Local education authorities and school improvement 1996–2001. London: Office for Standards in Education. Behn, R. D. (1998). “The new public management paradigm and the search for democratic accountability”. International Public Management Journal, 1(2), 131–164. Bogdanor, V. (1994). Coda: Rejuvenate our democratic traditions. In S. Ranson, & J. Tomlinson (Eds.), School co-operation: New forms of local governance (pp. 200–205). Harlow: Longman. Burchardt, T., Hills, J., & Propper, C. (1999). Private welfare and public policy. New York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Campbell, C., Evans, J., Askew, S., Hughes, M., & McCallum, B. (2004). Evaluation of education partnership boards: Final report. Research report to Department for Education and Skills, England.
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Campbell, C., & Power, S. with Parker, A. (2002). “Caught between the state and the market: The changing role of the LEA and Director of education in England and Wales”. In B. S. Cooper, & L. D. Fusarelli (Eds.), The promises and perils facing today’s school superintendent (pp. 197–219). Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Capital Strategies. (2000). The business of education: An analysis of business developments in the education and training marketplace. London: Capital Strategies Ltd. Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2003). Every child matters. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2005). Higher standards, better schools for all. London: The Stationery Office. Fullan, M. (2004). Whole system reform. Paper commissioned by New American Schools. Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and sustainability: System thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Hallgarten, J., & Watling, R. (2001). Zones of contention. In R. Lissauer, & P. Robinson (Eds.), A learning process: Public private partnerships in education (pp. 22–43). London: Institute for Public Policy Research. Harris, A., & Lambert, L. (2003). Building leadership capacity for school improvement. Maidenhead & Philadelphia: Open University Press. Her Majesty’s Government (HMG). (2006). Education and inspections bill. London: The Stationery Office. Hopkins, D. (2002). A partnership approach to LEA renewal: The Leicester city experience. Leicester: Leicester City Partnership Board. House of Commons Education and Skills Committee. (2006). The schools White Paper: Higher standards, better schools for all. First Report of Session 2005–2006. London: The Stationery Office. Indepen and Bannock Consulting. (2003). Evaluation of new ways of working in Local Education Authorities. London: Department for Education and Skills. Klein, R. (1984). Privatization and the welfare state. Lloyds Bank Review (January), 12–19. Newman, J. (2001). Modernising governance: New Labour, policy and society. London: Sage. Ofsted. (2002). Local Education Authorities and school improvement 1996–2001. London: Office for Standards in Education. Power, S. (2000). “Using the third sector to find a third way: Recent reforms in English education policy”. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, 23–30 April. Power, S., Dickson, M., Gewirtz, S., Halpin, D., & Whitty, G. (2002). Paving a ‘Third Way’: A policy trajectory analysis of Education Action Zones, ESRC end-of-award report. Available: http://www. esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre Pring, R. (1987). “Privatization in education”. Journal of Education Policy, 2(4), 289–299. Regan, D. E. (1977). Local government and education. London: George Allen and Unwin. Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance. Buckingham: Open University Press. Riley, K., Docking, J., & Rowles, D. (2000). “Caught between Local Education Authorities: Making a difference through their leadership?”. In K. A. Riley, & K. S. Loius (Eds.), Leadership for change and school reform: International perspectives (pp. 107–128). London and New York: Routledge Falmer. Steel, D., & Heald, D. (1984). Privatizing public enterprise: Options and dilemmas. London: Royal Institute of Public Administration. Taylor, M. (1998). “Dangerous liaisons”. Paper presented to the Centre for Voluntary Organisations Symposium. September. Togneri, W., & Anderson, S. (2003). Beyond islands of excellence: What districts can do to improve instruction and achievement in all schools. Washington, DC: Learning First Alliance. Tooley, J. (2000). Reclaiming education. London: Cassell. Tractenberg, P. L. (2002). Developing a plan for re-establishing local control in the state-operated school districts. Newark: Institute of Education Law and Policy. Waterman, C. (2004). Every school matters. London: Local Government Information Unit. Whitty, G., Edwards, T., & Gewirtz, S. (1993). Specialisation and choice in urban education: The city technology college experiment. London: Routledge. Whitty, G., Power, S., & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Woods, P. A., Woods, G. J., & Gunter, H. (2005). “Academy schools: Challenges and prospects for educational leadership and public education”, British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society annual conference, Milton Keynes, September 23–25, 2005.
58 MULTI-AGENCY WORKING IN URBAN EDUCATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Lyn Tett University of Edinburgh, Scotland
The UK Policy Context and Multi-Agency Working Since New Labour was first elected in 1997, joined-up government and multi-agency working in the interests of social justice has been actively pursued through a range of legislation. For example, the report of the Scottish Taskforce on Poverty states: Achieving our ambitious targets can only happen through partnership with colleagues across the UK. We share a common commitment to delivering social justice [and] a belief that we are stronger together and weaker apart as people, as communities and as nations… . The targets in the Scottish Social Justice Report can only be delivered through focus, leadership and “new directions” in the allocation and use of public, private and voluntary sector resources. (Scottish Office, 1999a, p. 2) Social justice policies have been framed in terms of fighting social exclusion and promoting social inclusion, reflected in the establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit as part of the Cabinet Office in England and the creation of the Social Inclusion Network in Scotland. In conceptualizing social exclusion, the Government has sought to move away from a sole focus on material deprivation towards the recognition of the salience of wider social and cultural factors. Thus, whilst it is recognized that poverty is likely to produce social alienation, it is also recognized that unless ways are found of hooking individuals and communities into positive social networks based on trust and reciprocity, money spent on alleviating material disadvantage may be wasted. Historically, targeting resources on the most disadvantaged groups and communities has been an approach implemented to tackle the effects of economic and social disadvantage, for example, Educational Priority Areas and Community Development Projects that were based in the most excluded urban areas (Halsey, 1972). More recently, governments in the UK have focused on raising educational achievement particularly 1139 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1139–1156. © 2007 Springer.
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in urban areas characterized by severe socio-economic deprivation. In the UK individuals with high levels of multiple deprivation are concentrated in the cities so, for example, in Scotland the largest city – Glasgow – has 41 out of the 100 most deprived wards whereas rural areas, such as Argyll and Bute and the Scottish Borders, have none (Lupton, 2004). Since it has long been recognized that agencies must work in close cooperation if they wish to provide a seamless response to the needs of socially excluded communities and groups (Dyson, Lin, & Millward, 1998; Tett, Crowther, & O’Hara, 2003; Webb & Vulliamy, 2004) a focus on urban contexts is necessary if such initiatives are to be effective. Such joined up thinking lies behind a number of international educational initiatives such as inclusive schools, full service schools and Education Action Zones (see Campbell, 2002; Power, 2001). In the UK schools are envisaged as playing a key role in the current government’s policies to promote social inclusion among children and young people in particular and in tackling social exclusion in general. Research has shown (Atkinson, Wilkin, Stott, & Kinder, 2001; Ball, 1998) that multi-agency projects, especially those that are based outside any one school, have been able to provide a structure where the uneven take up of services by poorer urban households and neighborhoods can be addressed and encouraged. Projects that have involved social and health services, housing, police, adult education, and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) collaborating together with parents and schools in ways that focused on providing integrated services at the point of need, have been shown to be the most effective (Semmens, 2001; Whitty, Aggleton, Gamarnikow, & Tyler, 1998). In Scotland the “Social Inclusion Strategy” document stresses that: The Government is investing heavily in programmes to promote inclusion among school-age children, including New Community Schools, Early Intervention Schemes, Alternatives to Exclusion from School, and Family Literacy. (Scottish Office, 1999b, p. 7) Furthermore it is recognized that schools on their own cannot solve the problems associated with social exclusion. The long-term objective of Scottish policy in relation to preventing social exclusion and promoting more inclusive communities is to develop ways of working “which integrate programmes not just within Government, but at all levels of action right down to local neighbourhoods and communities” (Scottish Office, 1999c, p. 1). Thus schools are expected to work with other agencies both to prevent social exclusion taking place and to help reintegrate those who have been socially excluded into mainstream society. This approach envisions new roles for service users and professionals. The idea that service users should play a significant role in shaping the type of services available and their mode of delivery is, of course, not a new one, but the notion of service users as partners has been used recently for a range of ideological purposes. In the area of special educational needs, for instance, the idea that parents might work in partnership with professionals was emphasized in the Warnock Report, published in 1978, but, as noted by Mordaunt (2001), professionals have been very reluctant to relinquish power to parents and policy changes have been pursued at different rates throughout the UK,
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with greater parental rights being guaranteed in England than in Scotland. For example, the establishment of school boards in Scotland and governing bodies in England, which were ostensibly to give parents a stronger say in the running of their school, actually resulted in little redistribution of power (Vincent, 2000). Vincent suggests a further model of parental involvement, that of parent as citizen. Parent Centred Organisations, Vincent suggests, whilst being “limited, fragile and partial in their scope and their impact,” nonetheless “go some way towards the creation of a language and several arenas in which (at least some) parents acting as citizens can participate in shaping educational opportunities for all children” (Vincent, 2000, p. xiii). Just as service users are construed differently within the modernized welfare state, so the casting aside of departmental boundaries and the deregulation of services creates new roles for professionals. Within the post-war welfare state, each professional group worked within clear boundaries, operating according to specific working practices and with clear routes of accountability. Within the new welfare state, the boundary between public, private and voluntary sector workers and those employed by particular departments is increasingly blurred. Workers are cast in the role of social entrepreneurs, crossing departmental boundaries in order to undertake a particular task. The idea of the free-ranging worker adopting extremely flexible and innovative working practice has been developed most fully in the context of the New Deal programs designed to get people who are unemployed back into employment (see Riddell & Tett, 2001). In order to move individuals destined for long term unemployment back into the labor market, job brokers have been instructed to use any means at their disposal to persuade employers to find work for individuals and to support individuals in holding down a job or a training program placement. The underlying theory is that employers’ sense of community responsibility can be drawn on in creating jobs or lifelong learning opportunities for disabled people and other groups at risk of social exclusion. Clearly then, this policy context creates a wide variety of opportunities in which to examine multi-agency working in urban areas but how these opportunities are conceptualized will influence their implementation in practice. In the next section, I set out a framework for how these differing conceptualizations of the role and purposes of multi-agency working operates. The rest of the chapter then explores multi-agency projects in two main settings – schools and socio-economic community regeneration initiatives – with a particular focus on social justice.
Frameworks for Understanding Multi-Agency Working In trying to understand multi-agency working attention needs to be paid to the differing conceptions of the purposes of partnerships, and the structures required to fulfill these purposes, which are held by professionals and communities. There are two fundamental dimensions of practice that influence these purposes and structures: ● ●
Institutional and professional boundaries; Pedagogic purpose
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In terms of boundaries, each profession defines itself in terms of specialist skills and knowledge. Such specialization helps to distinguish one profession from another but it also separates the professional from the lay member of the public. In understanding different approaches to multi-agency working it is important to acknowledge the existence of professional boundaries and to examine whether such distinctions of professional knowledge and skills are sharply defined or blurred. These boundaries also exist between institutions and the wider community with some institutions conceptualizing salient knowledge and skills as only existing within its boundaries and not being held by others outside these boundaries. For example, parents of children with socio-emotional behavioral difficulties (SEBD) may be viewed as not being able to make a contribution to the understanding of their child’s problems as the school “experts” have the correct interpretation of what is wrong and how it can be righted. In addition, at the wider community level, services may be organized in such a way that boundaries are certain to arise between different parts of the local authority system as there is no strategic plan to bring services together. Boundaries to multi-agency working will be “high” when: ● ●
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All the agencies have separate spheres of operation; Where there are declining resources or short-term funding that make it necessary for the agencies to concentrate on what is considered their core business; Professional roles are in conflict, for example, where some professionals see disadvantaged community members as experts whilst others see them as knowing nothing; Where there are divergent views on the role of the participants in the activity, for example, pupils with behavioral difficulties may be seen as having no insights into their own problems by their teachers but having great expertise by youth workers; Different groups being given priority by the agencies in the collaboration, for example, only the parents of pupils attending the school or only people living in poverty.
Boundaries to multi-agency working will be “low” when: ●
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Processes are in place that give value to joint decision-making by the various agencies; There is a commitment by all the institutions involved to collaborative working that includes the wider community; Institutions respond to the articulated views of the community; There are shared view of the roles of participants in the activity; There is an appreciation of the strengths to be gained from the complimentary roles of professional workers and the pupils, parents and communities with whom they work.
The pedagogic purpose and practice dimension is about the orientation of the professional, which may be “particularistic,” focusing upon the personal and educational development of the individual, whether pupil, young person or adult. Alternatively it
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may be “holistic,” with a focus on the development of the community as a whole and a vision of learning as having a dual purpose in the development of both the individual and the community. For example, schools may only focus on the individual pupil and see the role of that person’s parents as solely focused on the child rather than seeing the importance of their roles in the wider community regeneration. Purpose and practice form a continuum that ranges from an orientation towards community development that aims to encourage effective and responsible citizenship to an individualistic orientation that is concerned with universal provision of education rather than being responsive to both the articulated and the unvoiced requirements of the community. The pedagogic purpose and practice will be “particularistic” when: ● ●
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There is an emphasis on the individual growth of participants; There are no means whereby the community can raise problems of concern to them; People are only involved in decision making at a tokenistic level; The skills of the community are not utilized or valued; Universalistic provision that is focused on individuals is offered; Policy and practice objectives are predetermined.
The pedagogic purpose and practice will be “holistic” when: ●
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There are mechanisms for, and a commitment to, responding effectively to the issues and problems identified by the community; The community that is the focus for the intervention has an influence on decision making and the structures are in place that allow such decisions to be implemented; Methods for developing the “voice” of socially excluded individuals, groups and communities are used; There is a commitment to community participation in decision making that leads to responsive, demand-led provision.
The relationship between these two dimensions result in a matrix of four quadrants in which the different purposes of multi-agency working can be characterized as follows: ●
Quadrant A Individualistic perspective/High institutional boundaries (Individual development).
The purpose of multi-agency working is to support the work of schools and focuses upon addressing the problems that frustrate the progress in the learning of students. Institutions define roles and rules in ways that can create a boundary around the school and the focus of other professionals, parents and the wider community is seen only in relation to the purposes of supporting the individual pupil in the school. ●
Quadrant B Holistic perspective/High institutional boundaries (Citizen development).
In this quadrant the challenges of social and economic regeneration are recognized in multi-agency working: education and training are focused on enabling members of the community not only to gain employment but also to improve the quality of individual lives. However, professional and institutional traditions and conceptualizations of
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purpose can still frustrate collaborative working leading to high boundaries between the different agencies. ●
Quadrant C Holistic perspective/Low institutional boundaries (Whole community development).
In this quadrant the school, the local authority, the institutions and agencies that work co-operatively all recognize the importance of community development as well as lifelong learning. They form collaborative partnerships to ensure effective provision of education to enable members of the community to participate as citizens in the practice of local democracy. ●
Quadrant D Individualistic perspective/Low institutional boundaries (Lifelong learning approach).
In this quadrant multi-agency working is focused on supporting the learning needs of all individuals in the community: pupils; young people outside school; their parents; and the life-long learning needs of adults in the community. To support these needs institutions strive to become responsive to the communities they serve and to establish collaborative patterns of working with other organizations and agencies but the focus of the intervention is on the individual. In order to explore these frameworks further I now turn to an examination of a particular Scottish program, Integrated Community Schools (ICS), which was designed to break down the boundaries between professionals and community members living in urban areas characterized by high levels of social exclusion.
High boundary
Quadrant A Individual Development
Quadrant B Citizen Development
Individualistic/ Particularistic
Holistic/ Community Development Quadrant D Lifelong Learning
Quadrant C Whole Community Development Low boundary
Figure 1.
A framework for multi-agency working
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Multi-Agency Working in Urban Schools The development of ICS was initiated in 1998 and it was argued that this initiative of “Integrated provision of school education, informal as well as formal education, social work and health education and promotion services will require a new approach and level of inter-disciplinary team working” (Scottish Office, 1998, p. 8). Research commissioned by the New Labour Government showed that many children and young people, particularly those in urban communities, were underachieving in schools and at risk of becoming “socially excluded” from society (see Baron, 2001). It was decided to implement a program which would aim to meet the needs of “at risk” children and families. They should: Focus on the individual child, his or her family and the community; the aim is to meet each child’s needs in the round; the key is integrated provision of services – teachers, social workers, adult education workers, health professionals and others working together as a single team. (Scottish Office, 1998, p. 2) ICS is an important policy intervention because it is designed to bring about more inclusive schools and communities through inter-agency partnerships. Such initiatives have long been considered an important way of working in education (see Dyson & Robson, 1999) and similar partnerships form the basis for the “Extended School” initiative in England. All these initiatives have focused especially on socially excluded children and young people and their families who suffer from a number of difficulties including poverty, poor housing and health and low educational attainment. This is because, as Semmens (2001, p. 71) argues, this type of approach is a very practical response to “at risk” students since “schools are usually located in accessible places, and services can be delivered either at school or through school acting as the referral agency.” In addition, the strength of this way of working is that no one agency is expected to deal with the complex range of difficulties such students face (Lloyd, Stead, & Kendrick, 2003). The multi-agency approach offers “joint consideration of individual children’s needs and joint action to address these” (Scottish Office, 1998, p. 4). In terms of the framework set out above, the approach recognizes the need to reduce the professional and institutional “boundaries” of service providers. Its pedagogic purpose, however, is “individualistic” and it thus falls within quadrant D of the framework. The rest of this section will explore how action to reduce boundaries that get in the way of individual learning can contribute to greater inclusion through examining the way support services are delivered to “at risk” children and young people and their parents. Other Scottish legislation, such as the “Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act,” requires schools to take an inclusive approach to these groups. The Act states that there is a “presumption of inclusion” and that “school education for any child of school age, shall be provided in a school other than a special school” (Scottish Executive, 2000a, p. 8). Therefore, it is seen as better for the child to be educated at their local school and within the body of their own community as this may prevent
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social exclusion later in life. Schools are expected to have a continuum of supports for young people experiencing difficulties. The Scottish Executive have made recommendations such as “schools having a positive ethos” and “engagement of parents in their child’s learning” (Scottish Executive, 2000b) and “staged intervention to support children” and “schools should develop agreed systems for shared responsibility” (Scottish Executive, 2001). However, in the past, educational support services have been delivered around the mainstream curriculum. But as mainstream education only accounts for 15% of a child’s life (Wolfendale, 1993), this meant that the child and family largely went unsupported for a large part of their lives. ICS Projects in many areas have addressed these issues of social inclusion by developing supportive programs both within and out-with school that involve multi-agency working. These include: “breakfast clubs”; out of school activities and clubs; holiday activities; targeted support for parents. There is evidence that these supports are very positive and Jon Nixon has argued that: The Breakfast and After School Club provision creates a “border country” between private and public in which children are encouraged to develop their sense of responsibility for themselves and for others. (Nixon, 2001, quoted in Baron, 2001, p. 102) This type of intervention has led to the building of local community supports with a whole range of service providers and can lead to professionals developing a more democratic repertoire in their relationship with local people. This way of working is an asset because it aims to strengthen local networks, collective self help and include the target community as active participants as a way of building social capital. In some local authorities ICS Integration Managers have promoted the structural changes necessary to improve services through taking on a co-ordination role. Innovative ways have been found to engage with parents that are positive, purposeful and lead to improved understanding between them and the school community. For example, one ICS school cluster has developed a structure where all referrals about “at risk” pupils are channeled through a single person who then coordinates the responses from professionals, agencies and others so that the pupil and his/her carers have only one point of contact. This involves adopting the principle of “reciprocity” that allows a move away from the “blame culture” and instead values the contributions of all concerned, especially the views of carers. In addition a study of experiences of integrated services delivered through ICS from the perspective of parents and their children (Tisdall & Wallace, 2004) found that parents were particularly appreciative of having one point of contact rather than being passed from person to person. They also noted “the importance of having their concerns recognised [and having] … less hierarchical relationships with staff ” (ibid, p. 46). However, a study of parents of children with a diagnosis of SEBD (Smith & Tett, 2003) based in another ICS school cluster, showed that although they had sound knowledge, clear understanding and good insights into their child’s difficulties, in many cases this was not acted upon. Rather they had to wait for professionals to make
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referrals to support agencies and often had to approach a variety of professionals themselves rather than having just one coordinating person to make these connections for them. Semmens (2001, p. 76) argues that in a crisis situation, which many parents get to before asking for help, “someone with specialist expertise must step in and take responsibility … however the intervention must be connected with the rest of the client’s life.” One of the key points that emerge from this, and other, research is that parents want to be involved in supporting their children but professionals can make this a difficult, rather than an easy, process (Kendrick, 1995; Stead, Lloyd, & Kendrick, 2004). Clearly then, an approach that positions the professionals as the only “experts” in understanding a child’s difficulties is going to create boundaries between the school and the parents it is expected to work with. Another type of intervention arising from the ICS initiative has been the restructuring of local authorities’ education and children’s services. When a corporate approach to the development of children’s service plans is taken then much can change. It is essential, however, that the plans are owned not only by all local authority departments, but also by all the agencies involved in providing services and the people – community members, pupils, parents – that are affected by them (see Kendrick, 1995). This is a time-consuming task as different groups and individuals all have to give up some of their autonomy for the greater good of the whole and the voices of parents, pupils and communities can easily be silenced by “exclusionary professionalist agendas, often sustained by deficit ideologies” (Hatcher & Leblond, 2001, p. 55). This type of approach has been most successful when there has been time for people to work together on small projects that have resulted in positive change. For example, one project focused on providing a school summer holiday programme for vulnerable families that covered a range of social, educational, and recreational activities. This involved staff from a number of organizations, including the local schools, the voluntary sector, the further education college, and adult education team, together with three local parents working together to find the resources of staff and finance to make an interesting and varied program. The parents were fully involved in advising on the kind of activities that were appropriate and the professional staff worked collaboratively together to make sure that all services made a contribution to a successful initiative. As a result of this program a further development that is focusing on primary/secondary transitions is now under way and will involve two other parents that participated in the summer holiday project (see McCulloch, Tett, & Crowther, 2004). An increase in joint working has to be facilitated if it is to work and local authorities that appointed people with a particular responsibility for promoting this were the most successful. Such facilitators were able to improve clients’ access to services (and school access to different funding sources). Professionals from different sectors valued learning more about each others’ areas of expertise, and many saw “blurring the boundaries” between agencies and professional groups as both offering positive potential and presenting new problems and dilemmas. Schools Liaison Groups also played a valuable part in developing increased trust through face-to-face meetings. One aspect of working together that was particularly successful was the potential for, and experience of, joint training. This was seen as a valuable learning process for staff. One particularly useful practice was thought to be cross-professional work shadowing
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which, among other benefits, was thought to have helped to resolve confidentiality issues: Social workers say I know what the school nurse does but if they actually came out and shadowed … they would be absolutely stunned about the extent of the work and vice versa. A lot of it has got to be education and training for the actual staff involved to make it a success and to break down barriers to working together. (Tett & McCulloch, 2005, p. 10) Research carried out by the author and her research group with a range of ICS initiatives found that most people were realistic about the difficulties presented by different professional perspectives and priorities but were willing to work together to achieve the overarching aim of providing better, more focused, services for pupils, parents and the wider school community (McCulloch et al., 2004; Tett, Caddell, Crowther, & O’Hara, 2001; Tett, Munn et al., 2001; Tett et al., 2003). On the other hand, collaborative partnerships, particularly between professionals, are not easy because of a number of inherent hazards such as inter-professional rivalries or unrealistic expectations (Huxham, 1996). For example, different professional partners may have divergent views about what collaboration means (see Blair et al., 1998; Dyson et al., 1998). Our research (Tett, Caddell et al., 2001; Tett, Munn et al., 2001; Tett et al., 2003; McCulloch et al., 2004) found that schools were more likely to welcome collaborating partners in areas that they saw as beyond their own expertise such as health education. In areas that were seen as “core” activities such as the teaching of specific subjects in the secondary school then the focus was more likely to be on funding for additional resources that would enable them to teach more effectively. Other research has shown (e.g., Webb & Vulliamy, 2004) that there can be conflict between the target of raising achievement and the target of reducing exclusions in secondary schools with classroom teachers being concerned that the latter would affect the former. As can be seen there are many barriers to multi-agency working and conflict and tension between professionals are inevitably part of the process. Inter-professional collaboration may be seen as a threat rather than a benefit especially when core aspects of people’s professional competence may be questioned. The ICS approach has the goal of delivering public services that meet the needs of its citizens – parents, pupils and communities – rather than the convenience of public service providers. However, staff had to be clear about how they are constructing the needs of citizens especially in relation to urban communities that are disadvantaged. The deep-rooted cultural differences between professional groups, vested interests in maintaining school and departmental boundaries and statutory restrictions may undermine efforts to engage in partnership working that includes all the community. This has led some commentators to suggest that a new professionalism is needed that gives priority to “boundary spanning” (Newman, 2001, p. 6) so that the concept of integrated provision to meet individual needs becomes embedded in people’s thinking.
Multi-Agency Working and Local Community Groups In this section, I want to focus on multi-agency working that has holistic community development as its pedagogic purpose through involving local community groups as
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partners in multi-agency working for socio-economic regeneration. Such an approach recognizes that people are embedded in different social realities, where power manifests itself concretely and specifically, and educational practices need to take these particularities and differences into account. For example, tackling racism requires the expertise of those who have directly suffered its effects as well as the general knowledge of those who seek to understand and counteract it. Understanding disability includes an awareness of the meaning of dependency, which becomes an educational resource both for disabled experts and interested generalists, rather than simply a technical problem to be solved. To live full lives people need to engage in learning that can equip them to develop their autonomy and control both at the individual and the communal level. If people are to gain a voice they will need the confidence and authority that comes out of having their embodied experience acknowledged and valued and through being part of a social, mutually supportive group that is engaged in learning from each other. This focus on the expertise of local people in understanding what is wrong in their communities and what should be done to change it has risen up the policy agenda recently especially in relation to the work of adult education. However, official government literature about the merits of partnership tends to present an idealized model that assumes that achieving local action and consensus at the community level is relatively unproblematic. For example the Scottish Executive, (2000a) suggested that: Services need to listen to their communities with a single ear. Having listened they need to change the services they provide and the way in which they are delivered in a way that is more responsive to their communities’ needs. In contrast, research into partnerships between local community groups and a variety of public and private sector organizations (e.g., Craig & Taylor, 2002; Hatcher & Leblond, 2001; Milewa, Dowswell, & Harrison, 2002; Tett et al., 2003), shows the conflicting character of co-ordinating different and unequal interest and identity groups. Given these difficulties with involving community groups as equal partners how might communities and the adult education workers who liaise with them be more effectively empowered? Purdue and colleagues (2000) suggest that effective strategic partnerships should first of all involve local community groups from the outset rather than after a partnership has been established. They should have an agreed and negotiated agenda with clear terms of reference; ensure that all partners are committed to community empowerment; develop appropriate structures and procedures for community participation that are acceptable to all partners; and address issues of conflict and power (Craig & Taylor, 2002, p. 139). Partnerships for community regeneration through involving local people in educational initiatives are potentially creative but they can founder unless they are based on shared interests, with agreed mechanisms for negotiating differences and building trust (Wagner & Spence, 2003). One key is that they should be set in the context of longer-term strategies for community development that offer strategic possibilities for learning. This involves taking the concerns and needs of local community organizations seriously by enabling them to respond as far as possible on their own terms and at a manageable pace, rather than sucking them into the slipstream of policy programs (Taylor, 2003).
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If communities are to be fully involved in decision making as equal partners then maximum access to as much information as possible is needed, particularly research and specialist knowledge that will enable them to justify alternative views. In addition, structures need to be in place to enable community groups and the people they represent to influence decision-making through developing their own ideas and agendas, pro-actively (Tett et al., 2003). This takes time but this is not always available as one group found: We found that we were included in a regeneration partnership at the last minute because the funding criteria suggested that a community-based organisation would be an asset. This meant that we had hardly any time to get to know the other partners and that meant it took ages before we were able to make an effective contribution. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 5) Having control over resources of money, time and staff is also a powerful tool in establishing a more equal place at the partnership table. If these conditions were met then communities would be better placed to: Play an active role in setting the agenda and pressing for the wider policy changes required. [This kind of partnership for renewal would then be able to meet] social needs as defined from the bottom up, rather than responding to the requirements of market-led agendas determined from the top down. (Mayo, 1997, p. 24) Adult education workers have an important role to play in assisting community groups to understand, operate within, and, where necessary, challenge their political environment. This involves identifying and stressing areas of commonality and the creative development of links and alliances between groups that might otherwise see their organizations as in competition. It also involves recognizing the rights of those who experience problems to define appropriate solutions and argue for the resources necessary their implementation (Wagner & Spence, 2003). As one group pointed out “you must respect the people that you are working with and acknowledge their expertise about what works in their community” (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 17). Multi-agency working has generally developed, within existing structures, processes and frameworks of power, with public sector cultures in the UK, that are so deeply engrained that power holders are unaware of the ways in which their use of language and procedures that outsiders find impenetrable excludes community groups in particular. However, many adult education workers have established educational programs designed to enable community groups to understand and engage with the unwritten codes behind the operation of working in partnership. For example, one group pointed out: We wanted to make sure that no one agency dominated the proceedings so we had a revolving chair and each organisation took turns in minute taking. Just these simple things made quite a difference to hearing a variety of voices and not always just the biggest partners. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 16) By this means a local community group had their concerns listened to and acted upon.
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Communities want evidence of tangible changes as much as their public and private partners do. But an emphasis on hard, measurable outputs leads to a technical bias, which ignores the institutional and socio-cultural context and overshadows the social and political dimensions of the change process. An approach that transforms social problems into technical problems neutralizes both their value base and debate about what caused the problems in the first place. The danger is that “what began as a political issue is translated into a technical problem which the development exercise can accommodate with barely a falter in its stride” (White, 1996, p. 7). However, Russell (2001) reports on a range of initiatives that have attempted to overcome these problems of providing hard outputs. For example, partnerships have set benchmarks for community participation; had an explicit statement of the shared vision and purpose of the partnership, based on jointly held values; regarded each partner as having an equivalent status, irrespective of some having more resources than others have. Russell further argues that “equivalent status means avoiding having ‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ groups and ensuring fairness in the conduct of the partnership by creating opportunities for each partner to contribute as much as they wish and in a manner that is appropriate” (Russell, 2001, p. 22). Taking the concerns and needs of community organizations seriously is important means of enabling them to respond as far as possible on their own terms and at a manageable pace. Partnerships work best when each partner is perceived – collectively and individually – to have an equivalent status, irrespective of some having more resources than others. An example of how this works in practice is a multi-agency partnership that involves a large secondary school, the local Further Education College, the adult education worker, and a range of community based organizations working together to make sure that the learning provision available in one disadvantaged urban community is appropriate. The partners in this initiative have realized that the resources that each partner brings may be different and not always quantifiable. These include, for example, the information, experience, and expertise that voluntary groups such as parents’ organizations bring about adult learning needs in the community. In talking about the issue of resources the school educational outreach manager said: The community activists who knew the local community were the people who had the best knowledge of what would work and where the best places were to hold the classes. They were our most important outreach partners in getting the right adult learning opportunities into the community. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 25) This valuing of local resources was not there in the early days of the partnership, however, and has had to be worked on. As one of the parent-led groups pointed out “the professionals needed to listen carefully to what the community was saying and, at the beginning of the project, they were quite selective about what they wanted to hear” (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 18). This group had to work hard to have its concerns about the educational provision being focused on telling parents how to be better at helping their children with their homework rather than seeing that parents were experts in relation to their own needs and interests. They were eventually listened to because they were clear about their own purposes in getting appropriate out-of-school child-care
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provision and wanting to learn about how to do this. One particular issue was about the recognition and respect for community members’ differences of religion, ethnicity and sexuality and the group was able to articulate what difference this made to the provision that was made. As a result all the partners in this project experienced tensions about their respective roles and responsibilities and have had to compromise. However, the multi-agency committee responsible for the project has helped to strike a balance between these competing priorities by listening and working together. As the adult education worker put it “every developmental step has been enhanced through effective networking and the building and maintenance of meaningful partnerships with other agencies, some statutory, some voluntary” (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 19). The approach that this particular project has taken suggests an approach to multiagency working that focuses on whole community development with a holistic perspective and low institutional boundaries. This falls into quadrant C of the framework detailed above where the community has an influence on decision-making and there are mechanisms in place for these decisions to be implemented. This focus on the expertise that lies in the local knowledge of the community and the acknowledgement that it is as valuable as that of the outside professional educators is, however, unusual in the wider regional and national contexts (see Dyson & Robson, 1999; Glendinning, Powell, & Rummery, 2002; Riddell & Tett, 2001). Generally professionals and lay members of multi-agency partnerships are expected to respond to problems defined and understood from outside of disadvantaged communities and local “lay” knowledge is not valued.
Conclusion In examining the data reported on here from a range of initiatives, it can be seen that multi-agency working always involves the agency of the people who are working together and the structures that make such interactions possible. Overall, it is possible for multi-agency working to exist in a wide range of circumstances and situations. However, where boundaries are low and a community development approach is taken collaborative partnerships are more likely to encourage the development of democratic participation in local communities, a key goal of the policy to combat social exclusion and increase social justice. Such partnerships have at their core a commitment to lifelong learning and to promoting community capacity and empowerment. Building partnerships results in multi-agency working that supports both the values and purposes of schools and the values and purposes of communities. Such activity necessarily sits on the boundary between school and community and is as much about schools’ development as community development. The successful school will necessarily be involved in community building and regeneration as both a value and a purpose. This is what Sergiovanni (1994) terms the “gemeinschaft” school – the school that values kinship, neighborliness and collegiality above rational, contractual relationships (gesellschaft, pp. 8–9). Merz and Furman (1997), using the same theory, conclude that schools have become too “gesellschaft” which is undermining a sense of community. Schools that value community building and regard it as a prime institutional purpose will
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be more successful in shaping multi-agency partnerships. This requires the community to be involved in developing education and creating a learning community. While the practice described above provided examples of an interest in, and commitment to, a vision of learning communities there are institutional barriers preventing “gemeinschaft” being at the heart of schooling. As far as pedagogy is concerned, many schools would claim to encourage lifelong learning either directly through teaching approaches which promote enjoyment and a sense of achievement thereby enhancing motivation to learn in their pupils and/or by encouraging adult participation. Yet the scope for a negotiated curriculum is heavily circumscribed and the introduction of performance targets in terms of pupil attainment leads to teacher attention being focused on those aspects of the curriculum for which they are publicly accountable. Schools need to look beyond the school gate to the wider community not just in terms of mobilizing parents to be involved in their children’s education but through being open to the contributions that the community can make to the school and vice versa. Schools also have a very limited capacity currently to promote learning to participate in a democratic community. The informal curriculum may provide experience of organizing and managing clubs and societies. The hidden curriculum of schools typically sends messages about the hierarchical and status driven nature of school organization with few opportunities for pupil involvement in decision-making particularly for those in danger of exclusion (see Munn & Lloyd, 2005). There are a few notable exceptions, of course, where pupil councils or their equivalent play a real part in decisions about school life. Certainly many schools work with parents as partners both to improve children’s learning and to enhance parents’ own education. Yet even the most successful and dynamic schools in this regard would not claim to reach all parents. This is not intended as a criticism of schools. Rather it is to recognize the limited role they can play given current government priorities for schools and the severely constrained budgets under which they operate. Each partner in collaboration brings their own tradition to multi-agency working that sets limits about what they can contribute to the whole. However, although joint professional development can reinforce the understanding and valuing of collaboration, the threats and pressures facing the partners can accentuate the limits of professional boundaries. This chapter on multi-agency working in urban contexts has shown that there is a great diversity of learning needs that can only be addressed through a variety of professionals and lay people coming together to share their skills. Plural interests and needs require the complementarity of specialisms and understandings whether derived from professional or local knowledge. Professional and lay collaborations depend on forging the trust and understanding that allows people to build a common view that respects the contribution that all can make to learning and development. It also means recognizing the rights of those that experience problems to define appropriate solutions and argue for their implementation. In these circumstances professionals need to see this as an opportunity to build the capacity of people living in disadvantaged urban communities rather than as a threat to their individual positions. As Whitty and Campbell (2004, p. 11) point out “when implementing integrated services there is a tendency to focus initially on the implications for professionals and
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agencies.” However, the experiences of communities and their own definition of the needs are central to the organization and delivery of appropriate education and other services. People themselves can develop their own forms of knowledge by being recognized and respected in multi-agency collaborations and this challenges the power of expert, professional, knowledge to monopolize the definition of what is wrong in their communities and what is needed to right it. While many schools in the past were closed to both the professionals and communities beyond their boundaries, some of the emerging practice reported on here provides a vision of what might be achieved through an open institution that is responsive to local needs and circumstances. Schools are often closed organizations surrounded by strong spatial, professional, accounting, and organizational boundaries. Openness can be created and sustained through a commitment to creating effective community development where boundaries are blurred, cross-over, and sometimes disappear altogether, as shared ways of seeing the work that is to be done are developed, which are fit for the purpose of building the capacities of all. With these issues in mind it is hoped that the analysis presented here will help plot the various models of multi-agency working in urban contexts that unfold and provide a useful way of analyzing the multi-faceted strands of social inclusion policy.
References Atkinson, M., Wilkin, A., Stott, A., & Kinder, K. (2001). Multi-agency working: An audit of activity. Slough: National foundation for Educational Research. Ball, M. (1998). School inclusion: The school, family and the community. New York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Baron, S. (2001). New Scotland, New Labour, New community Schools: New authoritarianism. In S. Riddell, & L. Tett (Eds.), Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined-up or fractured policy? (pp. 87–104). London: Routledge. Blair, A., Tett, L., Martin, J., Martin, I., Munn, P., & Ranson, S. (1998). Schools and community education: The mapping study. Edinburgh: Moray House Institute of Education, University of Edinburgh. Campbell, C. (Ed.). (2002). Developing inclusive schooling: Perspectives, policies and practices. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Craig, G., & Taylor, M. (2002). Dangerous liaisons: Local government and the voluntary and community sectors. In C. Glendinning, M. Powell, & K. Rummery (Eds.), Partnerships, new labour and the governance of welfare (pp.131–148). Bristol: Policy Press. Dyson, A., Lin, M., Millward, A. (1998). Effective communication between schools, LEAs and health and social services in the field of special educational needs. Research Report RR60, London: DfEE. Dyson, A., & Robson, E. (1999). School inclusion: The evidence. Newcastle: Department of Education, University of Newcastle. Glendinning, C., Powell, M., & Rummery, K. (Eds.). (2002). Partnerships, new labour and the governance of welfare. Bristol: Policy Press. Halsey, H. (1972). Educational priority areas, volume 1. London: HMSO. Hatcher, R., & Leblond, D. (2001). Education action zones and zones d’education prioritaires. In Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined up or fractured policy? London: Routledge. Huxham, C. (Ed.). (1996). Creating collaborative advantage. London: Sage. Kendrick, A. (1995). Supporting families through inter-agency work: Youth strategies. In M. Hill, R. Kirk, & D. Part (Eds.), Supporting families. Edinburgh: HMSO. Lloyd, G., Stead, J., & Kendrick, A. (2003). Joined-up approaches to prevent social exclusion. Emotional and behavioural difficulties, 8(1), 77–91.
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Lupton, R. (2004). Schools in disadvantaged areas: Recognising context and raising quality. London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion. Mayo, M. (1997). Partnerships for regeneration and community development. Critical Social Policy, 52, 3–26. McCulloch, K., Tett, L., & Crowther, J. (2004). New community schools in Scotland: Issues for interprofessional collaboration. Scottish Educational Review, 36(2), 129–144. Merz, C., & Furman, G. (1997). Community and schools: Promise and paradox. New York: Teachers College Press. Milewa, T., Dowswell, G., & Harrison, S. (2002). Partnerships, power and the “New” politics of participation in British health care. Social Policy and Administration, 36(7), 796–809. Mordaunt, E. (2001). The nature of special educational needs partnerships. In S. Riddell, & L. Tett (Eds.), Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined up or fractured policy? (pp. 124–142). London: Routledge. Munn, P., & Lloyd, G. (2005). Exclusion and excluded pupils. British Educational Research Journal, 31(2), 205–221. Newman, J. (2001). Modernising governance: New labour, policy and society. London: Sage. Power, S. (2001). Joined up thinking? Inter-agency partnerships in educational action zones. In Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined up or fractured policy? (pp. 14–28). London: Routledge. Purdue, D., Razzaque, K., Hambleton, R., Stewart, M. with Huxham, C., & Vangen, S. (2000). Community leadership in area regeneration. Bristol: The Policy Press. Riddell, S., & Tett, L. (2001). Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined up or fractured policy? London: Routledge. Russell, H. (2001). Local strategic partnerships: Lessons from new commitment to regeneration. Bristol: Policy Press/Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Scottish Executive. (2000a). Social justice annual report. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. Scottish Executive. (2000b). Making it happen. Report of the strategy action team. Available: http://www. scotland.gov.uk/inclusion/docs/maih-03.htm Scottish Executive. (2001). For Scotland’s children report. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. Scottish Office. (1998). New community schools prospectus. Edinburgh: HMSO. Scottish Office. (1999a). Social inclusion strategy for Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Office. Scottish Office. (1999b). Social inclusion summary. Edinburgh: Scottish Office. Scottish Office. (1999c). New community schools, Newsletter No. 1. Edinburgh: Scottish Office. Semmens, R. (2001). Full-service schooling: From “At Risk” students to full-status citizens in Australia. In S. Riddell, & L. Tett (Eds.), Education, social justice and inter-agency working: Joined-up or fractured policy? London: Routledge (p. 70–86). Sergiovanni, T. J. (1994). Building community in schools. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Smith, M., & Tett, L. (2003). New community schools and pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Scottish Educational Review, 34(2), 151–162. Stead, J., Lloyd, G., & Kendrick, A. (2004). Participation or practice innovation: Tensions in inter-agency working to address disciplinary exclusion from school. Children and Society, 18, 42–52. Taylor, M. (2003). Public policy in the community. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tett, L. (2003). Working in partnership. Leicester: NIACE. Tett, L., Caddell, D., Crowther, J., & O’Hara, P. (2001). Parents and schools: Partnerships in early primary education. Scottish Educational Review, 33(1), 48–58. Tett, L., Crowther, J., & O’Hara, P. (2003). Collaborative partnerships in community education. Journal of Education Policy, 18(1), 37–51. Tett, L., & McCulloch, K. (2005). Inter-agency partnerships and school-family-community links to prevent social exclusion. Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen Press. Tett, L., Munn, P., Blair, A., Kay, H., Martin, I., Martin, J., et al. (2001). Collaboration between schools and community education agencies in tackling social exclusion. Research Papers in Education, 16(1), 1–19. Tisdall, K., & Wallace, J. (2004). Integrated services – what do they mean for children and their parents. School of Education, University of Aberdeen Research Paper 10, Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen, (pp. 29–50). Vincent, C. (2000). Including parents? education, citizenship and parental agency. Buckingham: Open University Press.
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59 FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR URBAN EDUCATION IN THE UK Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
Introduction Previous chapters of this handbook have described a range of developments in contemporary urban education policy and practice in the UK. Many of these developments advance our understanding of what are likely to be the key drivers for reform of urban education in the future. This final chapter, arising from these insights, will examine what we see as the main trends that are bringing about significant change in urban schools in the UK. Many of these changes do, we believe, have the potential to create more effective ladders of opportunity for students in urban areas and, hopefully, many of these will be irreversible. The chapter also highlights some key policy areas which will require significant further development if the needs of students in urban areas are going to be addressed fully and real social justice achieved. These include extended schools, race equality, issues of access and equity in the context of the rhetoric of choice and “parental empowerment.” Many of the contributors to this handbook have described how developments in urban education in the UK are currently characterized by a set of contradictions. On the one hand the trend toward diversity and choice in education, with its attendant promotion of quasi markets and acceptance of the inequalities they produce, continues to grow and develop often with negative consequences for deprived urban areas. After 1997 New Labour continued the commitment to marketisation and the assertion of consumer rights in education (Whitty, 2002, p. 127) which had characterized education policy in the two previous decades but, at the same time, there has been a remarkable growth in funding and in social policy interventions designed to create a more equal society in the UK. These interventions have been based upon hugely ambitious governmental goals to halve child poverty by 2010, achieve full employment and to close the gap between the poorest areas in England and the rest. One of the biggest achievements of the New Labour governments since 1997 has been its ability to gain acceptance for the active role of government in creating a “social justice” agenda 1157 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1157–1172. © 2007 Springer.
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alongside an economic strategy designed to benefit all its citizens. New Labour has shown a deep commitment to the improvement in public services for wider social benefit across all areas, most notably in education and health, and it is in this context also that future of directions for urban education in the UK should be viewed. It is our view that recent governmental reforms, many of them not specifically in education, but centered more broadly on New Labour’s approach to social justice, social inclusion and poverty, have created a new paradigm for urban education in the UK the last eight or so years. There are, as a result, many new opportunities both for developing our understandings of urban education theory and practice and for creating the new social commitment to urban education that is called for in Gerald Grace’s chapter in this Handbook. The development of a new discourse about urban education is very much on the agenda in the UK and this in itself is a very hopeful trend. This is in marked contrast to the situation when New Labour came to power in 1997 when it had virtually disappeared from the public agenda as an issue, despite the fact that the connection of economic and social disadvantage and ethnic diversity in urban areas to differing educational outcomes had, over many years, been thoroughly documented as a persistent feature of the UK education system (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, pp. 21–23). At first urban education did not merit particular attention in New Labour’s ambitious program of education reform, and before they were elected in 1997 future new Labour education ministers had not developed, even in outline, any policies or strategies for urban education. Indeed at that stage some of their leading players denied there was a need for particular actions focused on socially disadvantaged areas beyond their intention to focus with a passionate and fierce determination to raise standards of school education provision across the whole of England. Tony Blair’s 17 detailed promises which backed his famous “Education, Education, Education” declaration of policy priority intent contained none relating to urban education. Perhaps because, traditionally, concepts of “the urban” have been located in concepts of social pathology and, in particular, of crisis (Grace, 1984, pp. 48–54) this did not prove an attractive organizing concept for New Labour. Traditional political and sociological analyses which focused on urban education as a “problem” and explained underachievement in urban schools as arising from political, economic and cultural disadvantage were eschewed. New Labour did not make explicit its support for a more equal education system. Favored progressive strategies such as equality of opportunity, progressive pedagogy, community education, reform of the admissions system to create more genuinely comprehensive schools were notable by their absence from New Labour education rhetoric at the outset. However as the New Labour project developed there were significant developments which did take on board the issues that had been highlighted by Office for Standards in Education in its ground breaking, though largely ignored, 1993 report “Access and Achievement in Urban Education.” This report described how the range and complexity of problems in urban areas, such as poor housing, poor social infrastructure and high levels of pupil mobility, created a cycle of underachievement that meant that education reforms could not make an appreciable difference to many inner city schools due to the concentration of disadvantage found in such areas.
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Most schools in such areas do not have within themselves the capacity for sustained renewal … Beyond the school gates are underlying social issues such as poverty, poor housing, inadequate health care and the frequent break up of families. Education by itself can only do so much to enable individuals to reach beyond the limiting contours of their personal and social circumstances and succeed. (Ofsted, 1993) Within months of coming to office thinking that focused in this way on notions of place, and on the impacts of concentrations of disadvantage on a whole range of opportunities in people’s lives had become a central organizing concept of government policy. While the language may have been more managerial rather than ideological there can be no doubt about the seriousness of commitment and the quality of the thinking that informed that commitment. This was manifested most clearly in the establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit and the subsequent creation of the high profile National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal (Social Exclusion Unit, 2001) with its ambitious targets to ensure that no-one was seriously disadvantaged by where they lived. These targets contained both floor targets (absolute improvements to a minimum level) and, perhaps more importantly, convergence targets (closing the gap between poorest areas and the rest). As well as the targets (in particular the convergence targets) there were a number of new and distinctive features to the strategy – an emphasis on community involvement and leadership, and a holistic long-term approach driven by changes in mainstream services. In addition the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal was clearly redistributive in its intent to “bend” mainstream activity (such as school improvement strategies) so that they benefited the most deprived areas over the rest. These developments, based on the recognition of the neighborhood as a key site both of social disadvantage and of policy change, have served to reinstate urban education as an important area for public policy. The notion of complex geographic disparities in education outcomes was put firmly on the agenda as an organizing principle. There was an increasing recognition that schools located in urban areas faced a “heightened challenge” and that the combination of issues such as ethnic diversity, poor housing, crime, poverty, other social disadvantage, pupil mobility, and teaching staff shortages in urban schools required focused policies and practice if an achievement and attainment culture with commensurate improvements in outcomes was to be established in every school, wherever located. This resulted in significant specific area based urban education initiatives – Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities and London Challenge – all of which are described in more detail elsewhere in this Handbook. These initiatives have gone beyond school based initiatives and represent an increasingly focused and well resourced attempt to wrestle, especially in secondary education, with many of the long standing and intractable issues associated with urban education. Contained within this range of initiatives is the potential for a concerted effort to tackle the “neighbourhood effects” on education outcomes and to bring the wider resources of society, both private and public, to bear on tackling the problems of deprivation in poorer communities in general, and disadvantaged schools in particular.
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There is now in the UK the basis for an overall education strategy focused on cities and the chance to develop a new commitment to urban education the twenty-first century. While these developments may not contain all of the features of a great “sociocultural project” called for in Gerald Grace’s review of the current state of urban education theory, it should be recognized and welcomed that New Labour has developed a broad and ambitious program of social reform designed to tackle poverty and its attendant social ills and it is in that program that a new context for urban education should be understood. Space has been created for a new theoretical and policy discourse based upon our growing knowledge of what is working and why in current approaches, and how certain policies need to be taken forward. The task will be to ensure this discourse is sustained and developed so that it can provide a significant basis for developing a new paradigm for urban education in the future.
Success for the Many Not the Few Perhaps the most significant contextual change for urban schooling lies in the universalism of the commitment to successful outcomes for all pupils. It used to be the case that at the age of 11 it was accepted practice to select the 20–25% of pupils who passed the 11-plus exam to attend grammar schools and the 75–80% who failed it to attend other schools. Then the job of schooling for the majority of pupils was to give them sufficient education “to give them that sense of awe for higher education which the teachers of the nation demand.” And a civil servant in the 1970s was still declaring that “We have to select. Otherwise we are creating aspirations which society cannot match.” Urban schooling was predicated on the assumption that there would be hundreds of thousands of jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled. Therefore the education of the many didn’t matter. At first the reliability of selection processes at 11 were questioned. Then views of intelligence changed too. A belief that intelligence was generally inherited and predictable gave way to a more general acceptance that it was multi faceted heavily influenced by the individual’s environment and was capable of being developed. In this context the importance of the election of the New Labour government in 1997 cannot be overemphasized. It was not merely the clarion call of education, education and education, it was also the promise of “success for the many not the few.” As other contributors to the Handbook testify in an age of information technology and creativity education with high quality outcomes for all is seen as an economic and social necessity. This now means that for the future the inequities based upon economic and social disadvantage, including those associated with place are likely to receive a continued focus. As important as the attitude of politicians are the signs that the belief in everybody’s capacity to learn is increasingly taking root in the culture of many urban schools (Hart, Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004, pp. 14–15) and it is likely that this changing culture will be a key driver for change in urban education in the future. Young people in urban areas are all very different from each other and come from many kinds of families and backgrounds. They operate highly complex, fast moving environments
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and they have a lot to contend with – socially, morally and personally. They are often highly mobile and have access to quite sophisticated experiences from an early age, often through technology. They often underachieve, not only in conventional academic terms but also in their ability to negotiate a complex set of circumstances, to effectively communicate with others and to influence and command respect. The idea that differences in attainment amongst these young people reflect fixed or stable differences in ability has been thoroughly challenged. Our increasing knowledge about learning, about how the influence of environmental and cultural factors in their broadest sense influences a young person’s self identity and their ability or willingness to learn is reflected in a growing number (which could become a critical mass) of outstanding teachers who believe all children can succeed. Those urban schools which increasingly focus on approaches to learning which enhance young people’s identities as learners, take account of building confidence and self esteem, attend to the “student voice” and increase young people’s capacity to function in a learning community are the real pointers to the future. The engagement of previously disadvantaged learners and their parents in urban schools has the potential to be greatly enhanced through the drive for increased personalization and through the use of information and communication technologies. It is clear that learners’, even young learners’, expectations of schools are changing as the experience of “digital childhoods” becomes more widespread. Young people are increasingly using (largely outside of school) a wide range of technology – internet, television, computer games, mobile phones and MP3s – in more and more individualized ways (Buckingham, 2005). Much of this technology is interactive. Young people are used to using this technology to organize feedback for themselves and to exercise choice and control. This is also true of their parents as they experience the personalization of commercial services through the use of ICT. The personalization of information structures through ICT has the potential to increasingly empower students so that both they and their teachers can access their personal data and use it to plan and adapt personalized learning experiences. For parents the ability to access all the management, achievement, learning and teaching information they need remotely is also an important for development of the engagement of disadvantaged groups in education in the future. For this to really happen it has to be recognized that for schools in disadvantaged urban areas there is the continuing issue of the “digital divide.” There is considerable evidence of inequalities in access by individuals, and of variations in the levels of ICT usage by schools (Becta, 2005). But the wider social issues go well beyond the issue of access to technology. As David Buckingham has described it is a commercially driven media culture which is increasingly dominating young people’s lives out of school, one which they do not control, or often even fully understand, and which needs to be critically evaluated and challenged (Buckingham, 2005). The issue of choice and control for many young people is illusory – in school, as Richard Riddell describes in his contribution to this handbook, they are expected to function as passive consumers of a decontextualized nationally determined pedagogic program, while outside school, although they may be positioned by a consumer culture as active and autonomous, the
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reality is also often very different. The challenge for urban education in the future will be to contextualize and personalize the current universal content and pedagogic structure of much of school learning, and to enable our young people to develop better “knowledge for understanding” in a society where information and knowledge production are increasingly driven by commercial imperatives. The use of information and communications technologies which increase the ability of schools to respond in an increasingly sophisticated fashion to the full range of learning needs of every young person is a more unambiguously welcome development. The London Challenge “Families of Schools” initiative illustrates the possibilities (DFES, 2005a). In 2003 all of London’s 416 urban secondary schools were grouped into families on the basis of each school’s current free school meal data and three years of prior attainment data (attainment on entry into secondary school). Schools were also grouped into ethnicity families and into families with high levels of pupils in poverty as measured by the percentage of free school meals. The school test and exam results are then divided into four comparative quadrants: low rates of improvement with low points; high rates of improvement with low points; high rates of improvement and high points; and low rates of improvement with high points. As a result of the sharing of this information through conferences and school improvement advisers increasingly schools have become active in using this information to see which schools in apparently similar circumstances are performing better either as a school as a whole or individual departments. A system of school visits to share successful practices has been developed. When this data is linked to other data it has become possible to see in even finer detail who is succeeding with different groups of pupils (e.g., low, medium or high ability boys or girls) and to focus in fine detail on the performance of particular school departments and subject areas. At school level fine pupil and group level analysis can enable schools to measure gaps and stimulate intervention and to work on the educational progress and social integration of particular groups of pupils and enable the individual mentoring of children and young people. The next breakthrough in urban education should center on the full range of experiences that young people need to have access to, based upon a richer definition of what counts as an educated person for the twenty-first century, and encompassing not only knowledge and understanding but also qualities, attributes, social competencies and the development of interests. One way of doing this is to make use of the identity of cities themselves, the “commonwealth” that cities can provide to enable young people to access experiences and understandings which will be part of an entire planned learning experience that goes beyond the current classroom based curriculum. The specific urban education initiative in London, the London Challenge, has had a very welcome focus on the wider set of experiences that should be available to all young people in the city through the London Student Pledge (DFES, 2003). This development seeks to harness the exceptional riches of London – its art galleries, museums, theatres, sports facilities, businesses and higher education to the goal of cracking the cycle of disadvantage. So it has set out “experiences” including participation in a public performance, visits to galleries and museums, engagement in voluntary activity – which wealthier parents regard as essential for their own children. The Student Pledge has brokered connections between the public “commonwealth” facilities and the schools and has sought to persuade
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schools to adopt the Pledge for all their pupils. For the future in urban areas what is needed is that the schools should increasingly become brokers of time, space and people of the range of experiences that a young person needs in order to develop as a learner and an individual.
Integrated Services, Extended Schools and Lifelong Learning A recurring theme for urban education has been the need to look at issues “beyond the school gate” (Ofsted, 1993). This is based on the long standing understanding that raising attainment within deprived areas comes not only from within schools themselves, but also through the community involvement and learning. This agenda of course draws on a powerful tradition. The Cambridgeshire “village college” movement of the 1930s with its vision of schools at the heart of healthy communities was carried forward in many urban areas. Gary McCulloch in the first chapter in this section of the Handbook has described how, in London particularly from the 1960s onwards, increasing importance was placed upon the social, cultural and economic context of schooling and how in the 1970s the Inner London Education Authority’s concept of an “Education Service for the Whole Community” was based on educational improvement through an integrated approach to the needs of families and communities in London. In this era urban schools in many areas were often seen to be part of a wider framework of values, expectations and relationships centered on meeting the needs of diverse and rapidly changing communities. There are a number of the different ways in which these issues have reappeared on the agenda in the UK in the last ten years or so. Perhaps the most significant of these is a renewed and sustained interest in comprehensive, universal and targeted provision for preschool aged children and their parents. Initiatives such as “Sure Start” and “Children’s Centres,” building on the evidence of Headstart’s impact in the United States, have been given the highest policy priority in the drive to tackle child poverty and promote equal life chances. All of the UK devolved administrations have committed considerable resources to services that it is believed will break the link between the economic and social status of the child at birth and the outcomes for that child in later life and, as Lyn Tett has described in a previous chapter, development of early years services in Scotland is strongly allied to encouraging parental and community engagement in deprived communities as a means of enhancing social capital in such communities. In England too the massive expansion in early childhood education, has happened alongside a major structural reform process centered on the integration of services for children and young people (Cohen, Moss, Petrie, & Wallace, 2004). Services for early years are designed to be holistic, focusing a range of support and outreach services, including health and education interventions, for adults as well as young people. There is every sign that the strong policy consensus now current in the UK on the effectiveness of such support in breaking the link between social class, parental income and later education outcomes will continue, and, in the longer term, this is likely to have a profound impact on the future of urban education. Probably the next phase of development
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will see education and health professionals working even more closely together with the aim of providing successful preventative support to the most challenged families during their children’s infancy. Moreover in city areas with high concentrations of socioeconomic disadvantage there will be a deliberate attempt to expand simultaneously “second chance” further education opportunities for adults especially women and, in a limited way, the availability of paraprofessional jobs in education, health and social care. In all these three fields the chronic and acute shortages of highly qualified professionals prepared to work in large urban areas makes such a strategy politically desirable. It also has the virtue of providing additional opportunities at the bottom of the educational and employment ladder. A more overt connection of these needs can be expected in the next wave of urban reform. Allied to the early years agenda is the even more ambitious national program of whole system reform outlined in “Every Child Matters” (DFES, 2004) which is designed to promote integration between agencies and other bodies to improve children’s well being up to the age of 19. The education component of this program has at its heart the recognition of the important relationship between education achievement and a child’s well being. Children and young people learn when they are healthy, secure and in a good environment. There is now a national vision for England that all schools should provide a range of services and activities, often beyond the school day. These services will typically include childcare, adult education, parenting support, health and social care services, multi agency support teams and after school care and activities for young people (DFES, 2005b). There is a commitment to setting up effective systems of extended services in schools that will increase parental participation (recognized as the single most important determinant of education outcomes) and raise levels of achievement. There is recognition that school buildings and facilities are important community resources and that these kinds of schools have an important role to play in neighborhood renewal as a whole. This is potentially a very radical agenda. However it is not yet clear that this initiative does in fact embrace a radical vision, building on the kind of strategies initiated in the 1960s and 1970s and based on a concept of urban schools as a place where life chances are really transformed through schools playing an inclusive and democratizing role in their communities. The guidance for England on establishing extended schools has a strong emphasis on clusters of services and activities operating from a school site, and there is also a strong emphasis on preventative inter agency working for children at risk (DFES, 2005b) It is of course important that effective support is triggered for young people when there are problems, and having a range of services together on a school site may well help with this. But it remains to seen if this initiative will maintain a high political profile and be sustainable and affordable in the longer term in the context of stronger imperatives that many schools face in relation to related to finance and test performance. Extended schools could be important sites for the generation of social capital and a lifelong learning culture. Social capital is essentially about social change based upon real community engagement, and the development of shared values and trust between different groups of people. Lyn Tett’s framework for understanding multi agency working is particularly useful here. Extended school developments as currently conceived are in
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danger of locating themselves in the “high institutional boundaries” side of the quadrant, particularly as they continue to be located in the “high stakes test” culture. Nor, currently, is the extended school idea particularly underpinned by a belief in the importance of lifelong learning which understands that a prime purpose of schooling is the preservation of the motivation to learn and the continued development and enhancement of the capacity to learn. The government’s strategy for tackling social exclusion originally did incorporate this approach and the concept of lifelong learning was seen as highly important to providing a coherent long term strategy to solve the nexus of low education achievement, poverty and lack of cohesion in communities. It was seen as crucial to student motivation and skills, employability, to parenting and citizenship in poor areas. The 1998 Green Paper “The Learning Age: A renaissance for a new Britain” (DFEE, 1998) recognized that the more individuals and organizations were able to learn and had access to learning the more they could respond effectively to the demands and opportunities of our changing economy and society and that lifelong learning was fundamentally important to families, neighborhoods and communities and to equality of opportunity. However a lifelong learning strategy now appears to be off the national education policy agenda. “The Learning Age” is a distant memory. The dominant strategy shaping the schools agenda continues to be high stakes examination and testing and the strategy shaping post compulsory education is skills acquisition. Important though both of these may be, to achieve a really radical long term transformative approach to education that would serve better deprived schools and areas there needs to be a much more coherent view of schools’ relationship with their communities linked to the discourse on lifelong learning. The Scottish experience suggests that schools currently have a limited capacity to achieve a richer vision of community learning. Currently, despite the talk of radical transformation there is a real danger that the focus in the UK will continue to be on the implementation of “top down” national strategies at institutional level, be they child protection or reaching achievement targets. The future for urban education will require much more policy visibility to be given to the specifics of how we can create the capacity for developing and extending lifelong learning cultures within schools using strong partnerships with parents, businesses and the wider society, and how this is linked to the creation of social capital and social cohesion in rapidly changing, highly diverse urban communities.
Racial Inequality Issues of ethnic diversity and the inequalities in education outcomes for particular ethnic groups are of fundamental importance when considering new directions for urban education. This is because the single most significant factor distinguishing urban schools from other schools facing the challenges of disadvantage is their diversity. Population shift is a defining characteristic of cities which have always grown and sustained themselves by a constant flow of new people. The vast majority of immigrants to the UK take up residence in urban areas, and these areas are well documented as the site of racial as well as income inequality (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, pp. 60–62). Racial diversity is
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becoming more significant, not less, in UK cities. In the last ten years there has been a significant rise in the net annual inflows of non British citizens with net inflows in 2003 being four times those in 1993 (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 161–163). This immigration has been increasingly diverse with many nationalities from war torn parts of the world entering the UK alongside the more traditional immigrant groups from the “old” and “new” commonwealth. High levels of pupil mobility resulting from complex migratory flows are likely to continue are a distinguishing feature of urban schools and, overall, minority ethnic students will be significant proportion, in some areas a majority, of the urban school students of the future (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, p. 37). Unequal education outcomes for many minority ethnic pupils have been a feature of UK urban schools since the first wave of large scale immigration from the former British colonies in the 1960s. David Gilborn (2007) has demonstrated the longer term complex patterns of attainment across different ethnic minority groups. He has shown that while these patterns are not fixed and some groups are making significant strides in attainment, overall the black/white gap has not closed and ethnic inequalities show no sign of abating. He has convincingly argued that some recent education reforms are sustaining and extending inequity in education outcomes for some minority ethnic UK students. These include the league tables, high stakes testing setting and current choice based approaches to schooling. In addition we are seeing the growing social segregation and isolation of particular ethnic groups in some northern urban areas (Cantle, 2002) heightened by security issues since 9/11 and the London bombings in July 2005. There is evidence that education institutions have been among the worst offenders in failing to implement the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 which requires public institutions, including schools, to promote equality of opportunity. Evaluations by the Commission for Racial Equality published in 2003 and by the Audit Commission published in 2004 highlighted the slow progress that was being made. The CRE found that over half of respondents from education to a survey on progress had not identified staffing and service delivery outcomes in their policies. The Audit Commission study found that approaches were very procedural rather than engaging with real needs and outcomes and that in many cases limited resources and energy were being devoted to the issue. This is particularly worrying in that the Race Relations (Amendment) 2000 represents a significant step forward in providing a framework in the UK for promoting race equality and is an important tool for tackling both direct and indirect discrimination. Through the Act educational institutions are required to publish a race equality policy and to monitor and assess the impact of their policies. The race equality duty has a strong emphasis on making public services accountable to all parts of the local community. Despite over 30 years of research that has consistently identified the key contributory issues to the educational underachievement of particular ethnic groups insufficient action has been taken and the impact of racial inequality on the outcomes of schooling has not had, and continues not to have, a sufficiently high profile in urban education developments in the UK. In London a recent investigation by the London Development Agency has highlighted the biggest casualty of the education system is African-Caribbean boys
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and has called for a national wide ranging strategy to reverse this “catastrophic trend” (LDA, 2004). In the context of the life chances of a significant group of young people in urban areas, and in the context of social justice and social cohesion, this is not overly strong language. The current UK rhetoric of greater personalization and choice is not offering enough to ethnic minority pupils in urban schools. The 2005 White Paper “Higher Standards, Better Schools for All” is proposing that every school will receive advice and support to meet the aspirations of black and ethnic minority parents and pupils. That advice needs to recognize that if personalization in learning is to mean anything it must mean constant attention to developing understanding and knowledge of the impact of particular structures, processes and teacher and pupil behaviors on different groups of children. It cannot be racially unaware or color blind. In the LDA research into the academic achievements and schooling of Black pupils in London, particularly male pupils from African-Caribbean backgrounds, the fundamental importance of teachers – pupil teacher relationships, teacher expectations and teacher attitudes – was particularly highlighted as was better respect for, and better communication with, parents and the pupils themselves (LDA, 2004). This evidence, alongside the evidence that the disparity in achievement levels between different ethnic groups increases during the course of compulsory schooling, suggests that the next phase of urban school reform should include greater challenge both to teacher behavior and to the institutional processes of schools in relation to ethnic minority pupils. If the commitment to league tables and high stakes testing is to continue it needs in the future to be accompanied by a stronger ideological stance on this issue, which clearly identifies the extent of the problem. The focus for the future should be on much more extensive capacity building across the system, above all to increase the number of, and support for, black and ethnic minority teachers, leaders and mentors and stakeholders exercising real power and influence.
Choice The dominant public policy debate on urban education in England continues to center around the issue of choice. The current English government continues its commitment to reforms that put the individual’s needs and aspirations at the heart of service delivery and this is a trend that is unlikely to be abandoned by any political party in the future. The main driver for this desired cultural change in public service delivery is perceived to be consumer choice, and in education the choice strategy is part and parcel of the drive to ensure the next wave of education reform is driven by the “front line” – in education’s case the schools. The rhetoric around expanding choice for parents and pupils reached new heights with the publication of a White Paper “Higher Standards, Better Schools for All” in October 2005. Parental choice is cited in the White Paper as one of the main reasons for the undoubted rise in education attainment that has taken place in the UK in the last ten years. It is argued that the use that parents have made of performance tables
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and inspection reports to seek out higher performing schools has put pressure on weaker schools to improve. In addition it is argued that greater diversity of schools through the development of specialist schools and new kinds of schools like Academies, coupled with additional freedoms for schools has introduced greater innovation and energy into the system, which has also served to drive up standards. The 2005 White Paper argued that these are key developments that need to be intensified and put at the heart of the education reform program in order to improve the system further. A range of measures are now in place to make sure all parents are given a real choice of school for their child and to encourage more active parental engagement in schooling. These issues are really important for urban schools, where class stratification is at its most obvious across the school system. Parental choice in school admissions has developed in England since the 1980s and, particularly in urban areas with good transport systems and different types of schools, this has led to well documented social divisions and inequality in school choice. As a result many schools in urban areas are highly socially segregated and it is perceived that access to a “good” school is denied to many parents. There is strong evidence of how disadvantaged groups are unable to engage with the market and exercise choice due to inequalities in knowledge and ability to exercise influence (Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1995) In addition inequalities in choice are strongly reinforced through the operation of the housing market (Leech & Campos, 2000). This stratification, as well as operating against principles of social justice, also has an impact on the performance of a school, and more importantly, on the performance of the individual child. The average social and economic intake of a school is a strong determinant of its academic performance and there is also evidence that disadvantaged children perform better in schools with a more evenly socially mixed intake. This would seem to suggest that further emphasis on parental choice could lead to greater social stratification in urban schools with negative consequences for the “ladders of opportunity” that appear to have been created through many of the initiatives described elsewhere in this handbook. There is an urgent need therefore for this discourse on choice to be taken further. The 2005 White Paper argued strongly that greater choice does not need to lead to greater inequity in education. It is true that most parents continue to choose the local school and that “neighbourhood schools” can lead to a reinforcement of residential segregation and differentiation (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 292–295). In these circumstances enabling parents to go further afield for their choice of school through the provision of financial support for transport costs, as is currently proposed, may produce greater equity in access to schooling. The creation of new and refurbished schools in urban areas, through the Academies program and the Building Schools for the Future program is also to be welcomed, not least for the impact that such improvements in young people’s self esteem and commitment to learning appear to have. But current proposals to encourage greater parental capacity to exercise choice and engage with schooling are woefully inadequate and display a very poor understanding of the realities of many parents bringing up children in disadvantaged urban areas today.
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A much richer concept of parental choice focusing on citizen’s rights and collective engagement needs to be supported in urban areas, building many of the initiatives reviewed in this Handbook, if the current focus on choice is to have much to offer urban education for the future. It is not clear that current measures to enable choice will have the desired effect on school composition, and there is a danger that such a emphasis in urban education is a diversion from concentrating on developing the approaches described in this handbook which focus on neighborhood and community development and on what young people need in the schools and in the education system we actually have.
A Stronger Commitment to Social Justice The improving rate of achievement by schools with high numbers of disadvantaged pupils has been feature of the new century in the UK and has been well documented and much heralded. This is an achievement that should not be underestimated. It is clear that many of the reforms of recent years have been successful in increasing opportunity for many pupils in deprived urban areas. However, to date, as shown by the contributions by Barbara MacGilchrist and David Gilborn in this Handbook, while there has been a narrowing of performance between more advantaged and less advantaged schools there remains a huge gap in performance between richer and poorer children and between different racial groups. This inequity is due to the fact that, while attainment levels for poor students have risen remarkably, pupils with higher socio economic status have improved at a faster rate. In addition poor children attending schools with high levels of other deprived children (which are more likely to happen in deprived areas) also tend to have lower attainment levels (Hills & Stewart, 2005, pp. 48–50). The UK continues to be characterized by high levels of inequity in education outcomes for different socio economic groups in comparison with many other countries and there are no signs that that inequity is abating (Dobert, Klieme, & Stroka, 2004). These continuing inequalities that are a feature of many urban schools become particularly glaring at the end of compulsory schooling. Differences in outcomes for the post-16 age group have long been seen as a major contributing to the class, gender and race divisions that continue to characterize our society. The willingness to tackle this issue is of the most important indicators of how serious successive governments have been in their commitment to tackle inequality and social injustice in the education system. Currently the imperative of closing the achievement gap in the later years of secondary remains a huge unresolved issue. The gap between high and low attainers many of whom comprise the “NEET” (not in education, employment or training) group is a continuing cause for concern. A comprehensive and radical strategy designed to tackle this problem through the longer term reform of learning for 14–19 year olds in England was produced in 2005 by the Tomlinson Committee but was not adopted by the government. Despite widespread consensus on the Tomlinson recommendations for a fundamental overhaul of the qualifications system, with the absorption of GCSES and “A” levels into a new unified diploma system a somewhat more conservative strategy is being pursued
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which may not succeed in seriously challenging the high levels of inequity in the post 16 system. About half of all young people at age 16 have only modest or poor GCSE results. To date reforms have failed to provide a credible alternative to the many young people who wish to access a different curriculum offer and achieve different but equal qualifications at 16 and thus improve their life chances. A selection process takes place at 16 with the majority of these young people attending further education colleges that are less well resourced than school sixth forms or sixth form colleges. Often they find themselves on poorly designed or inappropriate courses and completion rates are often poor. As a result participation rates posts 16, while they have improved, are well below the OECD average, and poor in comparison with most of the rest of Europe (Hayward et al., 2005). It is unlikely that the collaborative arrangements that are now being encouraged between schools and colleges will of themselves counteract the elitism and competition that continues to characterize the post 16 sector and which has long been a cause of educational underachievement for significant groups of young people. The current system has failed – despite a great deal of top down curriculum reform, some financial support for participation through the Education Maintenance Allowance and a huge focus on meeting national targets for “level two” qualifications. This remains therefore a key issue for the future direction of urban education in the UK, and especially in England where progress has been particularly weak. There is a strong neighborhood component to this issue also. People with no education qualifications now face massive income inequality as all the employment growth is in high skilled jobs for those with a high level of qualification or low wage jobs that require no qualifications. Place differences in employment are non existent for graduates but extremely marked for those with no education qualifications. This is exacerbated by the lack of mobility of the low waged due to the constraints of the housing market, leading to issues of concentrated neighborhood deprivation. The connection between education, employment and social mobility are becoming even more marked as the percentage of graduates grows (from 5% in 1980 to 21% in 2003) and the income differential between graduates and non graduates increases. Connecting deprived areas to the labor market is probably the single most important way social capital can be generated in such areas (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 301–308). As long as schools and colleges in disadvantaged areas are unable to provide a curriculum and qualifications system that is more motivating for young people after the age of 14 then, despite the success of many of the UK reforms described in this handbook, the future ability of the English education system to enable more economic and social opportunity for students in deprived urban areas will have to be questioned. Improving post 16 staying and the curriculum and qualifications available to the majority of young people are key to the next phase of urban education reform. Ironically this is the part of the system most in need of a transformative strategy, given the deep rooted historical nature of the problems. But the rhetoric of transformation that has been such a persistent feature of education change initiatives in recent times is lacking in this area. Instead the Nuffield Review of 14–19 education and training notes the poverty of language and real aspiration which characterizes government policy documents on the 14–19 phase (Hayward et al., 2005). At times it seems as if the realities
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of the structural relationships within the education and training system, and between the system and its wider social context are almost willfully ignored. Certainly there is little focus on the experience of, or the voice of, young people themselves or their teachers in generating solutions. Improving the quality of the education and training experience of young people through radical curriculum reform which is also responsive to local circumstances and local professional inputs is eschewed in favor of short term and piecemeal policy interventions. The failure to achieve solid progress in this area will undermine any claim to leading urban education reform to which the UK may aspire. This is an area where the “social justice gap” is significant and where a coherent strategy for bridging it for the twenty-first century is urgently required.
Conclusion The future direction for urban education in the UK presents a mixed picture. There is a strong commitment to addressing education problems in urban areas underlining many recent developments. It is essential that commitment remains foreground in the next phase of reform. Education opportunity for the many not the few, as well as a determination to close the achievement gap between the economically and socially advantaged and disadvantaged, remain strong drivers at policy level and seem to be becoming increasingly strong at practitioner level. There is increasing knowledge in the system about the approaches and investments needed to achieve greater levels of equality of access and outcome in urban education. A major challenge for the future is to develop and share that knowledge even further. There are however, in a number of areas discussed above, signs that at a policy level ambitions may have run ahead of both the means to achieve them, and – perhaps more significantly – that commitment to really take forward some of actions necessary to achieve an inclusive and more equal education system may be losing some momentum. In this context fully understanding and finding ways of building on the gains to date is an imperative for the future of urban education in the UK.
References The Audit Commission. (2004). The journey to race equality: Delivering improved services to local communities. London: Audit Commission. Ball, S., Bowe, R., & Gewirtz, S. (1995). Circuits of schooling: A sociological explanation of parental choice in social class contexts. Sociological Review, 43(1), 52–78. Becta ICT Research. (2005). The Becta review 2005: Evidence on the Progress of ICT in Education. Buckingham, D. (2005). Schooling the digital generation: Popular culture, new media and the future of education. London: Institute of Education. Cantle, T. (2002). Community cohesion: A report of the Independent review team. London: Home Office. Cohen, B., Moss, P., Petrie, P., & Wallace, J. (2004). A new deal for children? Reforming education and care in England, Scotland and Sweden. Bristol: The Policy Press. Commission for Racial Equality. (2003). Towards racial equality: An evaluation of the public duty to promote race equality and good race relations in England and Wales. London: CRE. Department for Education and Employment. (1998). The learning age. London: HMSO.
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Department for Education and Skills. (2003). The London challenge: Transforming London secondary schools. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills. (2004). Every child matters: Change for children. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills. (2005a). Families of schools. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills. (2005b). Extended schools: Access to opportunities and services for all. London: The Stationery Office. Department for Education and Skills. (2005c). Higher standards, better schools for all. London: The Stationery Office. Dobert, H., Klieme, E., & Stroka, W. (Eds.). (2004.) Conditions of school performance in seven countries: A quest for understanding the international variation of Pisa results. Germany: Waxman Verlag. Gillborn, D. (2007). Combating racism in schooling: A critical perspective on contemporary policy and practice. In W. T. Pink, & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International handbook of urban education (pp. 979–1006). Dordrecht: Springer. Gottdiener, M., & Budd, L. (2005). Key concepts in urban studies. London: Sage. Grace, G. (Ed.). (1984). Education and the city: Theory, history and contemporary practice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without limits. England: The Open University Press. Hayward, G., Hodgson, A., Johnson, J., Oancea, A., Pring, R., Spours, K., et al. (2005). The nuffield review of 14–19 education: Annual report 2005. Oxford: University of Oxford Department of Educational Studies. Hills, J., & Stewart, K. (Eds.). (2005). A more equal society? New labour, poverty, inequality and exclusion. Bristol: The Policy Press. Leech, D., & Campos, E. (2000). Is comprehensive education really free? A study of the effects of secondary school admissions policies on house prices. Coventry: Department of Economics, Warwick University. London Development Agency. (2004). The educational experiences and achievements of black boys in London schools 2000–2003. London: Greater London Authority. Ofsted. (1993). Access and achievement in urban education. London: HMSO. Pearce, N., & Paxton, W. (Eds.). (2005). Social justice: Building a fairer Britain. London: IPPR, Politico’s. Social Exclusion Unit. (2001). A new commitment to neighbourhood renewal: National strategy and action plan. London: Cabinet Office. Whitty, G. (2002). Making sense of education policy. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
60 CODA: AN URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA
George W. Noblit* and William T. Pink† *University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.; † Marquette University, U.S.A.
As everyone knows who has tried to write anything, the two most difficult things are getting started and the ending. Predictably we struggled for a while to figure out how to get started in order for this Handbook to take shape. We struggled much longer, however, to figure out how to end the Handbook. Initially, we discussed writing a closing chapter that would focus on three or four major themes that we saw as cross-cutting the different sections. This discussion quickly moved to the idea of writing a closing chapter that would be a collaborative effort of the section editors, with each highlighting the two or three major themes surfacing from their section. We quickly abandoned this idea when we realized that this typical strategy of reducing multiple site data to common themes of similarity was not only conceptually problematic, but was also simply an ineffective way to understand the complexity and richness of urban education presented in the various chapters of this Handbook. In short, our reading of the chapters as they arrived in draft form pushed us to explore alternative ways to end the text that were sensitive both to the complexities of the factors in play and the contexts in which the work was grounded. Our next idea was to ask each section editor to use the various perspectives of the authors in their section and project ahead an ideal or utopian view of urban education: we thought that such a collection of different futures would prove useful (1) in making the point that local context is key to the way cities and the urban education that is found there develop, and most importantly (2) that these different futures would demonstrate that there is room for the development of a variety of futures, rather than only one. We also considered the idea of asking each section editor to talk about how we might move from where we are at present in their respective regions, to the ideal or utopian state. It was at this point in our deliberations that we decided to have a conversation with the section editors at the upcoming AERA meetings in San Francisco in April 2006. The conversation between the majority of the section editors who were able to attend the AERA meetings was intellectually stimulating, far ranging and highly spirited: it was 1175 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1175–1176. © 2007 Springer.
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immediately after this meeting that both of us turned to each other and noted how unfortunate it was that we couldn’t have such profound and professionally productive conversations each day. Here we floated our first two ideas, which as we had anticipated were rejected by the team. The third idea, section editors developing a utopian view, while warmly received rapidly morphed into the power of crafting a dystopian view of the future city and the education that would be available to its inhabitants. We engaged in a spirited discussion of the current connections between Orwell’s (1949) totalitarian society controlled by Big Brother as depicted in Nineteen eighty-four, Huxley’s (1950) artful play on chemically-driven “happiness” in Brave new world and the problematics encountered in many educational systems in urban areas, but we were still struggling with the writer’s dilemma about how to write this as an end piece to the text. Allan Luke, the section editor for the Asia Pacific section, came to the rescue by volunteering to write a dystopian statement, to be entitled “Urban Education Dystopia, 2050” that would gaze into the future built on trends that were most evident with respect to urbanization, corporatism, globalization and the education on offer for those living in cities. We immediately accepted Allan’s offer and subsequently developed a charge to section editors to each write a response to Allan’s view that would reflect their own specific context. What follows is Allan Luke’s dystopia statement followed, in alphabetical order, by the responses from each of the section editors in the Handbook. While we realize that each of these responses necessarily reflects the perspective or taken-for-granted assumptions of the writer, we see great value in moving beyond the past and present and into the future. Specifically, we see this future gazing exercise as an invitation to help shape this future. To be direct, we offer this Coda as an opportunity to engage you, the reader, in thinking deeply about (1) the implications of our current theorizing and practices in urban education, pushed into the future, (2) whether these projected futures are acceptable with respect to factor such as equity and academic excellence for all students rather than some students, and perhaps more importantly, (3) what actions we are prepared to take to ensure that the actual futures of urban education and the cities in which this education is found do not take on the negative characteristics suggested in the various dystopia detailed in the following pages. We must confess that we are happy with the way that we have resolved the problematic of how best to end this unique text. We are hopeful that the futures of urban education can be made bright rather than dim, inclusive rather than exclusive, equitable rather than inequitable. Again, however, this will take more than will. It will take collective action, courage and diligence. We hope that we are all up to the challenge.
References Huxley, A. (1950). Brave new world. New York: Harper. Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
61 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050
Allan Luke Queensland University of Technology, Australia
The definition and history of “urban education” are rooted in the North American and British industrial city of the past two centuries. Common curriculum, public education, and universal access have been the principled responses of democratic societies to the social and cultural conditions of urbanization. In Chicago, Dewey’s project was very closely affiliated with Progressive Era politics around the social inequities, corruption and class politics of the American city (Knight, 2005). In Boston, G. Stanley Hall’s initial descriptions of adolescence were a response to the emergent problem of urban youth. The industrial city, literally, brought new kinds of educational subjects into existence, developing theories, practices and interventions to address their perceived problems and needs. This Handbook documents new forces of economic and technological change, cultural and linguistic diversity and socio-demographic stratification that are bringing many of the industrial paradigms of urban schooling to a breaking point. In emergent economies and postcolonial conditions of Asia, the Americas and Africa, urban education continues to entail the building of systems of compulsory and universal access to schooling, the expansion of provision for youth and the amelioration of adult and family poverty, and the making of complex national and regional curriculum settlements across cultures and systems. In the post-industrial North and West, policy remains focused on the extension of neoliberal market economics to education, with forces of deregulation, performance-based management and affiliated educational foci on testing and curriculum regulation. But what if we expand the field beyond that of the twentieth century AngloAmerican city? How would the material, local effects of these and other policies and practices play out? The “place” of the city, and the nature of urban lifeworlds is in transition. There is intense international debate among urban planners and designers, social demographers and sociologists, economists, cultural theorists and citizen public intellectuals about the future of the city. The prognosis, favorable and unfavorable, depends upon complex issues of ecosustainability, population and migration flows, the 1177 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1177–1182. © 2007 Springer.
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nature and location of industrial, service and technologically-mediated work, new structures of class and racial solidarity and division, and the location and power of corporate and governmental networks (e.g., Soja, 1996). The complex and contending scenarios argue variously for decay and renewal of the city: the flight of the “creative classes” to and from the cities, mobile populations in search of both work and “green zones,” increased racial and cultural segregation in world cities, and, indeed, the flooding of coastal cities and the pollution of others to the point where they are no longer habitable (Rosemann, 2003). If indeed central educational issues pivot around the voice, identity and power among urban teachers and youth – any future scenario for urban education depends upon the kinds of places that cities become. How will knowledge, identity and practice be defined and located into this and the next century? What will be the productive economies for the making of educational knowledge and power? Might these rest in nationism and nationality (Anderson, 1992), in metropolitan or cosmopolitan allegiance (Cheah & Robbins, 1998)? In affiliation with community, culture and language, race and place (Keith & Pile, 1993)? In the context of new urban education, how will curriculum, and teaching balance the increasingly complex and conflicting interests of community and culture, linguistic majority and minority, nation and state, corporation and worker? To answer these questions, we might well turn to current qualitative work on the emergence of world youth identities (e.g., Lam, 2006), which begin to document modes of affiliation and identity, knowledge and power relations built through engagement with electronic media and digital resources (Gee, 2003), and as well through construction of virtual and trans-geographic social relations and communities. Longitudinal and crosssectional studies have begun to track the life pathways, skills and knowledge, identity and consciousness of youth as they move through the new boundaries of community, school and work (e.g., Lucas, 1999). But we might look elsewhere as well, towards utopian and dystopian visions for the city – from those of urban planners and geographers to the visions of novelists and filmmakers. My aim in these brief comments is to table one scenario for the city of 2050 to provoke response, dialogue and alternative cases. Wary of millennial declarations of the end of history, or the demise of the nation – this is not meant as an overstatement of the “end of the city.” This is a speculative, narrative link from the future to the present. At its best, science fiction creates possible worlds for which there are plausible traces, precursors, necessary conditions and indeed, nascent cultural and political economies. That is, it has an historical plausibility while pushing that plausibility to its limits. We search for characters who demonstrate what we can take as identifiably “human” and “humane” dispositions and traits confronting the new – whether technological, social relational, ethical and cultural, and, indeed, “scientific” (Milojevic, 2005). This is precisely what Brave New World did with uncanny precision, overlaying a reading of technological future with a dystopian social and political order, and inhabiting this with characters much like “us,” whomever and wherever “we” might be. In Oryx and Crake (2002), Margaret Atwood offers a dystopian vision of the ecologically degraded shoreline of Lake Ontario or thereabouts. There the last human – “Snowman” – lives alongside of a tribe of cloned, vacant but curious, genetically reprogrammed people. They are the perfect human subjects created by his classmate,
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the prodgiy nerd Crake, through genetic engineering. They are human subjects incapable of nuance, paradox, analysis and creativity. Snowman takes us on an autobiographical narrative towards the end of his life, a metaphor for the end of the social order, the decay of cultural memory, the end of the species and the biosphere. As we would expect of Atwood, the narrative is a distinctively Canadian one of elements and weather set in monochrome, but fraught with a rich, contradictory interior monologue built around powerful themes of love and sexuality. She reframes Canadian space by reversing the center/margin, metropolis/hinterland relationship that dominates Canadian history and culture (Innis, 1951), making the urban centre the new “no go” hinterland, and ecologically removing the Canadian winter through global warming. Oryx, the principal woman character is the counter-Eve, the last woman, with vestiges of affect, love and relationality in the face of a debased society where reproduction, sexuality have been reduced to genetically reprogrammed activities. After the bioholocaust, the city is a place where genetically reprogrammed animals roam freely, where gated communities are left with no inhabitants to keep in or out, where corporate surveillance cameras sit without anybody left to surveil. This is Huxley’s vision revisited yet again. Its portrayal of the demise of the species at the hands of a bio-corporate, scientific/technical order, accustomed to living in urban gated worker communities, bound to industrial secrecy, beyond the control of state or nation. This is a vision of a political order that is something beyond and the other “isms” of the twentieth century that both Huxley and Orwell were so prescient in analyzing, where the state has been supplanted by “neofeudal corporatism” (Graham & Luke, 2003). Without wanting to reduce Atwood’s rich narrative to political allegory – what it does is present readers with a powerful moral, ethical and, indeed, species imperative. Put simply, how do we belay and stop the scenario of a world rationalized wholly by science, scientists and scientism, defined and run by a techno/corporate establishment that, ultimately, destroys itself along with everything else, leaving behind only its principal artifacts and products: the new, wholly reengineered species and the shells of cities. Her Rousseauean analysis of the debasement of species being sits alongside a clear political message. The corporate stratification into a binary class system that is already underway will turn cities into “no go” zones for the scientific elite, both biologically inhospitable and dominated by urban crime amongst an anarchic urban proletariat. This is akin to Phillip K. Dick’s vision of Los Angeles in 2019 in Bladerunner. This stratification is accompanied by a binary division of knowledge, with the degrading of aesthetic and narrative knowledge at the hands of digital and bioscience corporations, and the designing through education and bioscience of species without narrative memory. There are images of pedagogy throughout Oryx and Crake: of cloned subjects stripped of memory and cultural production sitting around the last man and construing him as their maker (with Crake the graduate of Crick/Watson University and clonemaster taken as their “Ford”), of their learning and chanting of infantile rhymes and rituals as a new religion. The Snowman, a graduate in advanced communications and rhetoric from Martha Graham University, struggles to maintain his humanity by remembering and chanting lessons from basal lessons in school, retaining poetry and narrative despite his deteriorating physical and mental condition, and like an oral poet recalling the legacies and traditions of print and cinema for the clones.
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It is too easy to take Atwood’s vision as humanist nostalgia. As much as it stands as a critique of the present, it raises questions about the power of culture, narrative, poetry and art, the sustainability of relationality and love. Throughout she points to the kinds of moral, affective and, indeed, literary education that sustains species being. In this way, Oryx and Crake leads us to a reappraisal of the techno-corporate rationalization of education as cause and concomitant of the dystopia she writes about. In Atwood’s vision of the current configuration of corporate science, the state, the nation, indeed, the “race” (if ever Canadians could be construed as race) have disappeared, they are unmarked. In their place is a political economy of control and surveillance similar to that of Huxley and Orwell, of singular control of the means of production and modes of information that is “private,” “corporate” and increasingly partitioned from and between corporate and non-corporate people. It is less distant than it appears. In this urban place, what is left of the urban educational infrastructure for the working underclass would have decayed altogether. The children of the biotechnical and digital elite classes might have been educated wholly online in “schools” run by and using curriculum designed by the biomedical and media corporations that employ their parents. Their “childhood” play and education would take place within the confines of corporate compounds. As they progressed, the best and brightest would be streamed towards the bioscience university, Watson Crick University; while those of lesser talent, like Snowman, would study rhetoric and communications at Martha Graham University to service a corporate advertising and promotional infrastructure, and to maintain the surveillance and control systems. The state, civic and municipal authorities have subsided, relinquishing and merging policy powers, censorship and management of information through the complex corporate-run surveillance systems. They have also given up education to the corporations. This vision of the city only addresses part of a global scenario. We know little of what might happen in the townships of urban Harare, or the new vertical cities of Asia, or whether, indeed, the cities of the South Pacific might be altogether submerged. But we could backward map from Atwood’s dystopia to look at current policies and debates around urban education that might act as precursors. These include a general corporatization of educational systems and a retreat from state, universal schooling: ●
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the emergence of binary provision in urban schooling, with a state system for the unemployed and working poor and a selective, private-system operating on a user-pays basis; a political economy of textbook and online, print and digital curriculum dominated by corporate contents, ideologies and interests; and, a binary science/arts division of knowledge where “science” and technological expertise count as forms of human capital with the loss of history, narrative and aesthetics; which leads to, a curriculum where critical debates over ecosustainability, scientific and digital ethics, corporatism and militarism are not considered basic or essential experiences.
The emergence of industrial cities set the grounds for urban education as a field. That field marked out the twentieth century commitment to universal state education, common curriculum and a vision of equity of provision and achievement. Current policy
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conditions in many countries index the unsettling of those provisions and a retreat from that vision of the means and ends of urban education. New visions and versions of the city are at hand. The challenge is to both engage with those visions while continuing to model the material, cultural and social consequences of current policies and practices. This is but one scenario, an attempt to extend and stretch the horizons of urban education.
References Anderson, B. (1992). Imagined communities. London: Verso. Atwood, M. (2002). Oryx and Crake. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Cheah, P., & Robbins, B. (Eds.). (1998). Cosmopolitics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Graham, P., & Luke, A. (2003). Militarising the body politic: New mediations as weapons of mass instruction. Body and Society, 9(4), 149–168. Innis, H. A. (1951). The bias of communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Keith, M., & Pile, S. (Eds.). (1993). Place and the politics of identity. London: Routledge. Knight, L. K. (2005). Citizen: Jane Addams and the struggle for democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lam, E. (2006). Learning, education and globalisation. In J. Green & A. Luke (Eds.), Review of research in education (Vol. 30, pp. 213–238). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Lucas, S. (1999). Tracking inequality. New York: Teachers College Press. Milojevic, I. (2005). Futures of education. London: Routledge. Rosemann, J. (Ed.). (2003). Future city. London: Routledge. Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace. Oxford: Blackwell.
62 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM AFRICA Kevin Brennan University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.
A Current Example Allan Luke briefly mentions the Zimbabwean city of Harare and what might happen there in a dystopic future. For Luke, the urban townships of Harare are a site about which little might be known by most readers of this Handbook. As this is quite possibly true, it seems worthwhile to spend some time expanding the description of a place like present-day Harare. The existence of such places in today’s world leaves open the question of what dystopia means. More specifically, given the future orientation of most definitions of “dystopia,” this assignment becomes almost wishful in nature. The March 30, 2006 online edition of The Scotsman newspaper has a story entitled, “Zimbabwe, where cleaners earn $3 m[illion] on poverty wages.” The gist of the story is that inflation, currently estimated by business people cited in the article to be nearly 1000% per annum, has so distorted the local economy that “[n]o one uses wallets in Zimbabwe anymore. They’re too small.” In today’s Zimbabwe, a single U.S. dollar now buys approximately 200,000 Zim-dollars. Going out to dinner with friends now means filling the boot (or trunk) of your car with “bricks” of money. The domestic worker who is the focus of the article’s title is cited as making 2.9 million Zim-dollars per month, but: [t]hat’s a salary she could only dream of early last year, when maids’ wages were fixed at just over $80,000. These days her millions won’t stretch to a regular piece of meat. So she eats dried grasshoppers. Given news like this, it may not be necessary to cite the books of George Orwell (1984) or Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale or Oryx and Crake), or the movies of Ridley Scott (Blade Runner). Dystopia might be here.
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A Broader View Grant Farred (2003) describes United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s “threeepoch view” of twentieth century African independent history as being first about decolonization, and second about civil war and the “Age of Authoritarianism.” The third (and current) stage is characterized by the death of authoritarianism, with Nigeria’s unsteady shift away from military rule and the end of political apartheid offered as examples. Writing primarily about the end of apartheid, and the notion of an African renaissance espoused by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Farred notes: To be an African in a “third wave” epoch is, Mbeki implicitly recognizes, to be a “visionary pessimist.” It requires the South African president to metaphorically align himself with the “pain of violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria experience;” because it is “a pain I also bear.” Africa has got to see itself regionally, continentally, if it is to realize the ideas of this third epoch. South Africa’s Mbeki, Nigeria’s Obasanjo, Senegal’s Wade, Ghana’s Koffuor may push for these kind of relationships: time will tell. African Union continent-wide efforts such as NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development) may bear fruit, as may the numerous regional economic and security-minded cooperative efforts, such as ECOWAS, ECCAS, and COMESA. Meanwhile, however, leaders like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Museveni in Uganda, continue to rule autocratically, and the tension between such cooperation and autocracy defines the space in which dystopia is either preventable, or becomes, perhaps, inevitable. The issues listed above do not begin to define all that is happening today in Africa, where wars rage (e.g., Sudan, Congo) at casualty rates far exceeding that in Iraq, drought spreads in at least partial response to global climate change pressures, and HIV/AIDS infection rates remain at dangerously high levels in far too many countries.
Dystopia from Five or Ten Years Away I’ll turn now to the specific issue of global climate change. Africa’s current population is approximately 800 million. According to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO: It is estimated that over 60% of this population live within 10 km from the shoreline. Although population densities along the coasts of East and southern Africa are not as high as in West Africa, coastal cities in the east are also experiencing high growth rates (in some east African States, at least 80 percent of the population is considered to be located in the coastal zone). The Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest urban population growth rate of more than 5%. (United Nations, 1995)
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From a recent article by Mark Hertsgaard in Vanity Fair magazine, in which scenarios of 3-foot, 20-foot, and 80-foot rises in sea level are depicted: The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already helping to kill 150,000 people a year, mainly in Africa and Asia. That number is bound to rise as global warming intensifies in the years ahead. (2006) From Chakravart Raghavan, writing in South-North Development Monitor: The ability of human systems to adapt to and cope with climate change depends on factors such as wealth, technology, education, information, skills, infrastructure, access to resources and management capabilities. (2001) These quotations, taken together, beg the question of whether the already stressed socioeconomic and political structures in place in Africa can withstand the impact of global climate change. That such climate change is propelled by the practices and policies of the industrialized global north is a sound point of debate, but will little impact the response, except in that as northern economies shift priorities to protect themselves against the climate change they helped spur on, less attention will likely accrue to other nations and other peoples. So, how will Africa’s coastal populations manage their migration away from rising seas? What will national and urban planners in Cairo and Alexandria, Dakar, Abidjan, Accra, Lagos, Mogadishu, Maputo, etc. do if seas rise? Gommes, du Guerny, Nachtergaele, and Brinkman (1998) writing for the Sustainable Development Department (SD) of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, offer this: In Egypt, the Nile delta north of Cairo represents 2.3% of the area of the country, but contains 46% of its total cultivated surface and 50% of its population; the [altitude] belt 0–3 m harbours about 20% of the population (with Alexandria 3.5 mill., and Port Said 450.000 inhabitants), 40% of industry, 80% of port facilities, 60% of fish production. How does Egypt survive if all of this economic activity is directly endangered? Yet most of the damage done as a result of global climate change will come not so directly as Egypt will experience it, but indirectly. As weather patterns change, water sources will be threatened, drought will increase, and agricultural practice will be endanger. As Raghavan notes: Grain yields are projected to decrease, diminishing food security. Major rivers are highly sensitive to climate variation. Extension of ranges of infectious disease vectors would adversely affect human health. Desertification will be exacerbated, and increases in droughts, floods and other extreme events would add to stresses. Significant extinctions of plant and animal species are projected. Coastal settlements along the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt and East-Southern African coast would be adversely affected by sea-level rise.
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Urban Education in Dystopia As these measures of eco-sustainability (“eco” referring both to ecological and economic aspects) decline, the ability of governments to fund education efforts will be made more difficult, and decisions made by families to send children to school, in the face of endangered family food security, will be ever more deeply implicated. It is quite possible that migration away from rural areas to Africa’s urban centers will be exacerbated. This will burden urban social services across the spectrum, schools included. To return to Zimbabwe, it was recently announced, and then quickly denied, that Zimbabwe would soon mandate that Chinese language be required of all university students, and eventually of students at lower levels in the education system. China would gain great influence in Zimbabwe, roughly analogous to that enjoyed by western financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. While this can be seen in a more Panglossian sense as increasing cultural awareness among students of the two countries, it would more accurately reflect the Mugabe government’s willingness to use the human capital at its disposal, its young citizens, as fodder in its effort to maintain control of the levers of economic and political power in the country. On the other hand, to bring this short essay back to its beginning, the people of Africa have been dealing with externally induced stressors for centuries. Many countries in Africa have experienced the additional internal pressures of authoritarian rule. Yes, the mortality rates from these stressors (slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, authoritarianism, etc.) is high. But the people of Africa’s many countries have managed to adapt and survive. They continue to send their children to school. They continue to encourage their governments to better fund education across a broader range of the population. It would be a mistake to conclude that how the global north deals with its propensity for burdening the rest of the world will be any differently dealt with than other stressors. Africa will keep itself alive.
References Farred, G. (2003). The “African Renaissance” at the crossroads of postcoloniality and postmodernity. Contours, a Journal of the African Diaspora, 1(1), 1–15. Gommes, R., du Guerny, J., Nachtergaele, F., & Brinkman, R. (1998) Potential impacts of sea-level rise on populations and agriculture, http://www.fao.org/sd/EIdirect/EIre0046.htm Hertsgaard, M. (2006). While Washington slept. Vanity Fair, April 2006, http://www.vanityfair.com/features/ general/articles/060417fege07 Raghavan, C. (2001). Global warming: Net losses for developing world. South-North Development Monitor, Third World Network, http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/losses.htm United Nations. (1995). World urbanization prospects: The 1994 revision. New York: United Nations.
63 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM THE ASIA PACIFIC Masturah Ismail Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
What is the reach of this dystopia? As Luke mentioned, it is a vision of the city that only addresses part of a global scenario. However, the scale and rate of urban growth in Asia are unprecedented in history – it already has the largest number of megacities (cities with a population of over 10 million each) in the world, and traditional hinterlands that serve the cities are increasingly being integrated through in-migration, a revolution in transportation and communications, and rapid expansion of industry. Asia is hyper-urbanizing. With rural poverty across the region and increased concentration of population and industry in the cities, it is not difficult to imagine how the single-minded pursuit of economic growth to the exclusion of other considerations – environment and quality of life – can have a far-reaching and potentially disastrous impact. While there is historical plausibility in this dystopia which serves as a warning to us, its limitation may lie in a unitary and deterministic projection, whereas we know that present conditions are much more complex, with a myriad of potential outcomes. The future is likely to be more nuanced and grounded in geo-historical realities, for “cities differ greatly among themselves and their historical trajectories are far from random: the past will shape the future of each city, but not determine it” (Friedmann, 1998). Luke’s rendition of one future scenario of the city has at least provoked me to think of such multiplicity as it currently exists across the Asia Pacific region. In 1996, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) prepared a major document on future trends of a hyper-urbanized Asia. It predicted “population growth, megacity concentration, poverty, growing inequality, a growing informal sector, environmental degradation, weak governance and management, centralization, inadequate participation, and socio-cultural alienation” (p. 91). Indeed, multiple forces, “increasingly complex and conflicting interests of community and culture, linguistic majority and minority, nation and state, corporation and worker,” and not just corporate interests, are impacting the provision of urban education today. It is interesting to note that Luke uses the word “balance” as a way for curriculum and teaching to deal with conflicting interests between these different forces. Yet, in his 1187 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1187–1190. © 2007 Springer.
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backward-mapping from Atwood’s dystopia, he describes current policies not only in neat binaries, but as a domination of one force over others, that is, a domination of corporate ideologies over others’ in curriculum materials both print and digital, science over the arts, and a cleavage in the provision of urban schooling: private for those who can pay and state/public education system for the working poor. Surely, the issues go beyond binaries and singular triumphs of one over the other. Pursuing the antireductionism and antidualism of Thirdspace, Soja (1996) cited approvingly Henri Lefebvre’s rejection of binaries: For Lefebvre, reductionism in all its forms … begins with the lure of binarism, the compacting of meaning into a closed either/or opposition between two terms, concepts, or elements. Whenever faced with such binarized categories (subjectobject, mental-material, natural-social, bourgeois-proletariat, local-global, centerperiphery, agency-structure), Lefebvre persistently sought to crack them open by introducing an-Other term, a third possibility or “moment” that partakes of the original pairing but is not just a simple combination or an “in between” position along some all-inclusive continuum. This critical thirding-as-Othering is the first and most important step in transforming the categorical and closed logic of either/or to the dialectically open logic of both/and also … . (p. 60) To the corporation-state dialectics then, I would add a third space that, however taken for granted in the West, is still emergent in many Asian cities: civil society. For city formation does not rest with state and corporate interests alone, but also involves the construction of and is reliant upon a robust and sustainable civil society. That civil society, longstanding and taken for granted in some nations, at risk in others, and potentially still-born in yet others – was part of the original settlements around postcolonial education in Asia, just as it was part of the push for universal secular schooling in the West. This is why an Asian education which still focuses on the building of civil society is so important – the education of people to mobilize outside and around the state, to assert their claims for inclusiveness, to demand accountability of those who hold public office, transparency in the conduct of the public’s business, and information that will allow people to form their own opinions and come to their own decisions (Friedmann, 1998). For many countries in the region, education and nation-building are still struggling to build participatory processes that enable people to analyze, critique and take issue with state and corporate actions that are likely to affect peoples’ lives and livelihoods. Especially at the level of local community, civil society can give voice to different narratives and alternative viewpoints from the ideologies of government and corporations. In many Asian cities, this kind of civic and civil space has yet to exist. Educationally then, to counter the dangerous totalizing effects of a techno-rational and corporatized curriculum, urban educators would do well to encourage the civic participation of students – and to pursue new models of democratic education. At the same time, we are seeing public spaces for civic participation in the city being usurped by private space, leaving few places for people to meet and conduct activities in the flesh. Our kids – and civil society – may be forced to retreat to the virtual, but there are limitations of what one can do in virtual spaces. The challenge for the future
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is to come up with creative ways to provide an environment conducive for all students in the city to grow, participate and learn. Urban formations are to a considerable extent a result of public policies. They are, in those states and cities where people are enfranchised, what we choose them to be. While economic interests do seem to prevail in many national agendas, especially in developing countries, the issues facing urban education across the Asia Pacific go beyond corporate stratification and a binary class system. For some, it’s still about basic provisions for infrastructure – housing, water, power supply, sanitation, transport and communications. If current trends are anything to go by, by 2020, most people in East Asian countries would live in urban areas – close to two-thirds of the population, most in the five mega-urban regions (McGee, 1998). The challenge for governments and urban planners is to make urbanization sustainable – both in the quality of people’s “life space,” that is environment, and “quality of life insofar as it is socially determined” (Friedmann, 1998, p. 44). The former means such basics as clean air and water, while the latter includes housing, community infrastructure and public services (education, health, recreation, security, transportation, communication, etc.), work at decent wages for all who seek it (including migrant workers) and a robust, well-organized civil society. All these, except the last, are objects of public policy, whose quality and coverage are more than just a matter of resources, but one of distribution, fairness and social justice. Letting the free market decide has already widened the gap in quality of life between rich and poor in many of the countries of the Asia Pacific. States still have the major role of mediating and buffering the impacts of markets on citizens. However, large urban regions such as megacities are extraordinarily difficult to plan and manage: governments will need to develop an integrated approach to their management. Unlike in Australia, where states have considerable autonomy vis-à-vis the federal government in planning powers over their respective city regions of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, there is tendency for centralized planning in many Asian governments. Can substantial powers be devolved to allow critically important and growing regions the ability to effectively manage their own affairs without national intervention? And how will the region cope with a unified ASEAN similar to the EU underway for 2011? What kinds of flows of capital, people, resources, and information will be generated from a regional union? What kinds of regulatory systems and agreements will be put in place? And how will these affect the very different educational histories and systems of Asian countries? The Asian city is struggling over the balance of “control” and “openness” in governmental planning, with the Chinese population now having greater freedom of movement. Hence, governments that are allowing cities to grow without strongly resourced urban planning, for example Indonesia, risk Delhi-type scenarios with urban slums and environmental degradation. Governments that assert to control via public housing, population movement and legislated constraints, like Singapore, are building more coherent and viable cities. However, even within strongly-controlled and centrally funded state education system like Singapore’s, there are increased attempts for educational variation and alternatives. So part of the policy trick may be to diversify educational provision without the neoliberal policies that are critiqued across this Handbook – for the state to develop effective and diverse provision rather than using
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the need for diversity as a means to marketize education. This might yield locally tailored solutions in the interest of diverse communities. In Asia, the future of urban education lies more in multiplicity than a streamlining of possibilities. But at the same time it also still lies in the establishment of strong state systems committed to education for and on behalf of civil society.
References ESCAP. (1996). Living in Asian cities, the impending crisis – causes, consequences and alternatives for the future. New York: United Nations. Friedmann, J. (1998). World city futures: The role of urban and regional policies in the Asia-Pacific region. In Y. Yeung (Ed.), Urban development in Asia: Retrospect and prospect (pp. 25–54). New Territories, Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. McGee, T. G. (1998). Five decades of urbanization in Southeast Asia: A personal encounter. In Y. Yeung (Ed.), Urban development in Asia: Retrospect and prospect (pp. 55–91). New Territories, Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Oxford: Blackwell.
64 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM EUROPE
Elisabet Öhrn* and Gaby Weiner† *
Boras University College, Sweden; Edinburgh University, Scotland
†
This is a response to the dystopic scenario proposed from the position of the Pacific Rim by Allan Luke, from the editors of the European section of the Handbook. While we recognize the picture that Luke paints, and the range of debates about the future among, for example, urban planners, social demographers, sociologists, environmentalists, and cultural theorists, we turn to political scientists rather than fiction writers, to create two potential scenarios for Europe for the year 2050. We recognize that Western Europe like the rest of the world, is affected by global changes such as environmental disaster (flooding as well as heat waves), economic upheaval (increased influence of multinationals, widening gaps between the rich and the poor) cultural homogenization (globalization of popular culture as well as policy) geographic modifications (enlargement of European Union) and demographic change (flow of immigrants from South to North and from rural to urban). However, in comparison with the rest of the world, Western or “old” Europe has been generally stable (since the end of World War II at least) accompanied by increasing prosperity and sustained efforts at developing structures of cooperation rather than conflict. This is embodied in the establishment and growth of the European Union (EU), an intergovernmental and supranational union of 25 democratic member states from the European continent, which was established under that name in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty). However, many aspects of the Union developed from 1951 onwards, through a series of predecessor formal and informal relationships. If we see the EU as an economic, social cultural, and geographic embodiment of Europe currently (or aspiration or imaginary for those not yet admitted), two main scenarios for 2050 are available; the first of “fortress” Europe, largely protectionist and regulatory, with the likely outcome of stagnation and slow economic decline, and the second, more dynamic, expansionist and outward looking, allowing widened membership but also greater fragmentation and leading perhaps to eventual dissolution of the Union. These two scenarios have their origins in two different forms of governance adopted currently and simultaneously in the EU: termed respectively as “traditional, 1191 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1191–1194. © 2007 Springer.
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authoritative” and “new, open” (Caporaso & Wittenbrinck, 2006). The former is seen as the “progressive realization of an emerging system of authoritative rule at the supranational level” with the backing of a system of laws agreed by the member states: in good part because these laws are made according to accepted procedures which have themselves been consensually accepted by intergovernmental conferences. Authority, therefore, far from being antiquated, is an irreducible component of the political process. Authority implies imposition, either to coerce people to do what is in their own interests (in the case of laws to solve social dilemmas) or to ensure that the losers accept their status. (Caporaso & Wittenbrinck, 2006, p. 472) This form of governance has been largely successful in bringing about economic prosperity, social cohesion and considerable success at the political level. For example, Young (1999) claims that the EU achieved a political “triumph,” in successfully embedding liberal democracy across half of Europe, with the second half willing to follow. At a time of Soviet decline, Young argues, the EU managed to protect the fragile emergent democracies of southern Europe as well as to encourage aspiring excommunist member states towards western forms of democracy. However, criticisms concerning the negative social and cultural consequences of the EU include its emphasis on economic rather than welfare or social issues, the male domination of its bureaucracies and structures and its imposition of a particular form of hegemonic, cultural homogeneity which reflects these characteristics. Thus, Brine (1999) argues that working class women have been marginalized by economic and education policies within the EU, and Einhorn and Gregory (1998, pp. 93–94), that Europe has become the object of desire of those outside the EU though citizenship “is effectively denied to black women, ethnic minorities and those with experience of poverty.” The EU is also consistently presented in the largely Eurosceptic, nationalist mass media as the rule of Europe through Brussels (the administrative centre of the EU), whereby “foreigners” are seen as dictating not only European and foreign but also the domestic policy of individual countries. The second form of governance which has emerged in recent years as a response to the criticisms of authoritarianism by Brussels is concerned less with compulsion and more with openness, deliberation and information dissemination. Thus, ironically, new governance models use “soft law instruments” to “insist” on: non-coercive processes based on the will of the participants to agree, by way of collective deliberation, on procedural norms, modes of regulation and common political objectives and, at the same time, to preserve the diversity of national and even local experiences. (Bruno, Jacquot, & Mandin, 2006, p. 520) The difficulty with the second model is its inability (or unwillingness) to punish non-implementers even though it is possible to argue that policies which are mandatory in all Community policy, should be applied to all policy, whether European or domestic. This new form of governance, which is characterized by bench-marking, mainstreaming, best practices and open methods of coordination, affects European
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countries in different ways. For example, López-Santana (2006) argues that the Europeanization of labor market policy has shifted the priorities of national policymakers leading to a convergence of goals and instruments, while Kristin Edquist (2006) points to the bleak choice of social activists in terms either of cooption in, or exclusion from, policy-making which either weakens or isolates them. So powerful has the EU become in its project of the Europeanization of different national entities, that the concept of Europe is now mostly associated with the Union rather than the geographic continent. The European capital city or urban context of both scenarios is idealized as prosperous, bureaucratic, multilingual and sophisticated, though authoritative Europe is less susceptible to the whims and influence of often localized social and democratic expressions of dissatisfaction. However, as we have seen, urban settings are also viewed as fragmented, conflictual, and dangerous, and therefore a threat to the economic and social order. Overall, then, while greater “convergence” between member states is currently viewed with suspicion, few can conceive of a Europe without the Union. Thus, as compared with Luke’s imaginary of a decaying urban educational infrastructure, at least for the working classes, we cannot foresee a similar collapse of the state, or of civic and municipal authorities in Europe in the short term at least, even though the weakening of the ties between state and local, and public and private, and the influence of neo-liberal “traveling” policy are clearly with us.
References Brine, J. (1999). Under educating women: Globalizing inequality. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bruno, I., Jacquot, S., & Mandin, L. (2006). Europeanization through its instrumentation: Benchmarking, mainstreaming and the open method of co-ordination … toolbox or Pandora’s box? Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 519–536. Caporaso, J. A., & Wittenbrinck, J. (2006). The new modes of governance and political authority in Europe. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 471–480. Edquist, K. (2006). EU social policy governance: Advocating activism or servicing states. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 500–518. Einhorn, B., & Gregory, J. (1998). Introduction. The European Journal of Women’s Studies special issue: The Idea of Europe, 5(3–4), 293–296. López-Santana, M. (2006). The domestic implications of European soft law: Framing and transmitting change in employment policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 481–499. Young, H. (1999). This blessed plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair. London: Overlook Press.
65 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM LATIN AMERICA1
Belmira Oliveira Bueno University of São Paulo, Brazil
Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable. (Arendt, 1968) Dystopias, as well as utopias, are not mere fiction. No matter how absurd they may seem, the worlds they describe start with situations that are real. As a result, they often haunt us and impel us to think about the future, about the possible worlds that are expected, mainly the ones expected by the new generations. Allan Luke’s dystopia provokes a tension: which vision should we engage with? With those utopian visions or with those which preview a decaying world, such as the current social practices and policies lead us to think? Luke warns that his dystopia is just speculative, “a narrative to link from the future to the present.” I intend to go a littler further, to connect the present not only to the future, but also to the past. Any reflection about the future of the city and urban education needs to be supported by a diagnosis of the present time. Such diagnosis about the major lines of force that draw the space of the city and about the corresponding urban education will allow the imagination of the future to be an exercise of working on the consequences of the elements that have been diagnosed. To what extent do the space of the city and education preserve the hopes of the past, enabling individual development to take place in tension between the past, present and future? Or, to say this in another way, to what extent do the spaces of socialization and education stimulate the coming of a “unidimensional man” (Marcuse, 1964), pointing to a man/woman immediately glued to the present and reality, unable to keep the tension between what s/he is and what s/he should be? Here, I would like to utilize criteria found in some classic texts to make such a diagnostic: in particular, texts on education which focus on its subversive element, due to its characteristic of keeping remembrances, hopes and memory that may serve to destabilize the present state of affairs. 1195 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1195–1198. © 2007 Springer.
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This idea is already present in Allan Luke’s text. When he uses the book by Margaret Atwood, presenting it as an example of dystopia, he points out that the characters are “human subjects incapable of nuance, paradox, analysis and creativity.” He also suggests that, “There are images of pedagogy throughout Oryx and Crake: of cloned subjects stripped of memory and cultural production sitting around the last man and construing him as their maker.” In this novel, the character who resists is depicted thus, “The Snowman (…) struggles to maintain his humanity by remembering and chanting lessons from basal lessons in school, retaining poetry and narrative despite his deteriorating physical and mental condition, and like an oral poet recalling the legacies and traditions of print and cinema for the clones.” Because these images interconnect the capacity of thinking and feeling, the resistance to an oppressive situation, the creativity and the link with memory and tradition, they make me think about the education of the range of people in Latin America. How do these elements relate to each other? First, in a very simplistic way. We could say that education links us to a tradition, to a collective memory, it connects us to the voices from the past and somehow this “digs” into the depths of our very existence. Based on this connection, our own biography links to other biographies, and the sense of history begins to take on a concrete and shared meaning. The reflection about a present state cannot fully happen unless we have the experience that something came to be, and thus, it can also change. This dimension of thinking gains reality when we are fed by the past, by all the hopes and struggles which somehow contributed to configure our present state. Human creativity is also an expression of the tension between what exists and what could exist: it is born with the child that plays, making something into something else, and completes in the adult through his or her will to know and create, breaking up the determinations of the present. Therefore, the questions we should ask as we try to imagine the future are, “Do the current conditions of life in Latin American cities and the education found there, enable people to understand the present and imagine another future?” and “Does the education betray its mission to connect us in a deep way to the past and its meaning, thus making man/woman a prisoner of the present thereby imposing on them ways of action which are merely repetitious of the same and sole rationality?” This problematic seems to be presented, for example, in the preface of Dialectics of Enlightenment (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1972) where they suggest that, “What is at issue here is … the necessity for enlightenment to reflect on itself if humanity is not to be totally betrayed. What is at stake is not conservation of the past but the fulfillment of past hopes. Today, however, the past is being continued as destruction of the past” (p. xvii). In a text by Simonell Weill (1979, p. 353), we find an idea that extends this reflection: It would be vain to turn one’s back to the past just to think about the future. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that there is a possibility in it. The opposition between future and past is absurd. The future brings us nothing, give us nothing; it is we that, in order to construct the future, must give it everything, we must give it our own life. But to give one must have, and we do not have another life, another sap, except the inherited treasures of the past, that have been digested, assimilated, recreated by ourselves. From all the needs of the human soul there is no other more vital than the past.
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Memory has a subversive power, and it is such power that should be utilized by education. As Marcuse (1964, p. 98) puts it: Remembrance of the past may give rise to dangerous insights, and the established society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of memory. Remembrance is a mode of dissociation from the given facts, a mode of “mediation” which breaks up, for short moments, the omnipresent power of the given facts. Memory recalls the terror and the hope that passed. Based on this thinking, that is, on the understanding of the current relationship between past/memory, education and life in the city, we can imagine how the future might be. In doing this it is also necessary to take into account the educational research that indicates that schools find it difficult to provide an education which is effectively critical and not instrumental. Most research in the Latin American countries, along with research in other regions around the world points out the difficulties that students have learning to read and write, even when they actually go to school. This indicates that even the most instrumental education is in danger. Considering that there is no separation between shape and content with respect to thinking, the lack of skill to handle symbols and signs inevitably brings severe consequences involving the inability of students to reason. Without a doubt, this leads us to suggest that the frustrations caused by social inequity and injustice are likely to be channeled into aggressiveness. Examples are fights among soccer rooters, or the appearance of gangs which, quite honestly, seem to reproduce the same violence they are themselves subjected to. By arguing this I want to emphasize the point that the frustration generated by the feelings of injustice, especially when individuals find no support for politically organized ways for struggle and resistance, tends to turn into naked violence. Sadly, such violence is often utilized by the status quo to reassure itself. Education, then, would have an essential role in the possibility of mediating violence and supporting ways of organizing civil involvement to address the existing social, economic and educational inequalities. Education, when grounded in instrumentalism, that is when it is offered just as a technical rationality and merely justified by the capacity of operating on things, loses its power of imagining and building a different future. Thus, it is completely absorbed in the maintenance of the present and the management of any emergent contradictions. In this case, where instrumental and technical education prevails, we are only allowed to think that men and women will more and more become only an object of the social machine, a machine of their own creation. This is the element common to all dystopias. Obviously, the separation of the social classes remains, as there will always be one caste that rules the machine and another which is governed by the former under the condition of being an instrument. Concepts such as freedom and justice are excluded from a purely technical education. Moreover, these concepts do not gain reality when they are disconnected from the history of our civilization. For this reason, the diagnostic of today’s education, leads us to imagine a very close future. In the case of Latin America, then, I can only glimpse its future by thinking about it from a perspective that takes into account the history and the roots of the various peoples. In doing this it is important to include them in the school curriculum and, then, develop
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a more sensitive pedagogy that meets the various needs and major expectations of the new generations. It is also important that this reformulated curriculum and pedagogy enable the youth to think of alternatives that will open up both thinking and action so that they can be protagonists both for educational change and crafting their own identities. This double perspective, the appraisal of memory and juvenile protagonism, seems to me to be crucial in a school curriculum that aims to seriously face the challenges of the city of the future, be it chaotic or excessively planned. I would argue that nobody, other than the young people, should occupy the center of such project. It is enough to note their vivacity in the communication process. It is enough to acknowledge that they are the ones who currently show a break with the established order: they are doing this by creating new forms of cultural transmission and by challenging the school to rethink its traditional ways of teaching. This is not, however, meant to abandon the youth to some laissez-faire system, as a result of the absence and foolishness of adults. It is the adults, of course, who must remain responsible for ensuring that the new generations do not lose their links with the past: this is important so that the new generations can project and live the future without historical discontinuities. I truly believe that no matter how painful future changes may be, the treasure mentioned by Arendt, must not be lost.
Note 1. I am very thankful to Daniel Bueno and Bernardo Svartman for their insightful ideas that helped me to think in this way.
References Arendt, H. (1968). Between past and future: Eight exercices in political thought. New York: The Viking Press. Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1972). Dialetic of Enlightenment. New York: Herder & Herder. Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon Press Boston. Weill, S. (1979). A condição operária e outros estudos sobre a opressão. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. [The working condition and other studies on the oppression, first publication in 1951].
66 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM NORTH AMERICA Michele Foster Claremont Graduate University, U.S.A.
In his dystopia, Luke examines some contemporary conditions of urban life that might be harbingers of urban life and urban education in the mid-century. Drawing on science fiction because it offers “possible worlds for which there are plausible traces, precursors, necessary conditions and indeed, nascent cultural and political economies,” he deploys Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) to illustrate one possible scenario. To be sure this dystopia addresses several of the major social and ethical issues – a dual system of schools for rich and poor, the corporatization of schooling, an over reliance on scientific and technological solutions – that confront contemporary life and may foreshadow life in urban communities and by extension urban education. While a useful heuristic, the commentary overlooks some of the major historical forces that have shaped contemporary education, urban life, and urban education and by coupling the concept of urban to a fixed geographic location, disregards some of the patterns that point to much more likely complex and nuanced outcomes. While a common curriculum, public education, and universal access may have been intended as principled responses of democratic societies to the social and cultural conditions of urbanization, these ideals were never fully realized. Nowhere is this more evident than in the history of African Americans. Although the common school movement aimed to expose American children to a common curriculum, this ideal did not extend to most African American young people, which I illustrate in the brief chronology that follows. Throughout most of the common school period, roughly between 1840 and 1910, African Americans were systematically denied opportunities for schooling. Prior to the Civil War, most African Americans resided in the south where they were held in slavery, barred from attending school, and forbidden from learning to read. African Americans did not fare much better in the North and the West, where they were relegated to segregated schools, or excluded from them by state and local laws. Following the Civil War and emancipation, largely through self-help efforts and the Freedman’s Bureau, blacks were able to some gain access to public schools. However, with the end of Reconstruction, the enacting of Jim Crow laws, and the 1896 1199 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1199–1202. © 2007 Springer.
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Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that legalized segregation and established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” this access was further constrained. Philosophically affiliated with progressive issues designed to ameliorate social inequities, Dewey’s project is often invoked by academics to signal the best of the democratic traditions in schooling. Dewey’s progressive inclinations, notwithstanding, his Lab School, coincidentally founded the same year of the Supreme Court’s Plessy decision, followed the customary practice of the era of keeping students out simply because of their color. My point is that too often, the philosophies, propensities, and practices of democracy, including democratic education even when professed by progressives have tended to exclude African Americans as part of the citizenry. To return to the chronology, although the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared separate facilities inherently unequal and unconstitutional, and The Civil Rights Acts ended the “official” period of legal segregation, school desegregation was a protracted process that met with fierce and intense opposition across all regions of the United States. Exacerbated by community responses – white flight and the creation of private academies – by institutional responses – “controlled choice” an attempt to voluntarily desegregate the schools as well as promote parental choice of schools establishing magnet schools, creating rigid tracking systems, and special education programs, closing Black schools, and the wholesale dismissal of African American educators – and academic responses – developing and inscribing theories of social disorganization, pathology, and cultural deficit into the scholarly canon – rather than enhancing educational opportunities desegregation obstructed schooling opportunities for African Americans. Once African Americans finally gained access to educational institutions, state, local, and federal policies intervened in the education system not by blocking African Americans’ access to education but by infusing the education they received with a destructive mediocrity using various means that has rarely been interrupted. This is the historical background against which neo-liberal policies are being introduced and extended into the education sector with the language of privatization and educational choice – the push for charter schools, voucher programs, emphasis on performance based management, and the imposition of systematic curriculum and testing. If, as some polls suggest, African Americans and other marginalized groups endorse particular aspects of these neo-liberal policies, could the reason be that having been disenfranchised from adequate schools and frustrated by the limited education options these groups have concluded that vouchers may be a more feasible alternative to doing nothing (Apple & Pedroni, 2005). In my introduction to the North American section of this Handbook, I highlight some of multiple and contradictory meanings of the word urban. Along with meanings of urban as a spatial location and/or population density, I examine the urban signified as sophisticated and cultured; the urban meaning run-down, deteriorating, crime ridden; the urban signified as poverty, social disorganization, and pathology the urban denoting renovation, enhancement and gentrification; the urban as code words for poor people of color. It is impossible to predict how contemporary conditions will develop into future scenarios, since the same set of conditions can just as easily lead to a different set of events. However, Atwood’s dystopian conception of a Canadian city
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whose inner core, abandoned by and off-limits to elites and inhabited only by working and lower classes struck me as jejune and predictable. As the residential patterns in France and similar developments in the Greater Toronto area demonstrate, residential patterns, where the poor live in the inner city and the more affluent live in suburban enclaves, are not predetermined. With respect to the United States, this scenario is déjà vu all over again. Although the residential patterns of many major US cities were organized according to Burgess’s idea zones of concentric circles, even when first proposed his theory did not account for the multiple patterns of development that existed. Waves of gentrification sometimes within different parts of the same city, and the razing of public housing developments such as Chicago’s Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor Homes, once symbols of the problems associated with public housing in the United States, and the construction of new mixed income housing built to attract more affluent residents has resulted in the dispersal of poor and working class people of color to other neighborhoods within the city, as well as to the inner ring suburbs. Because immigrants are settling in communities and states that did not typically receive large numbers of immigrant families and children, the dispersal of people of color is expanding. These changing settlement patterns are reshaping many public school systems. Urban school districts have typically enrolled large percentages of the US students of color; many of the largest districts have student enrollments that are more than half African American or Latino. But as residence patterns continue to change, more students of color are attending school in communities that heretofore have not been considered urban. Rather than being restricted to geographically “urban” spaces, in keeping with the postmodern era, urban issues are ever shifting – changing in emphasis, direction, focus, as well as location. As Diane Ketelle, one of the chapter authors recently wrote in 2004, “A public school has both internal public purposes and external public purposes. The internal purpose is learning, but the external purpose is to build community.” Still, unresolved and highly contested is what kind of community we want and are willing to work to build. If the vision is one of excellence, democracy, social, cultural and economic equity, then North Americans must apply political pressure on their national leaders to live up to the rhetoric of democracy. For whatever progress has been made toward eradicating social injustice, racial and ethnic inequality, and economic disparities, much more remains to be done. It’s later than we think, but not too late to act.
References Apple, M., & Pedroni, T. C. (2005). Conservative alliance building and African American support of vouchers: The end of Brown’s promise or a new beginning? Teachers College Record, 107(9), 2068–2105, http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 12154, Date Accessed: 8/19/2006 4:01:14 P.M. Atwood, M. (2003). Oryx and Crake: A novel. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. Ketelle, D. (2004). The disappearance of the homemakers club: A dilemma for school leaders. Public Voices, 7(1), 43–46.
67 URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050: A RESPONSE FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty† *
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.; Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
†
Luke asks us to think into the future, drawing on historical knowledge, current realities and futures thinking, to consider the possible future for cities and urban education in 5, 10 or 50 years time. His piece posits a future in which the city has become a “no go” area, where there is a binary social class system based on a biotechnical and digital elite class and a working underclass. This social stratification is reflected in binary provision in elite private/corporation schooling and residual state education for the underclass. It is a world in which science is valued over arts and curriculum content and schooling are determined by corporations and private interests. Humanity and the human condition have been devalued and destroyed. Like all futures thinking, this analysis reveals traces of historical and current evidence. Debates about private and state schooling, concerns about segregation of educational access and outcomes associated with choice policies, promotion of private investment in education and the persisting inequalities in educational outcomes in urban areas, particularly associated with socio-economic, racial and ethnic diversity and divisions, are all very much on today’s agenda for urban education. As indeed they have been throughout the history of urban education, particularly since the 1960s in the UK but also throughout the earlier twentieth century and late nineteenth century as indicated in McCulloch’s chapter in this collection. The challenge of predicting urban education in the distant, and even not so distant, future is that often the predictions and the reality remain far apart. Luke cites literary and media interpretations of the future city, which have not been fully realized in reality. In the UK, a popular science fiction television show broadcast in the 1970s predicted that by the end of the twentieth century we would all be living in outer space and commuting by space travel in Space 1999. Yet, here we are in the twenty-first century still Earth dwellers and still debating education in UK cities in terms that would have been broadly recognizable 100 years ago. The reality is that urban education, and indeed all education, particularly since the 1944 and 1945 Acts for England/Wales and Scotland respectively, has evolved through 1203 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1203–1206. © 2007 Springer.
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a process of incremental adjustments in policy and practice. While there have been both continuities and discontinuities in educational development, many of the fundamental purposes and pillars of schooling remain intact. Even the Thatcher government’s 1988 Education Reform Act, which reformed curriculum, testing and governance arrangements in England, did not entirely transform the educational landscape established in the mid-1940s. And even though the New Labour government since 1997 has been committed to dramatic and rapid educational change, with a raft of initiatives and strategies to generate large-scale school improvement and raised student achievement, it has drawn upon principles and practices recognizable from both the 1944 and 1988 Acts. Given this reality, the prospect of the total demise of schooling as we currently know it, even within 50 years, appears unlikely in the absence of a major political or ecological disaster – though that, of course, is by no means out of the question. This does not mean, however, that we predict no changes in the nature of urban schooling in the UK. To start with its context, as Luke comments, there is considerable debate about the nature of the future city. But in contrast to his prediction of cities becoming “no go” areas, UK demographic data do not point to a significant decline in urban living. While there has been some reversal of past migration patterns, suburban sprawl and urban regeneration – including inner-city gentrification – continue apace. Within cities, social and economic segregation can certainly become acute in urban spaces with “rich” and “poor” neighborhoods literally separated by one street, thereby bringing into sharp juxtaposition the reality of urban wealth and poverty. Yet “gated communities” remain the exception rather than the rule and, in some urban neighbourhoods, ethnic diversity is more evident than racial segregation. There have, however, been some high profile flash points between communities and there are some cities where the social and cultural experiences of different groups are in danger of becoming polarized. Although, to some extent, social divisions have always been accentuated by school catchment areas, there is now a fear that these polarizing tendencies will be reinforced by education policies that enhance choice. Critics of markets point to evidence of educational segregation between city schools drawn along class and perhaps ethnic lines, as hierarchies of schooling evolve with more affluent and educated parents becoming more successful in securing places for their child at a school “of choice” and the remaining schools becoming populated by the less advantaged. The resulting cumulative process of educational, social and economic disadvantage, often linked to racial, ethnic and cultural differences, is a critical concern for the future of urban schooling. This raises questions, as posed also in Luke’s analysis, about the provision of schooling. Luke envisages the rise of corporate education provided by and for private interests. However, the situation in the UK is not a straightforward private/state binary divide. Around seven per cent of children attend private schools, many of which are certainly associated with the reproduction of economic and cultural elites. But there are also divisions within the state-funded sector, which historically has included voluntary (largely church-based) provision. The debate in the UK has therefore been as much about religious/secular interests as about private/public interests. There are certainly ongoing attempts to increase private investment and provision within state schooling, but so far they have not been particularly popular or effective. As our own chapter in
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this Handbook discusses, the current policy debate is more concerned with growing new forms of hybrid provision involving a diverse array of state, private and third-sector solutions and partnerships. This reflects another trend that is perhaps more fundamental than privatization in a narrow sense. Although some critics see the fragmentation of the public education service into a variety of different types of provision as a problem, other commentators regard multiple forms of differentiation as a defining feature of “post-modern” societies, and even as something to be encouraged and celebrated. So, while the growth of industrial cities was predicated on mass production and collective consumption, the current trend towards niche marketing and “lifestyling” is now becoming reflected in education. This extends beyond diversification of school types into the nature of the school experience. The last 20 years in the UK, particularly England, has seen increased central prescription of curriculum, assessment, instructional approaches and even time allocations within classes. However there is now a move to “personalization,” an approach geared more directly to individual learners’ needs, experiences and expectations. Trends across a range of sectors (public and private) reflect increasing consumer expectations for personal attention and service and this is likely to become even more evident in future urban education as parents and students come to expect personalized pathways. Information and communication technologies can play a role in supporting such diversification of learning methods. While there is certainly some evidence to support Luke’s proposition that a digital future could be dehumanizing, there are also ways in which information technology can be used within and outside classrooms to support student engagement, motivation and achievement, including encouraging both the traditional literacies of reading and writing and the various media, digital and critical global literacies now emerging. In the extreme case, some students disaffected from conventional schooling are already receiving their education virtually, via the web and mobile phones (e.g., http://www.notschool.net ). The prevailing view remains, however, that computers will not replace the role of teachers or even classrooms, any more than earlier much heralded technological innovations did. And certainly, so far, interactive whiteboards have more often just replaced blackboards than they have truly transformed the nature of teaching and learning. None of this, then, really makes the future of urban education unrecognizable in terms of the present. Barber (2004) has utilized the analogy of bicycles to explain the historical and future development of classroom practice. The first bicycle ever designed was innovative and had profound impact on the possibilities for transportation. However, the design was not as functional as possible, and a second generation of bicycles soon evolved where in contrast to the earlier design both wheels were of equal size. Today, the equal-sized-wheels bicycle persists and to the casual observer looks essentially the same as it originally did. In a similar manner, classrooms throughout the UK retain many historical features, for example teachers, students, using desks and chairs, reading and writing, and so on. But there are more teaching assistants and increased use of information technology. The difference – in both the classroom and the bicycle – is in the detail and what Barber terms “precision.” For him, this has brought with it huge improvements in performance.
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Yet, the debate about the extent to which urban education has changed is of limited interest if it is not connected to wider questions about the purposes of urban schooling and what counts as successful performance. Differences persist about whether urban education is to serve individual or collective interests, and about whether such interests are primarily economic or grounded in concerns about democracy and social justice. Furthermore, it is unfortunately not entirely clear which set of policies supports which interests. Diversity and personalization may be liberating or merely a novel way by which people will opt into the tracks required by the economy. In this case, ‘old wine in new bottles’ is the analogy that springs to mind. So, even after all the reforms of the past century, and alongside an overall raising of educational standards, there is persisting and in some cases growing inequality in educational outcomes for different student groups along socio-economic, racial and gender lines. In short, we see the future of urban education in the UK as being characterized more by continuity than radical transformation. We would hope that future practices will be concerned not only with conventional attainment measures, but also with supporting equity of process and outcome for all groups and developing future citizens with a range of social and emotional skills as well as cognitive ones. We envisage schools becoming more connected to, rather than discrete from, other agencies and services concerned with a child’s development and in building two-way purposeful partnerships with families and communities. But, as long as patterns of community segregation influence educational stratification and school hierarchies, the prospects for an entirely equitable and fully inclusive approach to urban education remain distant. Its future is therefore likely to continue to be characterized by educational conflicts reflecting broader social and economic contradictions and by struggles over individual and collective needs, public and private interests and secular and religious jurisdictions. In this sense, the future of urban education in the UK is a reflection of the history of urban education in the UK. The challenge before us is how we choose to respond to a call to action for a just future in urban education. As Grace commented in his chapter, this requires envisioning, nourishing, sustaining and acting on a “complex hope.” This will need to combine a “pessimism of the intellect,” in which the current and historical realities are examined and understood, with an “optimism of the will,” in which both principled and practical possibilities for alternative futures are imagined and created for cities and their schools and for the educators and students who inhabit them.
References Barber, M. (2004). Speech at National Primary Conference, http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media/F7B/90/primarytranscript-barber.pdf
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS
Editors Kevin Brennan has lived and worked in Lesotho, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda, and visited numerous other countries in Africa on a professional basis. He has served as a consultant with the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid and the AfricanAmerican Institute, and is a former Director of African Programs for the School for International Training, in which position he created and managed study abroad programs in a dozen countries in Africa. He is currently a Humphreys Fellow at the University of North Carolina, where he is a doctoral candidate in education. Belmira Oliveira Bueno is a Professor of Education at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, where she works since 1973. She was a Visiting Scholar at the School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), working with Dr. George Noblit. Her research and pedagogical interests involve themes related to teaching, memory and gender connected to school reforms, initial and in-service teacher education. She was President of the Research Committee of the School of Education (USP) and the editor of the Journal Educação e Pesquisa (Education and Research, USP). She is author of several journal articles and books, including: The Social Construction of Virtue. The Moral Life of Schools, as a Collaborator of Noblit & Dempsey (State University of New York, 1996); co-author of Docência, Memória e Gênero (Teaching, Memory and Gender, Escrituras, 1997) and A vida e o ofício dos professores (The teachers’ life and work, Escrituras, 1998). Carol Campbell is Team Leader of the Research, Evaluation and Data Management Team at The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ministry of Education Ontario. Carol immigrated to Canada from the United Kingdom in March 2005 to take up this role. Previously, Carol was a member of faculty at the Institute of Education, University of London. During her time in England, UK, Carol was seconded as a Policy Advisor working for Central Government in the Department for Education and Skills. Her first role as a Policy Advisor was working in partnership between central government and a school district to support improved student achievement in a context of low performance. In her next Policy Advisor role, Carol worked with the Commissioner for London Schools on a government initiative, The London Challenge, to transform education across all 33 school districts in London. Carol is originally from Scotland, UK. She completed her Doctorate at the University of Strathclyde. This was followed by a post 1207 W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1207–1228. © 2007 Springer.
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at the University of Glasgow. Carol has international experience in research, evaluation and policy work, including projects in all parts of the United Kingdom, across Europe, the United States of America and Canada in areas including raising student achievement, school improvement, school effectiveness, the role and work of school districts, large scale educational reform, school leadership in challenging circumstances, schools working collaboratively with other agencies to support students, families and communities, parent engagement, and inclusive schooling. Michèle Foster is an Educational Anthropologist and Sociolinguist who focuses on the social, cultural, and linguistic contexts of education. She was Book Review Editor (2001–2003) and Features Editor (2003–2006) for Educational Researcher and over the years has served on many national committees and boards, editorial boards, and as a reviewer for numerous journals. The recipient of 1.6 million dollars in external funding, her research has been supported by federal awards and private grants from foundations such as the Spencer Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. Funded by the National Science Foundation and OERI, her latest research project, Learning Through Teaching in an After-School Pedagogical Laboratory (L-TAPL), developed after-school pedagogical laboratories for students that also served as professional development sites for new teachers and examined the effect on the learning of children and the preparation of teachers. Foster is author of over 50 publications including four books. Her articles appear in journals such as Teachers College Record, Language in Society, Phi Delta Kappan, and Educational Theory. Masturah Ismail is an Educational Researcher at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP) in the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She is currently involved in a CRPP intervention project to build teacher capacity in curriculum and pedagogical design for low track students. She is co-editing the special issue on Muslim Education for Asia Pacific Journal of Education with Sa’eda Buang, and ensures the smooth running of Pedagogies: An International Journal as editorial administrator. Allan Luke has returned to Australia after serving as foundational Dean of the largest educational research center in the Asia Pacific, the Centre for Research in Practice and Pedagogy at the National Institute of Education based in Singapore. He is currently developing new research projects in early literacy, accountability and assessment, and comparative pedagogies. He is co-editor of Teaching Education (Routledge), Review of Research in Education (American Educational Research Association), Asia Pacific Journal of Education (Routledge) and Pedagogies: An International Journal (Erlbaum), and is a senior editor of The International Encyclopedia of Education (Kluwer) and the Handbook of Curriculum (Sage). George W. Noblit is the Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education and Chair of Culture, Curriculum and Change in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in the sociology of knowledge, school reform, critical race studies, anthropology of education, and qualitative research methods. Currently, he has four ongoing research strands: School Reform, Race and Education, Arts and Education, and Qualitative Research Methods. His studies of school reform, especially “Comer” schools (funded by the Rockefeller
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Foundation and OERI) have resulted in three recent books: The Kids Got Smarter: Case Studies of Successful Comer Schools (Hampton Press, 2001), Cultural Matters (Hampton Press, 2005) and Bringing Systemic Reform to Life (Hampton Press, in press). Continuing a career of research on school desegregation and race equity in education, James Leloudis and he are currently conducting an oral history study titled, “Roads Not Taken in School Desegregation,” funded by the Spencer Foundation. He is also completing nine years of research by writing a book about the A Schools Program, an arts-based school reform program, with funding from the Kenan Institute for the Arts and the Ford Foundation. His last two books on qualitative methods were: Particularities (Lang, 1999) and Postcritical Ethnography (Hampton Press, 2004). He is also the co-editor of The Urban Review, a refereed scholarly journal. Julius Nyang’oro is Professor and Chair of the Department of African and AfroAmerican Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A political economist and lawyer by training, he holds degrees from the University of Dar es Salaam, Miami University and Duke University. He has published widely in the fields of African development and governance. Among his publications are: Discourses on Democracy; and Civil Society and Democratic Development in Africa. He consults regularly with NGOs in Africa. Elisabet Öhrn is Professor in Education at Borås University College, Sweden. She also holds a position as Associate Professor at Department of Education, Göteborg University and as visiting Professor at Umeå University. Her main research area is the sociology of education, with a special interest in gender, power, citizenship, class and ethnicity. Recent funded projects have included Changing gender patterns in education (2000), Young people as political actors (2001–2003), Identities and gender in everyday schooling (2003–2006), Classroom interaction, teaching and learning (2004–2006 with Sverker Lindblad and others), and Creativity and performativity in teaching and learning (2005–2006 with Dennis Beach and others). She has written a number of research reports, books and articles in Swedish and international journals. William T. Pink is Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership studies in the School of Education at Marquette University. He is also co-chair of the doctoral program in EDPL. He has published widely in the areas of delinquency, sociology of education, school cultures, urban education and educational reform. Pink has just recently ended a 10 year stint as the editor of Educational Foundations, and remains the co-editor of The Urban Review. He is the editor of the book series entitled, Understanding Education and Policy (Hampton Press). His latest book is entitled Cultural Matters: Lesson Learned from Field Studies of Several Leading School Reform Strategies (Hampton Press, 2005). Gaby Weiner is Honorary Professor of Edinburgh University, her previous posts including Professor of teacher education and research at Umeå University in Sweden (1998–2005) and professor of educational research (1992–1998) at South Bank University, London. She has written and edited a number of publications on social justice, gender, race and ethnicity including: Feminisms in Education (1994); Equal Opportunities in Colleges and Universities (1995, with Farish, McPake, & Powney);
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Closing the Gender Gap: Postwar Educational and Social Change (1999, with Arnot & David), and most recently Kids in Cyberspace: Teaching Antiracism using the Internet in Britain, Spain and Sweden (2005, with Gaine). She has been co-editor of two book series: Gender and Education (with Deem) and Feminist Educational Thinking (with Yates & Weiler). She is currently completing a book on the uses of auto/biography to educational research, with Lucy Townsend, Northern Illinois University. Geoff Whitty has been Director of the Institute of Education, University of London, since September, 2000. He taught in primary and secondary schools before lecturing in education at Bath University and King’s College London and then holding Chairs at Bristol Polytechnic, Goldsmiths College and the Institute of Education. His main areas of teaching and research are the sociology of education, education policy and teacher education. He has led evaluations of major educational reforms and has assisted schools and local authorities in building capacity for improvement. His publications include Devolution and Choice in Education (with Power & Halpin), Open University Press 1998, Teacher Education in Transition (with Furlong, Barton, Miles, & Whiting), Open University Press 2000 and Making Sense of Education Policy, Sage Publications 2002 and Education and the Middle Class (with Power, Edwards, & Wigfall), Open University Press 2003.
Contributors Alwiya Alwy is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Development Studies at Flinders University in South Australia. Raised in Kenya, she won scholarships to study for a Bachelor of Science in Statistics at Bombay University in India, a Master of Business Studies from Massey University in New Zealand and a Master of Arts (International Development) at Flinders University. Her interest in equity issues in education has been ignited by her work as research consultant on education projects for girls in her hometown of Mombasa. She published early research results in an article on “Ethnic inequalities in education in Kenya” [International Education Journal, 5(2)]. Eva Arnold completed her studies in Psychology at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, and earned a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bern (Switzerland). Since 1989, she has worked as a private lecturer at the University Faculty of Educational Science in Hamburg, Germany. A major focus of her scientific work concerns evaluation and quality management in higher education, especially teacher education. Over the past few years she has been involved in studies on teacher education at the University and the State Institute in Hamburg and has evaluated a number of projects on school development. She also teaches student-teachers about evaluation and supervision. Funwi Ayuninjam holds a B.A. in English and French from the University of Yaounde I (Cameroon)/the Université de Paris XII (France), and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics from Georgetown University (USA). Ayuninjam is an Associate Professor
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and Director of International Programs at Winston-Salem State University (North Carolina). Ayuninjam is author of A Reference Grammar of Mbili (UP of America) and serves on the editorial boards of the Brill Journal of Asian and African Studies, the African Journal of Languages and Linguistics, and the SORAC Journal of African Studies. Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education, University of Sao Paulo, and a Senior Researcher at the Carlos Chagas Foundation, an institution that has been conducting research on education, gender and race for 37 years. She is also editor of Cadernos de Pesquisa, an important Brazilian scientific periodical on Education. She received the M.A. and the Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Sao Paulo. She conducts research focused mainly on compulsory education, covering urban and rural areas, curriculum and assessment, as well as management and policies. [email protected] Johannes Bastian studied Educational Science, Psychology and Sociology at the University Hamburg, Germany in the 1970s, where he received a doctor’s degree in the field of teacher education. He was a school teacher for some years, moving to the university in the early 1980s where he held several positions. Since the mid 1990s he has held a chair in educational science centred on the pedagogy of secondary schools and on school development. Focal points of his research include problems of school, class development and teachers’ professional development. Since the early 1980s he has been on the editorial staff of a major professional journal Paedagogik, and is currently overall editor of the journal. Jill Blackmore is a Professor of Education in the School of Social and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Education at Deakin University. She is on several editorial boards of international journals such as the British Educational Research Journal, Regional Editor of the International Journal of Leadership in Education, past President of the Australian Association of Research in Education and Editor of the Australian Educational Researcher. She undertakes professional development with teachers, principals and parents as well as policy consultancies to government. Her research interests include feminist approaches to globalization and education policy, administrative and organizational theory, educational leadership and reform, organizational change and innovation, teachers’ and academics’ work, and all their policy implications. Publications are Troubling Women: Feminism, Leadership and Educational Change (Open University Press, 1999). Forthcoming publications include (with Judyth Sachs) Performing and Re-forming Leaders: Gender, Educational Restructuring and Organizational Change (SUNY Press). Katrina Lynn Bledsoe is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at The College of New Jersey who specializes in applied social psychology, community-based research and theory-driven program evaluation, cultural contexts, and multicultural health. Her 10 years of experience evaluating community-based programs, and drug and crime prevention efforts for communities of color add to her knowledge of how risky behavior is associated with negative health, and social outcomes for communities of color. Bledsoe is principal investigator of a community effort to reduce and prevent obesity
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among adolescents of color in the Trenton, New Jersey School district. Other projects include analyzing the effectiveness drug prevention programs designed for adolescents of color, and serving as Co-principal Investigator of a project focusing on leadership development in African American leaders. Dr. Bledsoe specializes in both quantitative and qualitative methodology, survey, focus group, and interview techniques. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Claremont Graduate University. Juan Ariel Bogliaccini is a Principal Researcher at Catholic University of Uruguay’s Program about Integration, Poverty and Social Exclusion (IPES). His research has focused on development issues with a strong focus on Latin America. In the educational policies field he studies decentralization processes in a comparative lens and its impact on equity; and the impact of school organization on learning. He received his Master of Arts from the Alberto Hurtado University (Chile), Magna Cum Laude, in Education Policy, in 2005. He is the author of Las claves territoriales de la fractura social urbana: Inseguridad y segregación en Montevideo (UCU, 2005) and co-author of Las reformas educacionales en Chile y Uruguay: descentralización orientada al mercado versus centralismo estatista (CIDOB Foundation, 2004); Tendencias de aprendizaje y paradojas descentralizadoras en los sistemas educativos de América Latina (Forthcoming in Konrad Adhenauer Foundation) and Los límites de la promesa educativa en América Latina (Forthcoming in CIDOB Foundation). Xavier Bonal is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Director of the Social Policy Research Group (Seminari d’Anàlisi de Polítiques Socials, SAPS) at the Department of Sociology of the same institution. He has been visiting scholar at several international academic institutions and has published extensively on educational policy and sociology of education. Tim Brighouse is presently Chief Adviser for London Schools and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London. Until September, 2002 he was Chief Education Officer in Birmingham for nearly 10 years. Earlier he was Professor of Education at Keele University (1989–1993), Chief Education Officer of Oxfordshire (1978–1989) and Deputy Education Officer in the Inner London Education Authority. He was brought up in East Anglia, attended state schools and read history at Oxford University before embarking on a career in education and teaching in grammar and secondary modern schools. He entered the world of educational administration in what was Monmouthshire and served in Buckinghamshire and with the Association of County Councils. Tim has written extensively especially on school improvement and has a number of books and articles to his name. He is author of What makes a Good School and How to Improve Your School and has contributed articles to the Political Quarterly and the Oxford Review of Education. He has also broadcast on radio and television and has spoken at many national and international conferences. Tim has received honorary doctorates from The Open University, University of Central England, Oxford Brookes University, Exeter University, Warwick University, Birmingham University, University of the West of England and Sheffield Hallam University. Tanya A. Brown is a Doctoral Candidate at Duquesne University, pursuing a degree in Psychology, Clinical Concentration. She is a first-generation Canadian, and of Jamaican
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descent. Tanya moved to the United States in 1999 to pursue her post-secondary studies. Her research interests explore power dynamics within social groups, agency, and civic efforts toward social change. Currently she is working on an ethnographic evaluation of a community initiative. Her evaluation interests include qualitative methods, collaborative and participatory evaluation, and critical theories in the human sciences. She presented recent work on an evaluation of the community initiative at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the 26th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum, at the University of Pennsylvania. Sa’eda Buang is a Lecturer at the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the same university in the field of Madrasah Education, she has presented papers relating to madrasah and Islamic education at local and international seminars. She has been interested in the Development of Madrasah Education by organizing training workshops for madrasah teachers since the 1990s and was involved in the Madrasah Education Training Needs Analysis Project conducted by Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, October 2003–April 2004. Thabisile Buthelezi is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises postgraduate students. She is a qualified teacher; adult basic education and training (ABET) practitioner, nurse and midwife. She has worked and published in the areas of language and gender in education, education management development, life skills, HIV and AIDS in education, curriculum, transformation and gender equity in education. She has worked as a Nurse, Teacher, Programme Director (2004) for the Bachelor of Education, lecturer and regional coordinator of education management and development. Glória Calvo received her BA in Philosophy and Psychology from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She is a Researcher at the National Pedagogical University, in Colombia, and the Coordinator of the Latin American Network of Information and Documentation in Education (REDUC-Colombia). She is also the Coordinator of the Democratic Culture in the Scholastic Institution Research Group, recognized by the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and the Technology “Francisco Jose de Caldas” – COLCIENCIAS. She is author of several books and papers on the field of education and pedagogy from a qualitative perspective. Her more recent book, The Improved Classroom, analyzes the practices from classroom in the processes of educative reform in Colombia framework. Presently, she is the editor of the Colombian Journal of Education, with 50 issues already published. Melvin Chan is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, NIE. He is currently involved in the Longitudinal Life Pathways study. He holds a Masters degree in Population Studies from the Department of Demography at ANU, where he examined a range of global demographic issues/trends, for example, population changes, family norms/systems, impact of globalization and international migration on education and labor force patterns. Prior to this, Melvin was a Policy and
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Research Analyst at the Ministry of Community Development and Sports. His role as a Policy and Research Analyst involved overseeing various research projects on pertinent social issues in Singapore, analyzing survey and administrative data, and producing research/policy papers to support the Ministry’s policy/decision-making. Karen Dooley teaches Language and Literacy in the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology. She is currently working on a three-year project investigating African refugees’ construction of literate identities in an on-line multimedia environment while attending an intensive language school, and during transition to other school and community settings. Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho is an Adjunct Professor of History of Education at School of Education, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He received his Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo in 1996. His research and writing have focused on the history of schooling and its culture in Brazil (from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of twentieth century) and on historiography of education, as a result of a History of Education Program that he runs at GEPHE (Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisas em História da Educação/History Education Research Group) with the support of CNPq and FAPEMIG Agencies. He is the 2003–2007 Vice-President of Brazilian History of Education Association (SBHE). He is author of República, Trabalho e Educação (Republic, Work and Education, São Francisco, 2000) and co-author of As Lentes da História (The History Lens, Autores Associados, 2005). Joseph Flessa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, of the University of Toronto. As a graduate student he helped to establish U. C. Berkeley’s innovative urban-focused Principal Leadership Institute. Before graduate school he taught sixth grade in Houston, Texas, and taught fifth grade and served as principal of a school in Pachuca, Mexico. Leisha Fullick is Pro-Director (London) at the Institute of Education, University of London. She coordinates the Institute’s strategy for London, and works closely on issues to do with the London Challenge. Leisha has over 30 years experience of working in urban education. She started her professional life as a community education worker working in Hackney and Islington on informal community based learning programs. She was an Inspector for Further and Higher Education with the former Inner London Education Authority, she was Director of Education for the London Borough of Lewisham from 1989 to 1996 and Chief Executive of Islington from 1996 to 2003. She was a founding member of the UK Learning and Skills Council. She is a former Vice President of the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education and a long standing member of its Board. She chairs of the Waltham Forest Strategic Education Partnership Board in London. David Gillborn is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is best known for his research on race and racism in education, which includes qualitative studies of school processes and analyses of policy impacts over time. David’s previous publications include Racism and Anti-Racism in Real Schools
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and Rationing Education (with Youdell) which was awarded “best book in the field of educational studies” by the Standing Conference on Studies in Education (SCSE)/Society for Educational Studies (SES). He is also founding editor of the international journal Race, Ethnicity and Education. David is active in anti-racist politics and his current research focuses on the application of critical race theory in the UK. Francesca Gobbo is Professor of Intercultural Education at the University of Turin (Italy), where she teaches Anthropology of Education. She studies and teaches contemporary educational issues from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective that combines educational theory with methodological and theoretical approaches from the fields of cultural anthropology and anthropology of education. She coordinates research on Italian schools attended by immigrant pupils, and has carried out ethnographic research among her country’s “internal minorities” such as the Albanian speaking minority of Calabria, the Waldensian religious minority in Piedmont and the occupational minority of traveling fairground and circus people. She is a member of the International Association for Intercultural Education and European Education Research Association, currently Associate Editor of Intercultural Education, and also on the editorial boards of the European Educational Research Journal, Ethnography and Education, and International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning. Tuula Gordon is Associate Professor (Docent) and Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Her research interests include education; young people’s transitions, citizenship and nationality; constructions of gender and methodology (such as ethnography and life history approaches). She has published in all these areas – for example Making Spaces: Citizenship and Difference in Schools (Macmillan 2000, with Holland & Lahelma) and Democratic Education: Ethnographic Challenges (Tufnell Press 2003, edited with Beach & Lahelma). Gerald Grace established the MA Program in Urban Education (with special reference to the inner city) at King’s College London in 1976. This was the first advanced program in Urban Education in the UK. His research study Teachers, Ideology and Control: A Study in Urban Education was published in 1978 and in 1984 he edited an influential collection of essays on Urban Education under the title, Education and the City: Theory, History and Contemporary Practice. Gerald Grace is currently an Editor (with Meg Maguire and Ian Menter) of the new series of texts, Education in an Urbanised Society, being published by Open University Press/McGraw Hill Education. After holding academic appointments in London, Cambridge, Wellington, New Zealand and Durham, Gerald Grace is currently Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he heads the Centre for Research and Development in Catholic Education. His latest book, Catholic Schools: Mission, Markets and Morality (2002) examines the role of Catholic secondary schools in the inner cities of London, Liverpool and Birmingham. Jennifer C. Greene is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches and conducts research in program evaluation. Her scholarship has focused on qualitative, democratic, and mixed-methods approaches to evaluation, and her practice on educational programs and community-based programs
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for families and youth. Greene has served as co-editor-in-chief of New Directions for Evaluation and is currently a member of the American Evaluation Association Board. Her work has been published in both domestic and international evaluation journals, and she has had the privilege of speaking at evaluation forums in many parts of the world. In 2003, Greene received AEA’s Lazarsfeld Award for significant contributions to evaluation theory. David Hogan is Professor and Acting Dean at CRPP, where he also served as Vice Dean (Research Methodology). Prior to that, he was Professor of Education at the University of Tasmania, and before that, an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Hogan has written extensively about the history of education in the US and won a series of awards for his work, including the American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award (1986), the Henry Barnard Prize, the History of Education Society Award, a Spencer Fellowship and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship. Rodney K. Hopson is Hillman Distinguished Professor, Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics, Ethnography, and Evaluation, and Chair, Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership, Duquesne University. Hopson has undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature, Educational Evaluation, and Linguistics from the University of Virginia, and has postdoctoral and visiting research and teaching experiences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health, the University of Namibia, and Cambridge University. His recent manuscripts related to evaluation extend the ways in which the larger field, profession, and major professional organization come to terms with research on, issues about, and interests that impact people (and scholars) of color and traditionally underserved communities. His work emphasizes the need for evaluators to have a new set of skills, frameworks, and ethical considerations around culture, diversity, and social justice in evaluation. Margaret Hunter is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mills College. Her research interests are in pedagogy, racial inequality, and women of color in the United States. Hunter is best known for her work on skin tone stratification in the African American and Mexican American communities. She has published articles in journals such as Teaching Sociology, Gender & Society, Race and Society, and Sociological Inquiry. She is also the author of Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone (Routledge). María De Ibarrola is a Full Professor (Cinvestav 3-E) at the Department of Educational Research of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (DIE CINVESTAV IPN) Mexico, since 1977. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Research from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies, Mexico, in 1990. She has published many works mainly on technical education and its relationship to work and employment. She is author of 75 articles and book chapters and 12 books. Most recent publications include Paradojas recientes de la educación frente al trabajo y la inserción social. (Recent Education Paradoxes facing the work and the social insertion – IIPE/ redEtis/ides, Buenos Aires, 2004 – Tendencias y debates) and Escuela, capacitación y aprendizaje. La formación para el trabajo en una ciudad en transición (School,
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preparation and learning. Education to working in a city in transition, by Cinterfor/ OIT, Mexico, 2004). Carl James is in the Faculty of Education at York University where he teaches courses in Urban Education, Adolescence, Foundations of Education. His research and publications explore issues of equity in relation to race, ethnicity, class, gender and immigrant status, as well as the ways in which youth use sports to negotiate and navigate schooling. A former youth worker, James holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, and is a visiting lecturer in the Teacher Training Department at Uppsala University, Sweden. Martin Johnson was a Secondary Teacher for over 30 years, specializing in Social Studies and pupils with challenging behavior in schools and units in Merseyside, Yorkshire, and mostly inner London. This experience was distilled in his book Failing School, Failing City (1999). He was also a trade union activist, and became President of NASUWT in 2000. Martin then joined the think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), where he monitored schools policy and researched the future of the teaching profession, funding, admissions, schooling in London, school-business links, personalization, and staffing schools in challenging circumstances. In January 2005 Martin joined the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, The Education Union as Head of Education Policy and Research. At ATL Martin is supporting work on new curriculum and assessment models. He is also involved with ATL’s work on school workforce issues as a social partner with the Government, particularly new models of teacher professionalism. Trivina Kang is an Assistant Professor in the Policy and Management Studies Academic Group and is presently seconded to the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP). She joined NIE in July 2001 after obtaining her Ph.D. from New York University (NYU), where she was also involved in teaching undergraduate level Sociology. Trivina has experience in the area of political and economic research in the Ministry of Defence, and also in short-term teaching in primary and secondary schools in Singapore. She is currently involved in pre-service programs like the Post-Graduate Diploma in Education and BA/BSc, as well in in-service programs like the Diploma in Departmental Management (DDM). In CRPP, she contributes in the qualitative and quantitative study of longitudinal pathways of students in Singapore and institutional effects. Cushla Kapitzke teaches in the Faculty of Education at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her publications include Literacy and Religion (Benjamins) and two edited volumes, Difference and Dispersion: Educational Research in a Postmodern Context (PostPressed) and Libr@ries: Changing Information Space and Practice (Erlbaum). She is currently editing a special issue of Policy Futures in Education on intellectual properties and education. Jenni Karlsson joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2005. She has a professional background in education and librarianship and since 1994 has been involved in researching education policy in the schooling sector. In 2003, she received a doctorate from the University of London for her visual study of apartheid and post-apartheid discourses in
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school space. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal she is engaged in teaching research students. Her own current research concerns city-school spatial relations in eThekwini, with a focus on transport arrangements, through a range of visual method lenses. Diane Ketelle is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Mills College. Diane began her career as a first grade teacher and went on become an elementary school principal and a district superintendent. While working in the field she won numerous awards including two California Distinguished School awards while she was a principal, as well as a California Distinguished Principal award before she was named Superintendent/Principal of the Year for the State of California. She currently directs the administrative credential program at Mills College. Lisa Konczal is currently an Assistant Professor at Barry University in Miami, Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Florida International University in 2001, after years of research on Cuban and Nicaraguan Immigrants in South Florida. After graduating, Dr. Konczal worked with Princeton University’s Center for Migration and Development on the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), which has been tracking a panel of thousands of immigrants since 1995. Her current research project is a study of educational aspirations and achievement among Middle-Eastern American immigrants. Her most recent publication is Murdering the Alphabet: Identity and Entrepreneurship among Second Generation Cubans, West Indians, and Central Americans with Patricia Fernandez-Kelly in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2005. Wilfried Kossen studied Sociology, Economic and Social Psychology and Educational Science with a focus on Qualitative Research Methods in Social and Educational Fields and on Pedagogical and Psychological Methods of Counseling, at the University of Goettingen, Germany. He has been a research fellow and a member of the Graduate Research Group on Educational Experience and Learner Development at the Faculty of Educational Science at the University of Hamburg since 2002. This research group focuses on the learner’s role in learning processes. He has also worked on class development and professional development of teachers and is in the process of completing his dissertation on classroom interaction and the opportunities it provides for learning. Yvonne Leeman is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the SCO-KohnstammInstituut and the Department of Education of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She combines this with a professorship in the School of Education at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. Her fields of interest include diversity in education, social justice and intercultural education, and teachers’ professionalism and teacher education. She published books, book chapters and refereed journal articles in these areas in the Dutch, German and English language. Zeus Leonardo is Visiting Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at University of California, Berkeley. Leonardo has published several dozen articles and book chapters on critical and educational theory. He is the author of Ideology, Discourse, and School Reform (2003, Praeger) and he is editor of Critical Pedagogy and Race (2005, Blackwell), and co-editor (with Tejeda and Martinez) of Charting
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New Terrains of Chicano(a)/Latino(a) Education (2000, Hampton). His journal articles have appeared in Educational Researcher; Race Ethnicity and Education; and Educational Philosophy and Theory. Carmen Luke is Professor at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. Her current research areas are literacy and new media, globalization and higher education. Her work has been published in Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Educational Theory and her latest book is Globalization and Women in Academia (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001). James H. Lytle (Torch) is Practice Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. He came to the University from the superintendency of the Trenton Public Schools where he led an aggressive effort to implement New Jersey’s urban education reform initiative. Prior to his appointment in Trenton in August, 1998, he served in a variety of capacities in the School District of Philadelphia as an elementary, middle, and high school principal; executive director for planning, research and evaluation; regional superintendent; and assistant superintendent. Dr. Lytle has been active in a number of national professional organizations, including the Council of Great City Schools, the Cross Cities Campaign, and the American Educational Research Association. He has written and presented frequently on matters relating to the improvement of urban schooling. His research interests relate to increasing the efficacy of urban public schools and leading school change efforts. Dr. Lytle received his doctorate in education from Stanford, a master’s degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. Barbara MacGilchrist is an Experienced Practitioner and Researcher. She was a teacher, headteacher, and LEA Inspector and Chief Inspector in the Inner London Education Authority for 23 years. Since joining the Institute of Education, University of London, she has been Head of In-service Education, Dean of Initial Teacher Education and is currently, Deputy Director. She is an Associate Director of the Institute’s International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre. In that capacity she has engaged in a wide variety of school improvement research and development projects and been an advisor to the government. She is the co-author of a number of successful books, in particular, Planning Matters, (Paul Chapman Publishing, 1995), The Intelligent School (Paul Chapman Publishing/Sage Publications, 1997, 2004) and Transforming Learning and Teaching: We can if … (Sage Publications, 2005). In 2003 she was awarded an OBE for her services to “the education and professional development of teachers.” Kinuthia Macharia is a Professor of Sociology at American University in Washington, DC. He has received degrees from the University of Nairobi (BA) and the University of California, Berkeley (M.A. and Ph.D.). His research on urban problems and development in Africa has been published in a variety of journals. He just recently (March 2006) published his second book, The Social Context of the Mau Mau Movement in
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Kenya (1952–1960). Dr. Macharia has served as a consultant with UNDP, Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Government of Kenya, and the Population Council. Samson MacJessie-Mbewe is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Policy and Leadership, and Sociology of Education in the University of Malawi, Chancellor College. He is also head of the Educational Foundations Department. He obtained a doctorate degree (Ed.D.) from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters (MA Sociology and Education) degree from Columbia University, USA. He has published articles in education and gender, education and democracy, educational policy, and rural education. He is also interested in HIV/AIDS and social development. Grace C. L. Mak is a Principal Lecturer at the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She holds a doctorate in comparative education and sociology of education. Her work covers teaching, research, teacher education program management and consultancy on development projects in Asia. She has published on women’s education, basic education, and teacher education in Hong Kong and China. She edited Women, Education and Development in Asia (1997) and co-edited Higher Education in Asia (1998) (with Postiglione). Gary McCulloch is Brian Simon Professor of the History of Education and Dean of Research and Consultancy at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is currently the President of the History of Education Society in Great Britain. He is a former Editor of the international journal History of Education. His publications include Cyril Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education (Palgrave Macmillan), The Routledge Falmer Reader in the History of Education (Routledge Falmer), Documentary Research in Education, History and the Social Sciences (Routledge Falmer), Historical Research in Educational Settings (with Richardson, Open University Press), and Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working Class Secondary Education (Open University Press). He is currently completing (with David Crook) an International Encyclopedia of Education (Routledge). Ka Ho Mok is Chair Professor in East Asian Studies and Director of Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol. Before he joined the University of Bristol, he was Associate Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Convenor, Comparative Education Policy Research Unit, City University of Hong Kong. He has been researching on comparative education policy, with particular reference to development and education governance change in East Asia. His most recent books are Education Reform and Education Policy in East Asia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006 in print), Globalization and Marketization: A Comparative Analysis of Hong Kong and Singapore (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2004); Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia and Pacific Region (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and Centralization and Decentralization: Educational Reforms and Changing Governance in Chinese Societies (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003). Douglas Mpondi is an Instructor in the African Studies Program at Ohio University. He has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and an M.A. in African Studies from Ohio University, an M.A. in African languages and literature from the University of Zimbabwe. Douglas
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has taught African literatures and cultures at the University of Zimbabwe for five years. His teaching and research interests include international and comparative education; African literatures, languages, and cultures; the intersection of postcolonial and cultural studies; globalization, politics, culture and development in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. Douglas contributed a chapter on culture and development in Zimbabwe in an edited text. Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo received a Magister in Sociology at the Catholic University of Chile. His areas of research are public management and modernization of the state and educational policies. He worked in Asesorias para el Desarrollo, a Chilean research and consultant office. Presently he is Vice-coordinator of primary education at the Chilean Ministry of Education. He teaches sociology at the University Diego Portales in Santiago. He is co-author of Escuelas Efectivas en Areas de pobreza ¿Quien Dijo que no se puede? [Effective Schools on Poverty Areas: Who said it is not possible?] (UNICEF-Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2004) and Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile [School Effectiveness and Educational Improvement in Poverty Areas in Chile] (Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2005). Dorothy Nampota is a Lecturer in Science Education in the University of Malawi, Chancellor College. She is also head of the Curriculum and Teaching Studies Department. She obtained a doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in science education from the University of Bath and a Masters degree in the same area from University of London, Kings College, in the UK. She has published articles relating to the science curriculum and gender and science education. She is also interested in linking school science with local science, transition issues between school and university and HIV/AIDS for the socio-economic development of her country. Na’ilah Suad Nasir is an Assistant Professor at the Stanford University in the School of Education, where she has been since 2000. She has a Bachelors degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on issues of culture, development, and learning and teaching and learning in cultural and community practices outside of school. She has published in a wide range of professional journals including Educational Researcher, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, and the Harvard Educational Review. Abou Karim Ndoye is an Educational Theorist who has elaborated methodological tools for qualitative and quantitative data collection, for the management and evaluation of projects of education and control of schools. He has published more than twenty articles on distance learning, the Senegalese education system with its actors and means and methods, and issues of evaluation practices and internal and external efficiency. Dr. Ndoye is the Director of the Tuition and Reform Program at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar. In addition, he teaches courses in the theory of education, psycho-pedagogy, and evaluation of training programs and projects for institutions. Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah is originally from Ghana, West Africa. He completed his Doctoral Studies in Education, June 1995 at Ohio University, Athens, OH. He taught
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at the University of the Cumberlands (formerly Cumberland College) before moving to Capital University in Columbus, OH, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Education. Dr. Ofori-Attah is a Research Fellow for the African Educational Research Network (www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/aern/index.html), as well as the founder of the African Symposium, an online journal of the African Educational Research Network (www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/aern/afrisymp.html). He is a frequent reviewer of articles on Africa for a variety of organizations, individuals, and institutions. Valerie Ooka Pang is a Professor in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. She has published several books such as Multicultural Education: A Caring-Centered, Reflective Approach (2nd ed., 2005). In addition Pang has published in various journals including Harvard Educational Review, The Kappan, The Journal of Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, and Social Education. Pang has consulted with organizations such as Sesame Street, Family Communications (Producers of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood), and ScottForesman. Pang was a senior Fellow at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and honored by organizations such AERA, San Diego State, and the University of Washington’s College of Education. Tryphenia Peele-Eady is Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. She was Associate Editor for Features in Educational Researcher and a former elementary language arts and social studies teacher. She completed her undergraduate studies in education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Claremont Graduate University, of the Claremont Colleges. Her research interests include anthropology, qualitative and ethnographic research methods, and sociolinguistics. Her work focuses on issues related to the education and schooling of African American children. Alicia Peñalva is Assistant Lecturer in education the Department of Psychology and Pedagogics, University of Navarra (Spain). His main fields of work include Curriculum Studies, and gender and multicultural perspectives in education. He has presented a number of papers at national and international conferences, and published several articles in recognized journals. He has contributed to the publication of three books: Modern Society and Multicultural Challenges; Education and Cultural Diversity; and Proposals for School Guidance and Tutorials. Priscilla Puamau is currently an Education Adviser on the Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Development of basic Education (PRIDE) Project at the University of the South Pacific based in Fiji. She has worked for close to 24 years in the field of education in various capacities: secondary school teacher, teacher educator, and Principal. She is also the President of the Pacific Association of Teacher Educators (PATE). Her current research includes the reconceptualization of education reform in the Pacific and the impact of foreign aid on this process. Dagmar Raczynski, Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, is Director of Asesorías para el Desarrollo, a Chilean research and consultant office, and Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University in Santigo. She also lectures at a
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Master Program in Public Management and Policies at the University of Chile. She is author of books and articles on issues of social policies, inequality, poverty, decentralization and local government. In the last years she has done research and consultancy on educational policies. In this subject she is co-author of Escuelas Efectivas en Areas de pobreza ¿Quien Dijo que no se puede? [Effective Schools on Poverty Areas: Who said it is not possible?] (UNICEF-Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2004) and Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile [School Effectiveness and Educational Improvement in Poverty Areas in Chile] (Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2005). Xavier Rambla holds degrees in History and Sociology and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He has been a lecturer at University of Vic (1995–2001) and a researcher at the Critical Coeducation Program of the UAB Institute of Education (1994–2000). Since 2001 he has been Associate Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research is concerned with education policy, gender and education, and social and educational inequalities. He is a researcher at the Seminar for the Analysis of Social Policy (Department of Sociology, UAB, http://selene.uab.es/_cs_gr_saps). Anita Rampal is Professor of Elementary and Social Education at the Department of Education, Delhi University, Delhi, and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Originally trained as a Physicist, her involvement in the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program for rural schools inspired her move to elementary education, with a focus on curriculum development and pedagogy. Her special interests include cognition and the language of science, everyday mathematics and adult numeracy, policy frameworks for equity in education, assessment of children’s learning, and science-technology-society education. She has been a member of the People’s Science Movement, was involved in the national literacy campaigns, and helped set up the National Literacy Resource Center. Her recent work includes the co-authored Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE, OUP 1999), Numeracy Counts! (1998), books in Hindi, research papers and reports, and also films documenting people’s participation in the literacy programs. Richard Riddell is a Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Education, University of the West of England at Bristol. His research interest in urban schooling arose from his long professional experience as a teacher and local authority officer, including nearly seven years as an urban Director of Education. His first book, Schools for Our Cities, was published in 2003 by Trentham Books. He is currently researching the development of social capital for working class students which may have an impact on educational attainment and occupational betterment. This is being undertaken with the support of a research grant from the British Academy. Etelvina Sandoval is Ph.D. in Pedagogy and a Professor at the National University of Pedagogy (Mexico). She was the 2001–2005 Director of Normal Education and Teaching Improvement in Mexico City. With more than 20 years in educational research, she has carried out research in a ethnographic perspective into teaching practices in primary schools, the feminine condition in teaching, school management at a secondary level
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and the training of teachers at a basic education level, among other themes. She is the author of several articles published in books and research journals. Among her publications are the books La trama de la escuela secundaria: institución, relaciones y sabere [The Plot of Secondary School: Institution, relaships and knowledges] which has been used for the teacher’s education in secondary-school. She is a founding member of the Mexican Council of Educational Research. Roger Saul is a Doctoral Candidate in the Faculty of Education at York University. A certified high school and middle school teacher, his interests include the schooling experiences and media representation of student athletes, and the role of race and gender in the schooling experiences of “at risk” males. His most recent publication is How Black Male Student Athletes Get Stereotyped in Canadian Schools in Our Schools, Our Selves (2006), 15, p. 2. Susanne Schech is Associate Professor in Geography and the Director of the Centre for Development Studies at Flinders University in South Australia. She co-authored Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction (Blackwell, 2000) and Development: A Cultural Studies Reader (Blackwell, 2002), and has written articles and book chapters on race and migration and on ICTs and development. Ove Sernhede is Professor in Social Work and the head of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Goteborg, Sweden. He has mainly been involved in research on different aspects of youth culture and music, Afro-American culture, psychoanalysis and social pedagogies, all of which are explored within a frame of Late Modernity. His most recent research involves youth, culture and patterns of segregation and social exclusion in contemporary Sweden, and draws on urban studies, international research on modern forms of poverty and cultural globalization. He is the author of several books and articles. His latest study is AlieNation is My Nation (Stockholm: Ordfront 2003). Books in English include In Garageland: Youth, Rock and Modernity (London: Routledge 1995, with Fornös & Lindberg), and Lifestyle, Desire and Politics (Daidalos, 2002, with Johansson). The forthcoming Youth and the Plural City: Social Life and Modes of Belonging (Goteborg: Daidalos, 2005, is an outcome of collaboration with Mette Andersson and Yngve Lithman from the University in Bergen, Norway). Denise Trento Rebello de Souza is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education – University of São Paulo, where she works since 1989. She received her Ph.D. in Education in 2001 from the Institute of Education – University of London. Her research and writing has focused on the field of Educational Psychology, particularly on the processes and practices developed in the school everyday life that are related to the difficulties in the processes of schooling of students from the popular classes, including the analyses of educational programs devised to deal with the so called school failure. Her current area of interest involves the issue of teacher professional development within the context of the new technologies. Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza holds a Ph.D. degree in Psychology. She works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology of Learning, Development
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and Personality of the Institute of Psychology – University of São Paulo, where she teaches in graduate and undergraduate courses. She also coordinates the Laboratory of School Psychology. Her area of research is School Psychology and Educational Psychology in which she has authored and co-authored several books and journal articles including Psicologia Escolar: em busca de novos rumos (Casa do Psicólogo, 4th ed. 2004); Psicologia e Educação: desafios teórico-práticos (Casa do Psicólogo, 2nd ed. 2002) and Psicologia e Educação na Amazônia: pesquisa e realidade brasileira (Casa do Psicólogo, 2002). Sandra Zákia Sousa received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Sao Paulo, in 1994; the Master Degree in Education (Supervision and Curriculum) from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, 1986; and the Bachelor Degree in Education from the Mackenzie University, 1975. Since 1991 she has been an Assistant Professor at the School of Education, University of Sao Paulo. In the Graduate Course of Education she concentrates her works on the area of “Government, Society and Education”. From 1982 to 1991 she was a Technical Adviser for the Foundation for Student Assistance at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. From 1971 to 1981 she was faculty member of Mackenzie University and other educational institutions. Currently she is and adviser for educational projects, particularly in the field of educational assessment. She has focused her studies in this latter field and the results have been reported in several publications and events. She is the vice-president 2006–2008 of ANPEd (National Association for Education and Research). [email protected] Bob Teasdale is the Director of the PRIDE Project at the University of the South Pacific (USP), having worked on projects in the Pacific region for over 25 years. Bob is from Adelaide, South Australia, where he taught at Flinders University and was active in research and consultancy in the fields of indigenous, cross-cultural, comparative and international education, and in values education. From 1997 to 2003 he was Director of the Flinders University Institute of International Education. Guillermina Tiramonti hold her undergraduate course in Political Science at the Universidad del Salvador and received her M.A. on Education at Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Since the year 2000 she is the Director of FLACSO Argentina. She is also Professor and Academic Coordinator of the “Master in Social Sciences and Education” at FLACSO and Professor of Educational Policies and Member of the Academic Board at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. She has worked as consultant for numerous national and international organisms (Latin American States Organization –OEI-, ECLAC, National Agency for Public Administration – INAP-, and World Bank). She has written four books, edited other four and is author of several articles on education and education policies published in Argentina and abroad. Her last publication as editor is La trama de la desigualdad educativa. Mutaciones recientes en la escuela media, Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2004 (The plot of the educational inequality. Recent mutations in middle school). Lyn Tett is Professor of Community Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests are the factors such as class, gender, “race” that prevent people from participating in education and the action that can be
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taken to develop more inclusive institutions. She and her research team have been investigating the role of multi-agency educational partnerships in promoting social inclusion since 1998. Her latest books are Adult Literacy, Numeracy and Language: Policy, Practice and Research (Open University Press) edited with Mary Hamilton and Yvonne Hillier and Community Education, Lifelong Learning and Social Inclusion (Dunedin Academic Press). Pat Thomson is Professor of Education and Director of Research in the School of Education at The University of Nottingham and an Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia. She worked for 25 years in community schools in neighborhoods made poor, 20 of them as deputy principal and principal. She was also a senior public servant in the state education system responsible for policy and planning. Her research interests centre on questions of power, place, pedagogy and identity and current research projects focus on the creative arts, inclusion and school change and on provisions for students excluded from school. Her publications include Schooling the Rustbelt Kids: Making the Difference in Changing Times (Allen and Unwin, Australia; Trentham, UK, 2002) and with Barbara Kamler, Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies for Supervision (Routledge, 2006). Agnès van Zanten is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. She works at the Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, a research centre of Sciences-Po Paris. She is also the director of RAPPE (Réseau d’Analyse Pluridisciplinaire des Politiques Educatives), an international network on educational policy. Her main research areas are the reproduction and transformation of social advantage in education, elite education, the organizational and professional dynamics of schools and local public action in education. She is also interested in qualitative research methods and international comparisons. She has published several books and many articles on the sociology of education and on her topics of interest. Her most recent publications include, L’école de la périphérie. Scolarité et ségrégation en banlieue (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), Les politiques d’éducation (Paris, PUF, 2004) and Sociologie de l’école with M. Duru-Bellat (Paris, Armand Colin, 3rd ed., 2006). Diana Gonçalves Vidal is an Associate Professor of History of Education at School of Education, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, where she received her Ph.D. Her research and writing have focused on the history of schooling and its culture in Brazil (from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of twentieth century), and also on historiography of education. She runs her projects at NIEPHE (Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Estudos e Pesquisas em História da Educação/Interdisciplinary Group of Studies and Research in History of Education) with the support of CNPq Agency. Presently, she is the 2003–2007 elected President of SBHE (Brazilian History of Education Association). She is author of Cultura Escolar (School Culture, Autores Associados, 2005) and co-author of As Lentes da História (The History Lens, Autores Associados, 2005). Trinidad Molina Villegas is a Doctoral Student at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, pursuing a degree in Educational Policy Studies. She is a first-generation immigrant-college student from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Although part of her
Biographical Statements
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childhood was spent in Mexico, she was also raised in San Jose, California, where she attended high school and community college. She went on to transfer to the University of California, Irvine, where she completed her B.A. in Sociology, and minored in Chicano/ Latino Studies, and Spanish. Some of her research interests include the educational experiences of undocumented immigrant students in the U.S., issues of race, language and culture in evaluation, and Latina/os in higher education (access, retention, persistence and degree completion). Philip Woods is Professor of Leadership and Educational Management, in the School of Education, University of Aberdeen. He has written and researched extensively on educational policy, leadership and governance, as well as exploring issues of creative social action and governance in sociological theory. Current research interests include democracy and educational leadership, related forms of leadership (such as distributed and collegial leadership), diversity and collaboration amongst schools, alternative forms of education, and entrepreneurialism and public values in the drive to modernize educational organizations and their leadership. He is the author of Democratic Leadership in Education, published in 2005. Rui Yang is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He received his undergraduate education in English and Masters and Doctoral education in Comparative Education. He has taught and researched at Shantou and Hong Kong Universities in China and Sydney, Western Australia and Monash Universities in Australia. Benjamin Zufiaurre is Professor of Education and Head of Department for Psychology and Pedagogics at the Public University of Navarra (Spain). His main fields of interest include Curriculum Studies, Teacher Professionalism, Educational Evaluation, Gender and Multicultural Educational Perspectives, and Social and Professional Development. He has published more than 50 articles in journals, both in Spanish and in English, and also books on the following topics: educational reform in Spain (1982–1994); comprehensive school, professional development and social justice; didactics of women teachers; educational evaluation and school participation; democratic evaluation and cooperative school projects; infant school teaching as a job for women; infant school women teachers: who they are?; how can we change education without taking account of teachers: reflections on 35 years of Change in Spain 1970–2005; modern society and multicultural challenges; and education and cultural diversity.
SUBJECT INDEX
1998 Integrated Household Survey 116 A Nation at Risk 309, 330, 861, 862 Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act 163 Aboriginal students 251 Accountability 251 Achievement gap 361, 773, 797, 806, 884, 933, 934, 1109, 1115, 1169, 1171 Adult schools 52 Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program 887, 889 Affirmative action 222, 256, 518, 693, 698, 699, 700, 782, 811 Affirmative Action Agency 259 Affirmative action legislation 253 African National Congress 104 Afrol News 117, 125 Agency 53, 214, 260, 262, 357, 360, 363, 370, 374, 375, 389, 392, 407, 447, 450, 453, 459, 487, 490, 500, 623, 670, 682, 788, 852, 853, 855, 875, 877, 916, 934, 935, 938, 939, 940, 965, 968, 973, 1010, 1017, 1033, 1045, 1055, 1059, 1062, 1063, 1068, 1072n.2, 1114, 1133, 1135, 1136, 1164, 1213, 1226 Agency, human 373 Agency, social 373, 374, 375 Algebra Project 888–891, 892, 898 Allocation system 688, 689 Anti-child culture phenomenon 148, 152–153 Anti-racism 253, 261, 404, 811, 979, 990, 996–997, 1002n.13 Antiracist education 381, 403, 811 Anti-racist education 964, 996, 975n.9, 1000
Anti-semitism 403, 788 Apartheid 6, 7, 92, 94, 96, 100, 102, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 162, 179n.3, 779, 798 Apartheid, post- 6, 7, 8, 91, 94, 103–110, 111, 112 Apartheid city 96–97, 101, 102, 103–110, 111 Argentina 563, 575, 576, 747, 748, 749 Arts-based methodologies 148, 155, 156 Asian Development Bank 330 Assessments 376, 575, 578n.10, 615, 627, 790, 875, 1052 Assimilation 54, 252, 259, 427n.6, 527, 790, 829, 833, 949 Association for the Development of Education in Africa 20nn.12, 23 At risk, schools 4, 92, 189, 818, 1020, 1053, 1055 At risk, students 189, 199, 215, 224, 226, 391, 484, 497, 540, 550, 891, 981, 1145, 1146 Atlas Linguistique de l’Afrique Centrale (ALAC) 53 Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun (ALCAM) 53 Attractionist 408, 485, 481, 482, 483, 480–500, 500nn.1, 7, 14, 15, 17 Australian Ethnic Affairs Council 254 Australian Youth Surveys (AYS) 361 Autonomies 505, 507, 515, 517, 518 Autonomous, communities 418, 420, 421, 27nn.2, 3, 428n.6, 508, 514 Autonomous, governments 408, 505–517
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1230
Subject Index
Basel Missionaries 28 Bilingualism 61, 63, 64, 66–69, 95, 267, 783, 791 Bilinguals 51, 61, 62, 63, 371, 383, 388, 437, 455, 717, 718, 829, 834, 918 Bilinguals, true 61 Blackies 468, 477 Black/white gap 985, 986, 987, 1166 Blantyre 115, 126 Boarding schools 40–44, 45, 52, 95, 321 Brazil 572–573, 581, 601, 619 Brazilian Law for Education Guidelines and Norms, the 602 Brazilian Ministry of Education 606 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS) 361, 363 British colonial government 26, 31 British Department for International Development 214 British Secretary of Finance 215 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development 148, 152 Brown v. Board of Education 794, 860, 866, 877, 1200 Capital 3, 7, 9, 10, 58 Capital, cultural 7, 79, 118–119, 122, 123 Capital, human 9, 20n.16, 28, 31, 225 Capital, social 79, 195 Catchment areas 433, 517, 518, 1204 Central Bureau of Statistics (Kenya) 142n.1 Central Province 7, 66, 130, 132, 134, 208 Centralization of the government 61 CEPAL 568, 577n.9, 578nn.10, 14, 665, 666, 690 Change 7, 11, 12, 19nn.4, 7, 31, 66, 76, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 100, 106, 110, 121, 122, 123, 130, 131, 151, 153, 164, 177, 210, 231, 234, 252, 260, 261, 266, 269, 274, 292, 306, 311, 314, 316, 330, 344, 354, 356–357, 367, 373, 387, 390, 391, 419, 450, 516, 565, 573, 629, 653, 654, 655, 671, 696, 697, 712, 740, 753, 790, 805, 806, 809, 871, 910, 915, 935, 950, 971, 1027, 1028, 1065, 1086, 1100, 1110, 1116, 1147, 1167, 1170, 1184, 1185 Child abuse 148, 743
Child development 137, 152, 361, 713, 1020 Chile 573, 577, 641–643, 645–660 Chinese Communist Party 232 Chinese language 56, 1186 Chisomo children’s club 117 Christian missionaries 25, 323 Christian religion 28, 35, 44 Citizenship 448–449, 451–453, 459–460, 574, 583, 584, 782, 888, 969 Citizenship, political 87, 448 Citizenship, social 448 Citizenship, urban 447–460 City technology colleges (CTCs) 953, 1013 Class line 233 Classroom, instruction 53, 163, 442, 497, 554 Classroom, management 145, 100, 145, 178, 191, 280, 403, 443 Clean cities 295–297 Code mixing 63–66 Code mixing, grammatical 65–66 Code mixing, lexical 64 Code mixing, syntactic 65 Code switching 63–65 Co-essentiality 148, 153, 164 Co-existentiality 148, 153 Colombia 574, 665–667, 674, 677, 679, 681nn.3, 15, 20, 682n.22 Colonial, administrations 26, 30, 37, 40, 45, 80, 122, 130 Colonial, government 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 40, 43, 80, 82, 122, 130 Colonial, ideologies 207, 208, 268–269 Colonial, language 15, 16, 49, 50–52, 71 Colonial Merchant Society 40 Colonialism 15, 71, 87, 130, 267, 269, 283n.2, 322, 1057 Colonization 222, 269, 282, 322, 323, 751 Commission for Racial Equality 998, 999 Common Entrance Examination 62 Common Principles 232 Common Schooling 302 Communality 423, 456, 528, 529, 531, 534 Compensating policies 667, 668, 681n.13 Compensation 507, 508, 512, 518, 868, 877 Compensation, coordinated 507, 508, 512
Subject Index Compensation, intensive 507, 508, 512, 513, 519 Compensation Royal Decree, the 505 Compensatory education 406, 408, 505–519, 626–627, 1041 Competencies, basic 368, 369, 535, 574, 712 Competencies, citizens’ 43, 306, 676 Competencies, work 553, 555, 574 Complex hope 970–972, 974 Compulsory education 236, 237, 239, 245, 246nn.4, 5, 302, 339n.5, 492, 509, 511, 686, 742 Compulsory Education Act of 1870 288 Confucian societies 345, 348 Consumerism 326–367 Convention on the Rights of a Child 155 Corporal punishment 163, 177 Critical consciousness 969, 970 Critical literacy 383, 390, 391 Critical Race Theory (CRT) 811 Cultural, capital 7, 118–119, 126, 235, 426, 668, 669, 681n.11, 842, 844–846, 852, 890 Cultural, differences 252, 499, 530, 855n.9, 899n.3, 1057, 1148, 1204 Cultural, dissonance 831 Cultural, heritage 55, 67, 371, 530, 851 Cultural, relativism 255, 262 Cultural, struggle 75 Cultural Revolution 235–236, 352, 360 Culture, national 75–88, 417 Curriculum 28, 35–39, 43, 44, 84, 85, 88, 145, 151–152, 154, 162, 177, 178, 254, 281, 282, 325, 326, 327, 331, 334, 337, 338, 390, 403, 433, 609–611, 744n.3, 854, 862, 873, 876, 1012, 1153, 1177, 1180 Curriculum, literary studies 62 Curriculum reformation 321, 325, 326, 336 DDT 288 Declaration on Education For All 292 Deficit theory 886, 899n.3 De-industrialization 384, 464, 517, 1049 De-institutionalization 360, 363, 367 Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 1020, 1052, 1113
1231
Department of Education 150, 158, 163, 594, 867, 875, 876 Department of Linguistics, University of Yaounde 53 Deprivation Theories 626–627 Deprived Urban Children 285–303 DeSeCo Project 368 Desegregation 866, 877, 889 De-traditionalization 360, 363, 367, 368, 370 Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA) 913–914 Dialogue journal 156–157 Diaspora, African 19, 56 Difference 8, 28, 55, 57, 63, 88, 110, 112, 116, 133, 134, 138, 140, 155, 197, 241, 244, 245, 254, 261, 262, 263, 277, 351, 385, 387, 424, 433, 442, 451, 452, 456, 465, 497, 500, 526, 529, 530, 532, 545, 547, 562, 563, 570, 603, 613, 666, 668, 669, 670, 681n.9, 707, 727, 729, 736, 759n.3, 781, 783, 795, 806, 809, 837, 844, 846, 850–853, 871–872, 913, 930, 936, 948, 949, 981, 995, 1001n.3, 1011, 1016, 1045, 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084, 1087, 1088, 1098, 1111, 1112, 1129, 1148, 1149, 1152, 1170 Dinaledi project 151–152 Diourbel province 183 Disadvantaged Schools Program 252 Discrimination, gender 211, 351, 353 Distributive justice 3, 7, 132, 133, 535, 962 District Education Plan 126 Dominant culture 118, 425, 476 Drop-out 205, 209, 210, 213, 848 Drop-out, rates 134, 213, 507, 526, 827, 831 Durban 91–113, 145–179 Durban City Council 96, 100, 101, 107, 111 Dutch schooling 26, 29, 524, 531 East Asia 222–223, 305–317, 343, 350, 354, 356 Economic Structural Adjustment Program 78 Education, free 205, 216, 217
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Subject Index
Education, primary 117, 620–625, 686–696 Education, reforms 307, 641, 647, 653, 864, 1007–1024 Education, resources 234, 241 Education, system 117–118, 657, 748, 920, 929–930, 986, 1117 Education, urban educational 26, 29, 39, 43, 53, 77, 864, 905–924, 930, 931–940, 943–954, 959–976, 1105–1108, 1123–1136, 1139–1154, 1157–1171, 1175–1181, 1183–1190, 1191–1198, 1199–1202, 1203–1208 Education Act of 1961 326 Education Action Zones (EAZs) 953, 1019, 1113–1114, 1115 Education as a Fundamental Right 291, 302 Education Partnership Boards (EPBs) 1132–1134 Education Reform Act 945, 950, 964, 985, 1009, 1010, 1011, 1013, 1017, 1082 Educational, access 7, 78, 82, 134, 136, 232, 448, 573, 623, 677, 678, 680n.2, 864, 918, 968, 1200 Educational, dualism 323–329, 331 Educational, inequality 135, 252, 509–513, 525, 706–707 Educational, institution 330, 678, 681n.18, 708 Educational, justice 232, 235 Educational, policy 407, 432, 507–508, 647, 655–657, 671–678, 709, 794–798, 938, 995, 1080, 1118 Educational, progressivism 260 Educational, reform 547–549, 566–578, 655 Educational, revolutions 235, 967 Educational opportunity, equal 133 Educational Reform 80, 81–86, 689–691, 950–954, 983–986 Educational resources, unequal distribution of 238, 245 Educational system, French 432 Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) 1098 E-learning initiatives 506 Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) 860, 861, 862, 908
Elementary education, at Cape Coast 28 Elite education 233–234 Enculturation 483, 489–491 English, as second language (ESL) 381, 384, 918 English as an Additional Language (EAL) 991 English language 16, 179n.6, 388 English language, Pidgin-English 6, 52, 53 ENS (Ecole Normal Supérieure) 63, 188–189 Entrepreneurial universities 224 Environmental Education 297 Equal opportunity 139, 256, 260, 686, 834 Equality, survival 133 Equity 20nn.7, 14, 139, 140, 224, 227, 233, 238, 245, 249, 251, 253, 255, 256–257, 258–262, 302, 423, 518, 536n.2, 568, 658, 665–682, 689, 691, 696, 697, 861, 863, 886, 898, 980, 995, 998, 999 Equity, educational 132–134, 139, 223, 232, 567, 574, 578n.13, 644, 665–682 Equity, pedagogical 574, 665, 679–682 Equity in education 3, 7, 132–134 eThekwini 91, 92–93, 99, 104, 107, 108, 111, 112n.4 Ethic of care 883, 885–887, 891, 893, 898 Ethnic diversity 254, 456, 980, 1165, 1204 Ethnic identity 130, 837 Ethnic minorities 129, 258, 355, 949 Evaluation 312, 354, 362, 612–615, 625–626, 633, 649, 672, 673, 676, 677, 678, 679, 707, 719, 742, 775, 873, 900n.13, 905–924, 1019, 1062, 1067 Evaluation, language of 906–909 Evangelization 51 Evening schools 232, 405 Exclusion 451, 453, 456–459, 464, 483, 602, 630, 702n.19, 749, 939, 991–1002, 1108, 1113, 1139, 1140 Faculty Student Mentor Program (FSMP) 887, 891–893 Federal Labor 252, 256 Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center (FLCC) 61, 62 Femocrats 253 First official language 56, 57, 59
Subject Index First World Conference on Muslim Education 332, 337 First-language instruction 53, 54, 59 Formal education 9, 19n.2, 49, 122, 494, 620, 728 Formal schooling 25, 44–45, 405, 406, 734 Fragmentation 570, 576, 578n.11, 679, 750–753, 755 Free Primary Education 117, 123 French Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACCT) 53 French language 52, 61 Full Day Classes (FDC) 645 Full Time Schools (ETC) 690, 694, 700 Gang violence 157 Gender, equality 344, 346, 348–349, 351 Gender, inequality 347–354 Gender discrimination 211, 351 Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) 347 Gender equity reform 253 Gender equity units 253 Gender gap 345, 347–354 Gender roles 349, 355–357 Gender-related Development Index (GDI) 347 Gentrification 384, 386, 399, 769, 1079, 1201 German language 51 Ghana 5, 19nn.1, 3, 4, 23, 25, 26, 33, 34, 35 Ghetto 465, 476, 779, 780, 781, 785, 786, 789, 794, 798n.1, 810 Global knowledge economy 184 Globalization 16, 221, 223, 225, 231, 245–246, 291, 305–317, 367–368, 370–372, 373, 391, 399, 407, 449, 508, 566–567, 576, 577n.6, 671, 709 Glocalisation 407, 413–428 GNP 116, 132, 136, 399, 464 Gold Coast 5, 25–45 Government of Kenya 136, 138, 140, 208, 213, 217 Government of Malawi 127 Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) 308 Grade repetition 143n.4, 607, 622, 702n.15
1233
Graduation rates 237, 365, 518 Graduation rates, non- 506, 509, 511, 512, 513, 514, 517, 518 Grassroots information campaigns 58 Great Reforms 252 Greater Diourbel Middle School 188, 189, 191, 199, 200n.2 Group Areas Act 97, 98, 100, 107, 149 Heads of households 116 Hegemony 5, 87, 109, 303, 326, 329, 331, 338, 625, 671 Heterogonous classrooms 439 High culture 118–119, 265, 374, 382 High modernity 363, 368, 370 Higher education, inequalities 239–243, 244 Higher Normal School for Teachers 63 Higher standards 235, 449, 1015, 1167 Hip-hop 389, 786, 789, 792, 793, 794, 795 Hip-hop, global tribe 407, 463, 475 Historical materialism 206 HIV infection 145, 148, 157, 175 HIV prevention 156 HIV/AIDS 117, 124–125, 137, 1184 Homogenous classrooms 94, 696 Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program 290, 1223 House Resolution 4437 924 Human ability 670 Human capital theorists 125 Human Capital Theory 20n.16, 257, 335, 728 Human development 8, 131, 148, 152, 344–345, 347, 516, 603, 626, 641, 678, 685, 738 Human Development Index (HDI) 345, 347, 514 Human development performance 131 Human Rights Watch 158 Identity formation 3, 6, 9, 75, 77, 275, 355, 363, 368, 370, 374, 402 Ideology 325, 780, 886, 888, 894, 896, 965, 1031 ILO 141, 727 Imam-Khatib schools 328, 329, 335, 339n.5 Immigrant reception programs 506, 518
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Subject Index
Immigration, first-generation 826, 830, 918 Immigration reform 918 Inclusion 124, 256, 451, 452–453, 456–459, 506–508, 511–512, 518, 634, 749, 1109, 1139, 1140, 1145 Inclusion of street children 120, 124–125 Indian People’s Tribunal for Environment and Human Rights 295 Indigenous language 6, 15, 16, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 58, 61, 71, 80, 274 Individualization 260, 261, 367, 368, 370, 371, 373, 551, 553, 753–755, 759 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (PL 94-172) 860–861, 871 Industrialization 208, 232, 234, 322, 343, 348, 349, 351, 354, 372, 564, 583, 619, 620, 910, 947, 1008 Industrialization, mass 208 Inequalities, higher education 239–243, 244 Inequalities, urban-rural 231–246 Inequality, educational 135, 252, 509–513, 525, 706–707 Inequality, social 129, 477, 562, 578n.10, 680, 707, 1022, 1095 Informal education 212, 408 Informal settlements 8, 108, 113n.11, 205–217 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) 945, 951, 952, 953, 959, 962, 964, 975nn.9, 13 Incentive distortion 516, 517 Institutional racism 987, 990, 997 Integrated Community Schools (ICS) 1144, 1145–1147, 1148 Intelligence, interpersonal 176 Intelligence, intrapersonal 176 Intelligence, multiple 176, 1012 Intercultural education 425–427, 517, 527, 718 Inter-cultural education 717 Internal minorities 399, 499, 1215 Internalization 315 International Association of Conference Interpreters (IACI) 61 International Islamic University 332 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 17, 20n.11, 21n.20, 82, 227
Intersectionality 405 Islam Hadhari 332, 339n.7 Islamic education 222–223, 332, 334, 337 Islamic revivalism 327, 331, 334 Islamization 327, 331, 332, 333 Islamization, of knowledge 321, 331, 332, 333 Islamization, of language 331, 333 Islamophobia 403 Kamal Attarturk, Mustafa 324 Kenyan Government 136, 138, 140, 208, 213, 217 Key-point school system 237, 244 Kiandutu 209 Kibera, Nairobi 9, 207, 209, 215–216 Kwetu Home 213 Labor markets 374, 562, 727, 729, 730, 732 Lack of course books 191 Language processing skills 56 Language processing skills, reading 56 Language processing skills, writing 56 Law of Compulsory Education 236, 239 Law of Unification of Instruction 324 Learning, disadvantage 936, 937, 1033–1035 Learning, transfer 1031, 1033 Learning cycles 572, 601–616, 1031, 1033, 1038 Learning environment, un-conducive 205, 1115 Learning problems 625–626, 628, 629, 630, 633, 649, 679, 1057 LEM Strategy 656 Life Orientation Learning Area 177 Life pathways 359, 360, 364 Life skills education 176 Lines of flight 252 Linguistic flight 56 Linguistic liberalism 51, 67 Literacy 78, 83, 116–117, 232, 280, 335, 346, 381–392, 603, 610–611, 626, 634, 666, 833, 949, 969, 970, 1011, 1034, 1063, 1089 Literacy education 381, 382, 383, 386, 387, 389, 390
Subject Index Literacy levels 117, 146, 382, 610, 949 Local authorities (LAs) 1128–1136 Local education authorities (LEAs) 945, 950, 951, 953, 981, 1020, 1089, 1110, 1116, 1118, 1119n.5, 1129 London County Council (LCC) 951, 952 Longitudinal studies 361, 1080, 1084 Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (LSAY) 361, 362, 364, 366 Madrasah 223, 321–338 Malawi 7, 19n.1, 115–127 Malawi Congress Party 122 Malawi Education Status Report 116 Malawi Government’s Policy and Investment Framework (PIF) 119 Malawi Poverty Reduction Paper 116 Malaysia 311, 314, 323, 324, 326–327, 332 Marx, Karl 781, 968 Mass education 233–234, 1124 Massification 76, 257, 563 Matric endorsement 146 Mau Mau war 208 Middle school 183–201, 888, 889 Migratory movements 419, 424 Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) 361 Millennium Development Goal 117, 126 Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education 117 Ministry of Education 85, 123, 124, 127, 190, 234, 235, 237, 241, 309–311, 351, 529, 606, 623, 641, 656, 657 Ministry of Education in Singapore 309–310, 311 Ministry of National Education 53 Misinterpretation of multiparty democracy 121–124 Mission school 40, 53, 251 Missionary schools 51 Mixed blood children 251 Modernization 328, 338, 370, 567, 723n.3, 734, 779, 781 ‘Moodu-moodu’ 193, 195, 200–201 Mosaic multiculturalism 255 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 78
1235
Multi-agency working 1109, 1139, 1140, 1141–1144, 1145–1154, 1164 Multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Education 253 Multicultural education 254–255, 407, 715, 783, 812, 846 Multiculturalism 249, 254–255, 259, 414, 421, 782, 811, 996 Multilingualism 19n.4, 68, 267 Multi-party democracy 121 Multiplicity 49, 51, 71, 263, 370, 377n.1, 585, 718, 1190 Muluzi, Bakili 122 Muslim 24, 222, 250, 260, 472, 525, 527 Muslim, education 223, 321–339 Nairobi Province 130–131 National Board of Education (ANEP) 688, 698, 701, 701nn.1, 5, 702nn.8, 11, 15–18 National College for School Leadership (NCSL) 1050 National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) 287 National Education Forum of 1995 68, 71 National Educational Longitudinal Studies (NELS) 361–362 National identity formation 3, 6, 9 National Language Education Program of 1967 53, 55 National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) 361, 362, 364 National Policy for the Education of Girls 253 National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) 205 National Science Council (NSC) 309 National Service Training Centers 86 National Statistical Office 116, 345 Nationalist Party 96 Native language 51, 53, 59, 67, 69, 71, 681n.3, 836, 872 Neighborhood nationalism 451–453, 459 Neoliberal policy 224 Neoliberalism 262, 390 New Labour Government 932, 933, 938, 939, 940, 1088, 1128, 1131, 1135, 1145, 1157, 1160, 1204 New managerialism 257
1236
Subject Index
New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act 253 No Child Left Behind Act 809, 814 Nomadic students 484 Nomadism 400, 483, 484, 485, 489 Non-governmental organization 205, 212, 226, 355, 743 Non-school learning settings 894 Normal School 570, 594, 599n.6, 709–724 Norms and Standards for School Funding 150 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 250, 575, 733, 734 Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) 934, 992, 995, 1010, 1011, 1082, 1089, 1092, 1099, 1114, 1129 Office of Multicultural Affairs 259 Official language 59, 62, 69, 70, 72n.12, 80, 233 Olympic Primary School 9, 215–217 Ominde Report of 1964 139 “Operation Bilingualism” 62 Operational Research Project for Language Education in Cameroon 53 Oral tradition 56 Organization of Islamic Conferences 332 Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) 151, 177 Overcrowding 120–121, 126, 127, 161, 207 P-900 Schools Program 653 Participation and Equity Program 253 Pedagogic management 651, 653 People’s Religious Schools 334 People’s Republic of China 231, 246n.1 Peripheral schools 619 Pesantren 321, 322–323, 327, 329, 330–331, 336, 337 Pillarization, Dutch 524 Plural School 610, 613–614 Polarization 438, 442, 723n.10 Policy recommendations 139, 861 Pondok 321, 323, 324, 329–331 Population distribution 26, 565, 695 Postmodernity 367, 368, 370, 377n.1 Primary education, free 117, 123, 205, 215, 216
Primary School Leaving Certificate Examination 118 Principle of equity 139 Problem solving skills 56 Professional development 535, 543–544, 632–633, 644, 655, 656, 659n.3, 724n.23, 767, 863, 867, 868, 1012, 1050, 1055, 1064, 1066, 1067, 1095 Professional perspectives 432, 434, 1148 Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of Individual 138 Psychological evaluation 626, 633 Public Education Ministry (SEP) 717 Public expenditure 9, 11, 20n.19, 21n.19, 50, 132, 238, 256–257, 509–510, 511, 643, 691, 1018 Public expenditure on education 9, 50, 643, 1018 Public policy 137, 306, 313, 315, 317, 774–775, 794, 938, 1058, 1059, 1061, 1159, 1167, 1189 Public policy, local 206 Public policy, national 206 Pupil attainment 1016, 1056, 1095, 1096, 1153 Push-outs 205, 209, 213 Quality education standards 184 Quality teaching 184, 199 Quasi-market 930, 1010, 1013–1016, 1018, 1028–1029, 1110, 1113 Queensland 255–256, 390 Racial diversity 782, 1165–1166 Racial groups 98, 112n.2, 206 Racialization 842, 849 Racism, European 403 Racist incidents 989 Reform, standards-based 1089 Regional schools 52 Religious education 223, 228, 260, 324, 325, 327, 330, 333–334 Republic of Cameroon 67 Retention rate 120 Revised National Curriculum Statement 150 Rift Valley Province 7, 130, 131, 132, 135 Rural-urban migration 121, 208, 270
Subject Index Saturday schools 405, 191 School climate 8, 183–201 School effectiveness research 1081–1085, 1087 “School Ordinance” 53 School performance 193–195, 490, 492, 498, 540, 625, 866, 875, 908, 985, 1017, 1081, 1111 School reform 775, 798 School safety 4, 8, 878 Schoolmaster 28 Schools, alternative 294, 302, 860, 866 Schools, anomic 439–440 Schools, bottom strata 936–937, 1030–1031, 1034, 1035, 1036, 1037, 1038, 1040, 1043, 1117 Schools, charter 787, 817, 862–864, 1112 Schools, committed 439–440 Schools, entrepreneurial 437, 441 Schools, extended 29, 99, 527, 1039, 1044, 1164, 1165 Schools, full service 1039 Schools, functional 1065 Schools, Graded 572, 582, 588–589, 590–592, 598, 615 Schools, home 581, 585–588, 937 Schools, isolated 589, 590, 605 Schools, magnet 866 Schools, mixed 409, 432, 437–439, 442, 525, 528, 531, 535 Schools, monument 588–589 Schools, municipal 291, 572, 606, 608, 609, 610, 614, 642, 652 Schools, pre- 57, 400, 455, 865–866, 1098 Schools, single teacher 553, 586, 604 Schools, state 25, 424, 433, 436, 442, 449, 614, 953, 1124 Schools, traditional 104, 436–437, 441, 442, 607–608, 866 Schools, voucher 569, 672 Schools, working conditions in 608, 612, 613, 646 Schools Commission 252, 1015 Schools facing challenging circumstance (SFCC) 1052, 1057, 1058, 1061 Secular education 325, 328, 332, 686 SED Plan 672 Segmented assimilation theory 829, 837
1237
Segregation 431–444, 476, 477, 525, 526, 528, 540, 565, 566, 575, 578n.12, 658, 687, 695, 698–702 Segregation, socioeconomic 525 Segregation, residential 687, 698, 702n.19 Sekolah Agama Rakyat 334 Sekolah desa 324 Sekolah Menengah Agama Negeri 334 Selective acculturation 829, 835 Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 137 Shebeens 149, 154, 159–160, 175 SIMCE system 658 Singapore 224–225, 226, 227, 309–310, 311, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 360, 363, 369, 370–377 Singapore Life Pathways Project 360, 376 Singapore Management University (SMU) 310, 311 Situated learning 739–741, 742 Small learning communities 867 Social advantage 133 Social capital 335–338, 439, 524, 752, 813, 833, 912–913, 914, 973–974, 1146, 1163, 1164 Social competence 176–177, 491 Social disadvantage 133, 147, 374, 931, 934, 1088, 1096, 1098, 1139, 1159 Social inequality 129, 562, 578n.10, 680, 707, 1022 Social justice 249–263, 302, 448, 507, 531, 535, 939, 962, 963, 969, 971, 999, 1022, 1045, 1139–1141, 1152, 1157–1158, 1169–1171 Social justice, policies 257, 1139 Social justice in education 132, 139, 255 Social mobility 32, 216, 251, 680, 749, 806, 845 Society for International Development (SID) 131 Socioeconomic groups 133, 660n.7 Socioeconomic status 551, 623, 832 Socio-economic status households, high 116, 615, 893 Socio-economic status households, low 697, 773 Son preference 353, 354 South African Constitution 155 South African Schools Act 150
1238
Subject Index
South African War 96 Special education 872 Special educational needs (SEN) 981, 991, 1029, 1140 Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) 1088–1089, 1092, 1094 Standard school-leaving certificate 146 State’s Religious Secondary School 334 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 980, 983, 990, 997 Street children 117, 124–126, 127, 211–214, 215, 708 Structural adjustment programs 11, 213 Student assessment 193, 508, 540 Student discipline 195 Students, rural 78, 194, 238, 240, 241, 242 Substance abuse 148, 274 Subtractive schooling 786 Suburban, inner- 841–842, 843, 846, 849, 850–855 Suburban, outer- 842, 845, 850–855 Sure Start programs 1093 Symbolic power 118, 669 Taiwan 308–309, 311, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351 Targeted action 516, 1020 Target Group Deepened Interviews 187 Teacher allocation 689 Teacher characteristics 187 Teacher development 656, 1063–1064 Teacher education 391, 401, 403, 409, 449, 539–556, 570, 575, 608, 632, 705, 709, 710, 712, 713–716, 719, 720–722, 723nn.10, 12, 15, 16, 724n.22, 975n.9 Teacher education, cooperation 542, 543, 548, 550, 551 in-service teacher 403, 554, 632 in-service teacher, training 409, 539, 542, 543, 554, 555–556, 576, 632 Teacher education, reform 539, 541, 544–550, 556, 570 Bologna process 539, 545, 546 Center for Teacher Education 549 Commission for Teacher Education 544, 548 Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg 546–549
school placements 542, 549 school development 540, 550–556, 1063 school development, research projects 551–552, 556 Teacher preparation 710, 1050 Teacher stability 689, 697 Teacher unionization 868 Teacher’s Service Commission 214 Teachers, daike 239 Teachers, minban 239 Teachers’ qualification 185 Teacher-student relationship 651 Teaching methods 192, 660n.13, 952 Teenage pregnancy 145, 148, 361 Tertiary education 49, 117, 146, 313, 351, 365, 517 Theory of speech production, Watsonian 57 Thika 209 Third Human Development Report 131 Torridzonian Society 39 Trading centers 24, 322 Training, on-the-job 730, 731, 734, 737–738, 741, 742 Transformative Curricula 289–291 Transitional Bilingual Learning Community (TBLC) program 918, 919 Transitional school 302 Trilingualism 68 Tunza Dada 213 Umlazi Township School 145, 148, 154 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child 138 Underteacher 197, 198 UNDP 645 Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) 9, 205, 212–217 UNESCO 16, 21n.24, 49, 57, 69, 72nn.4, 9, 275, 313, 577n.9 UNICEF 124, 214, 660n.7 Unit for the Measurement of Educational Results (UMRE) 691, 693, 702 United Democratic Front 122 United Nations 141, 415, 564, 596, 1184 University of São Paulo (USP) 606 University of Yaounde I 53, 54, 62, 63, 1210
Subject Index University Teacher Training School 188 Upward Bound (UB) 890–891 Urban boarding schools 40–44, 52, 276 Urban disadvantaged 938, 1089, 1113, 1151, 1153, 1161 Urban education, reforms 75–88, 871 Urban elite 119, 386 Urban Foundation, the 102 Urban history 943, 946 Urban jungle 780, 789, 792 Urban pedagogies 1035–1041 Urban policy 207, 208, 210, 1118 Urban poor 94, 108, 111, 132, 135, 210, 211, 213–214, 272, 292–293, 294, 788, 790, 863, 879 Urban poverty 211, 216, 272, 453 Urban schools, developing countries 115 Urban squatters 295 Urban suburbs 841 Urban township 146, 149, 164, 175, 178, 1183 Urban township, environment 147, 159, 161 Urban township, learner 164 Urban township, schools 146, 147, 151, 161 Urban townships, life 147, 149, 150, 152, 157, 158, 159, 161 Urbanization process 23, 621 Uruguay 574–575, 685–702
1239
Vernacular languages 51, 278 Vernacular schools 324, 330 Village schools 52, 324, 454 Vmbo schools 526 Voucher, schools 569, 672, 674–676 White Australia 249, 251 White Australia Policy 250 White Paper 2005 1015–1016, 1044, 1135, 1167–1168 White schools 78, 104 White supremacy 783, 810, 812 Women, education of 344 Women, status of 344, 347, 354, 356 World Bank 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15–18, 20nn.9, 11, 13, 17, 21n.20, 23, 211, 241, 295, 343, 562, 564, 567, 568, 1186 World Bank and International Monetary Fund 213, 907, 1186 Youth Cohort Study (YCS) 981, 983, 985 Youth culture 381, 384, 387, 391, 404, 473, 476–478 Youth literacies 384, 390 Zero tolerance policies 847–848 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front 81 Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council 84
AUTHOR INDEX
Abad Marquez, L. V. 416, 421, 422, 428 Abagi, O. 129, 132, 143 Aboutaleb, A. 526 Achilles, C. 1063 Ackland, H. 1081 Adams, J. E. 870 Adanu, S. 32 Adebowale, S. A. 3, 15, 19n.1 Adnett, N. 1010, 1111 Adnett, P. 1110 Adorno, T. 1198 Aggleton, P. 1140 Aguiar, W. M. J. 634 Aguila, E. 659 Agyemang, F. M. 28 Ahmed, Z. 296 Ahrne, G. 406 Aitchison, J. 1108 Al-Attas, S. M. N. 332, 339n.6 Alavarse, O. 618 Alba, R. D. 825 Aldaz, I. 420 Alexander, J. 388 Alexander, R. 225 Al-Faruqi, I. R. 331, 339n.6 Algina, J. 361 Alkins, K. 870 Allen, A. 846–847, 850 Allen, J. 91 Allen, R. E. 148 Alloway, N. 381 Almeida Filho, N. 577 Altbach, P. G. 269 Altet, M. 632 Althusser, L. 628 Altrichter, H. 552, 554 ˚ lund, A. 453 A
Amaral, T. P. 634 Ames, L. 1957 Amrein-Beardsley, A. 869 Amutabi, M. N. 138, 139 Anache, A. A. 634 Andaló, C. S. A. 631, 632 Anderson, B. 398, 1178 Anderson, C. S. 185 Anderson, D. 26, 45 Anderson, E. 789, 792 Anderson, G. 1067 Anderson, N. 766 Anderson, S. 1129 Andrade, I. R. 613 Andreas, J. 239 Angelucci, C. B. 625 Anguiano, R. 361 Anisef, P. 844, 846 Annan, G. 995 Ansell, D. 1064 Anyon, J. 399, 401, 404, 805, 807 Aparicio Gomez, R. 414, 421 Apple, M. W. 85, 92, 907 Apple, M. A. 290 Archer, L. 405 Arelaro, L. 623 Arendt, H. 1195, 1198 Argyris, C. 697 Arnaut, A. 710, 723n.9 Arnesen, A. 400 Arnold, E. 409, 549 Arnot, M. 402 Arroyo, M. G. 608, 631 Asante, M. K. 872 Ashcroft, B. 269 Ashenden, D. 1057 Ashton, P. 361
1241
1242
Author Index
Askew, S. 1132 Asmal, K. 109 Aspland, T. 1065 Assaél, J. 636n.15 Assie-Lumumba, N. T. 20nn.10, 11, 16 Astuto, T. A. 872 Athey, C. 1098 Atkinson, D. 953 Atkinson, M. 1140 Atkinson, P. 627 Axelrod, P. 844 Ayuninjam, F. 6, 53 Azanha, J. M. P. 631, 632, 636n.15 Azevedo, F. de 592, 593, 599nn.3, 7 Babbie, E. 155 Babkes, M. 893 Bacchi, C. L. 1056 Bacchus, K. 268 Bache, I. 316 Back, L. 451, 452, 477 Badger, L. 1058 Badosa, J. 506 Baeta, A. M. B. 625 Bagley, C. 1010, 1029, 1030, 1106, 1110, 1116, 1117 Baichman-Anisef, E. 844 Bailey, T. 873 Baker, W. K. 869 Baldwin, J. 816 Balibar, E. 477 Ball, M. 1140 Ball, S. 432, 434, 569, 1029, 1035, 1051, 1056, 1072n.5, 1168 Ball, S. J. 405, 930, 1010, 1028, 1029, 1105, 1116 Ballou, D. 541 Bamgbose, A. 55, 56 Bancroft, K. 817 Bandura, A. 185, 625 Bane, M. 1081 Banks, J. 782, 783 Banks, J. A. 996, 1000 Banks-Santilli, L. 870 Banton, M. 130 Barbadillo Griñan, P. 424 Barbanti, M. L. H. 585 Barber, M. 867, 953, 1205 Bárcena, R. 714
Barnes, H. V. 865 Barnett, J. 1058 Baron, S. 1145, 1146 Barranco, D. 748 Barrenechea, E. 419, 420 Barreto, E. S. 623 Barroso, J. 567 Barrow, J. 949 Bartels, F. L. 35 Barthon, C. 438 Bartlett, D. 1117 Barton, A. 290, 796 Barty, K. 1067 Bascia, N. 869 Bastian, J. 409, 549, 552, 554, 555 Bastos, M. H. C. 586 Baudelot, C. 628 Bauder, H. 843, 844 Bauman, Z. 371, 419, 754, 755, 756, 758 Beach, D. 406 Beady, C. 185 Beane, J. 506 Beauregard, R. 450 Beavis, C. 388 Beavon, K. S. O. 92 Beca, C. E. 660n.12 Beck, U. 370, 371, 754 Becker, H. J. 873 Béduwé, C. 728, 744n.6 Beecher, A. 818 Behn, R. D. 1136 Beisiegel, C. de R. 620 Bell, D. 811, 932 Bell, K. 1110, 1114 Bell, L. 1056 Bellei, C. 660nn.6, 7 Beltrao, K. I. 614 Benhabib, S. 448 Bening, R. B. 29 Benshoff, H. 793 Benson, K. 23, 24, 25 Benson, P. 388, 893 Bergen, P. 336 Berger, P. 779 Berliner, D. D. 869 Bernal, D. 768 Bernal, E. 734, 735, 744n.8 Bernstein, A. 92
Author Index Bernstein, B. 436, 667, 680, 967, 974n.2, 1028, 1035, 1094 Bertaux, D. 186 Bertoni, A. 748 Bessant, J. 1072 Beynon, J. 846 Bezanson, K. 803, 804 Bgoya, W. 15, 19n.4 Bhabha, H. K. 79 Bhattacharyya, G. 981, 982, 1001n.6 Bhatti, G. 988 Bhavnani, R. 996 Bhengu, R. 146 Bhopal, K. 981 Bibby, J. 45 Biggs, J. B. 225 Billah, M. M. 331, 336 Black, P. 874 Blackmore, J. 222, 223, 224, 227, 254, 256, 258, 262, 381, 1067 Blair, A. 981, 995, 1148 Blair, M. 203, 995 Blair, T. 932, 998, 1050, 1106, 1123, 1130, 1158 Blakemore, K. P. 39 Blatchford, P. 1063, 1083 Blauner, R. 784 Blazak, R. 842 Bliss, J. R. 185 Blömeke, S. 548 Bloom, B. S. 185 Bock, A. M. B. 634 Bogdanor, V. 1129 Bogliaccini, J. A. 574, 688, 696, 697, 698, 699, 701nn.4, 6, 702n.20 Bogotch, I. 1067 Bohannan, P. 69 Bond, L. 869 Bonel, M. M. 609 Bonilla-Silva, E. 790 Bonnett, A. 990, 1002n.13 Booth, S. 383 Borman, G. D. 873 Boserup, E. 356 Bosker, R. J. 652 Böttcher, W. 543 Bottery, M. 1106 Bounds, A. 450
1243
Bourdieu, P. 118, 228, 286, 419, 426, 464, 566, 628, 646, 667, 668, 669, 678, 680, 681nn.9, 11, 12, 751, 753, 833, 890, 1033, 1069 Bowe, R. 933, 1010, 1028, 1029, 1056, 1110, 1168 Bowen, F. 185, 200 Bowles, S. 812 Boyd, M. 845 Bradley, S. 1010 Bradshaw, J. 1022 Brady, M. 149, 159 Braidotti, R. 398 Brain, K. 1113, 1115, 1116 Branch, C. 715 Brandão, Z. 625 Brandenberger, A. 1119n.4 Braslavsky, C. 577, 578, 749 Brassard, A. 185 Brault, M. C. 184 Bravo, D. 660n.6 Bray, M. 224 Bredie, J. W. B. 11, 21n.22 Brehony, K. 949 Brenan, G. 418, 419 Brewer, M. 1028 Bridglall, B. 506 Brighouse, T. 936, 940, 1007, 1019, 1029, 1030, 1066, 1092, 1093, 1119n.6, 1157 Brimelow, P. 766 Brink, E. 146 Briones, G. B. 45 Broadfoot, P. 435 Broccolichi, S. 438 Brock, C. 268 Brodsgaard, K. E. 316 Bronfenbrenner, U. 152, 153 Brooker, L. 1033 Brooker, R. 1065 Brookover, W. B. 185 Brooks, A. 224 Brooks-Buck, J. 923n.1 Brooks-Gunn, J. 1057 Brown, C. 1070 Brown, L. 818 Brown, M. 790 Brown, P. 971, 1028 Brown, S. 873
1244
Author Index
Brücher, A. 435 Bruner, J. 625, 1036 Brunet, L. 184, 185, 200 Brunner, J. J. 652 Bryant, M. 951 Bryce-LaPorte, R. 836 Bryk, A. 774, 808, 814 Buchberger, F. 545, 546 Buchmann, C. 4, 13, 21 Buchmann, M. 359 Buck, N. 970 Buckingham, D. 1161 Budd, L. 1158, 1165, 1166 Bueno, B. 631 Bueno, B. O. 561, 578, 631, 1195 Buhren, C. G. 555 Bulach, C. 185 Bullen, E. 1072 Bulman, D. 1059 Bunar, N. 406 Bunday, M. C. 869 Burbules, N. 263, 306, 566, 923 Burchardt, T. 1125, 1126, 1130, 1133, 1134 Burgess, E. 769, 829, 930, 1201 Burgess, S. 1016 Burke, J. 1083 Burke, P. 561, 577n.1 Burney, D. 808 Burns, A. 850, 854 Bush, T. 1051 Busher, H. 992 Busia, K. A. 30 Bustamane, S. 563 Buthelezi, T. 8, 145, 156 Butler, T. 1028, 1030 Byrom, T. 1059 Caballero, C. 981 Cabral, A. 84 Caddell, D. 1148 Cagliari, L. C. 627 Cahill, D. 381 Caillouds, F. 728 Cairney, T. 1058 Caldeira, T. 385, 386 Calderwood, D. 110 Calderwood, L. 363 Caldwell, B. J. 1089
Calhoun, C. 333 Callaghan, J. 945, 1082 Callahan, R. 814 Calvo, G. 681nn.3, 4, 8, 665 Camargo, M. 681nn.4, 8 Camargo, R. B. de 597 Cambron-McCabe, N. 1038, 1042 Cameron, J. 1060 Campbell, C. 806, 929, 939, 1000, 1132, 1134, 1153, 1203 Campbell, E. 860, 1011, 1081 Campbell, R. 969 Campos, B. P. 545 Campos, E. 1168 Campos, M. M. 623 Candau, V. M. F. 632 Canesi, P. 500n.7 Cannadine, D. 943, 946 Cantle, T. 1166 Carabaña, J. 516 Carbonell, F. 517 Carmichael, S. 997–998 Carnoy, M. 76, 303, 307, 660, 728, 805, 814 Carr, W. 975n.22 Carrim, N. 996, 997, 1000 Carrington, V. 384, 385 Carter, M. P. 948 Carvalho, M. 1061 Carvalho, M. M. C. de 599n.7 Cashmore, E. 998 Castel, R. 755 Castells, M. 314, 315, 323, 367, 368, 384, 386, 566, 930, 931, 935, 960–974 Castle, F. 1108, 1109, 1115, 1119n.6 Castleman, C. 185 Castles, S. 261 Castro, M. H. G. 635n.9 Catani, D. B. 631 Cavarozzi, M. 750, 759n.1 Cayton, H. R. 776 Cazenave, N. 790 Cele, N. 151 Cera, A. 681 Cesari, J. 405 Challender, C. 129 Champagne, P. 646 Chan, L. 381 Chandler, T. 24
Author Index Chapman, C. 1062, 1072n.6, 1091 Charlier, E. 632 Charlot, B. 610 Chartier, R. 583 Chavkin, N. F. 833 Cheah, P. 222, 225, 1178 Chen, S. H. 309 Cheru, F. 19n.5, 75, 79 Chessum, L. 949 Cheung, A. 306, 316 Chiang, H. C. 309 Chimombo, J. 121 Chisholm, H. 151 Chittom, S. A. 185 Chiuye, G. 121 Cho, S. 349, 350 Chomsky, N. 414 Chow, E. N. 354 Chuang, S. Q. 355 Chung, F. 83 Chung, Y. P. 350 Cigéhn, G. 406 Clark, A. 1028 Clark, D. L. 872 Clark, P. 944 Clark, W. A. V. 384 Clarke, P. 1072n.6 Claxton, G. 1012, 1031, 1035 Clifford, J. 417 Clifton, R. A. 122 Cline, T. 991 Cloward, R. 789 Coate, K. 1028 Cobb, C. 888 Cochran-Smith, M. 797, 869 Cockburn, C. 974n.5 Coelho, E. 425 Coffield, F. 1012, 1037 Cohen, B. 1163 Cohen, D. 1081 Cohen, M. 185 Cohen, P. 475 Coldon, J. 1016 Cole, M. 893 Cole, T. 992 Coleman, J. 860, 864, 1011 Collares, C. A. L. 627 Collins, P. 792 Colls, R. 944
1245
Colomer, J. M. 427 Comaroff, J. L. 130 Combe, A. 552 Comber, B. 1058, 1072n.3 Comer, J. P. 873 Conchas, G. 804, 813 Connell, B. 256 Connell, J. 226, 270, 272, 277 Connell, R. 253, 1069, 1072n.4 Connolly, P. 988 Considine, M. 308 Contreras, D. 660n.6 Conway, C. 226 Cook, T. 1057 Cooksey, B. 131, 138 Cookson, P. W. Jr 118 Cooper, D. 1108 Cooper, J. 1065 Cope, B. 251, 252, 258, 382, 383, 385, 390, 392 Copelman, D. 950 Copland, M. 870 Coppel, J. 414 Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. 23 Corcoran, M. P. 453 Cornwall, J. 995 Corriveau, L. 185 Cosse, G. 569, 577n.7, 578n.10 Costello, L. 1060 Coulby, D. 398, 946, 974 Court, D. 131, 138 Cowan, K. T. 869, 875 Cox, C. 644, 659n.1, 660n.14 Cox, H. 973 Craig, G. 1149 Craig, H. 9, 13, 14, 18, 20n.8 Creemers, B. 652 Crenshaw, K. 405, 810, 811 Croft, D. 185 Croll, E. 353 Croninger, R. G. 362 Crook, D. 950 Cropanzano, R. S. 185, 200 Crosnoe, R. 833 Crowther, F. 1065 Crowther, J. 1140, 1147, 1148 Crozier, G. 1057, 1072n.3 Cruickshank, D. P. 185 Cruz, S. H. V. 627
1246
Author Index
Cuban, L. 582, 809, 877 Cuevas de la Garza, J. F. 731, 734, 735, 737 Cunha, L. A. 635n.5 Cunningham, S. 223 Currie, E. 790 Currie, J. 307, 312 Curtin, P. 69 Cuttance, P. 652 D’Souza, D. 789 Dadzie, S. 997 Dagenais, D. 846 Dalben, A. I. L. de F. 610, 614 Dale, R. 566–567, 577n.6, 975n.10 Dalle, E. L. 55 Dalvanzo, A. M. Q. 635n.9 Danaher, P. A. 484 Dann, R. 953 Darder, A. 806, 807 Darling-Hammond, L. 541, 797, 869, 883, 885 Daschner, P. 548 Daspit, T. 1058 Datnow, A. 1063 David, J. L. 877 David, M. 402, 1057, 1068, 1071 Davidoff, S. 154, 162, 176 Davidson, B. 23 Davies, J. 975n.14, 1068 Davies, N. 1110 Davies, P. 1010, 1023, 1111, 1115, 1116 Davies, R. J. 97, 99, 102, 104, 107 Davila, A. 361 Davin, A. 288, 289, 948 Davin, D. 351 Davis, A. 789 Davis, C. 613 Davis, J. 952 Davis, M. 386 Davis, M. R. 876 de Carvalho, M. 1061 De Ibarrola, M. 570, 575, 727, 728, 729, 734, 735, 739, 744n.8 De la Dehesa, G. 416, 422 De Lange, N. 156, 542, 543, 546 De Lucas, J. 415, 420 de Saussure, F. 70 De Zilwa, D. 308
Debarbieux, È. 185 DeBray, E. H. 863, 874 Deci, E. L. 185, 200 DeCuir, J. 811 Dei, G. J. S. 19nn.2, 4, 848, 996 Delamont, S. 627 Deleuze, G. 633, 750 Delors, J. 279 Delpit, L. 850, 855 Delvaux, B. 432 Demarchi, M. 701n.2 Denton, N. 779, 789, 810 Derouet, J. L. 506 Desai, A. 99 Desai, S. 851 Desai, Z. 19n.4 DeSalvatore, L. 873 Desbiens, N. 185, 200 Dessler, D. 232 Deustch, M. 766 Devine, F. 1057 Dewey, J. 804, 885, 907 Dhofier, Z. 327 Diamond, J. 1065 Diamond, P. 1108 Dibben, P. 1117 Dickson, M. 1019, 1113, 1126 Dieterich, H. 414 Dijkstra, A. 528 Dillon, J. 976n.31 Dingezweni, K. 107, 108 Dirlik, A. 222 Dixon, A. 1063, 1160 Dixson, A. 811 Dobert, H. 1169 Dobles, R. 81 Docking, J. 1219 Dodson, K. 361 Doherty, K. M. 873 Dole, S. 381 Donato, R. 814 Donnelly, K. 382 Donzello, G. 500n.10 Dornan, P. 1022 Douglas, J. W. B. 1081 Dovemark, M. 406 Dowsett, G. 1057 Dowswell, G. 1149 Draelants, H. 443
Author Index Drake, C. 796 Dronkers, J. 528 Drummond, M. 1063, 1160 Dubet, F. 602 DuBois, W. E. B. 767, 768, 775n.2 Dubow, S. 96 Dumais, S. A. 362 Dumont, J. C. 414 Dumont, L. 417 Duncan, G. J. 1057 Dupriez, V. 443 Dupuch, A. 185 Duran, M. C. G. D. 609 Durand, C. 184 Durkheim, E. 440 Duru-Bellat, M. 442, 443, 506, 517, 1226 Duschatzky, S. 752, 755 Dussart, M. 995 Dussel, I. 748 Duster, T. 790 Dutton, J. 1038, 1042 Dworkin, J. 893 Dwyer, J. 810 Dyos, H. J. 943 Dyson, A. H. 1058 Dyson, L. L. 831, 844 Dyson, M. 795, 796 Dzimadzi, C. 121, 123 Eagleton, T. 970 Earl, L. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089 Easton, J. 814 Eaton, S. 810 Ebr.-Vally, R. 96 Eccles, J. 893, 900n.13, 1057 Ecclestone, K. 1037 Eckert, P. 812 Ecob, R. 1010, 1082 Edelman, P. 808 Edmonds, R. 652, 861, 867, 872, 1081 Edward, R. 728 Edwards, M. 1070 Edwards, R. 294, 1057 Edwards, T. 436, 953, 965, 966, 1029, 1056, 1126 Edwards, V. 636n.15 Ehrenreich, B. 222, 352 Ekerwald, H. 406 Ekholm, M. 1085
1247
Elacqua, G. 1085 Elder, G. 359, 1057 Elias, N. 753 Ellett, C. D. 185 Elliott, P. 870 Elliott, R. 1065 Ellison, L. 1059 Ellsworth, J. 1057 Ellwood, J. 402 Elmore, R. F. 867, 1089 Emmelot, Y. 527 Englefield, S. 1054–1055 English, F. 1070 Englund, T. 406 Epstein, D. 402 Erickson, F. 627, 636n.16 Eriksen, T. H. 312 Erlichson, B. A. 863 Esposito, I. L. 613 Establet, R. 628 Estefanía, J. 414 Estrada, C. 883, 886 Etzkowitz, H. 308 Eugene, E. 831 Evans, F. 1115 Evans, J. 1108, 1132 Evans, P. B. 316 Evers, H. 322, 323 Eyzaguirre, B. 660 Ezpeleta, J. 571, 627, 628, 629, 636n.15 Fabian, J. 54, 72n.2 Fan, L. 225 Fan, X. 362 Fanon, F. 269 Fantini, M. D. 931 Farfán, E. 714 Faria Filho, L. M. de 572, 577n.2, 581, 586 Farquhar, C. 1083 Farrel, S. 1090 Farrell, J. P. 133 Fashola, O. S. 887, 890, 891 Fay, B. 960 Feagin, J. 789, 790 Federspiel, H. M. 333 Feinberg, H. M. 26, 27 Feindt, A. 552 Feinstein, L. 1021
1248
Author Index
Feres Junior, J. 577n.1 Ferguson, A. A. 850 Fernandes, C. O. 608 Fernández, M. T. 416 Fernández Santos, F. 419, 420 Ferranti, D. 562 Ferrao, M. E. 614, 615 Ferrer, C. 747 Ferretti, C. 567 Fichten, W. 552 Fielden, E. W. 98 Fielding, M. 1028 Figueroa, P. 996 Filer, A. 1031, 1032, 1033, 1036, 1039 Filgueira, F. 685, 688, 695, 696, 699, 701nn.4, 6 Finch, N. 1022 Fincher, R. 1060 Fine, M. 847, 850, 854, 867, 921, 1060, 1072n.3 Fink, D. 1061, 1063 Finn, P. 1058 Firestone, W. A. 185 Fishman, J. 791 Fitz, J. 1016, 1110 Fitzgerald, T. 185 Flessa, J. 769, 803, 808, 809, 815 Flood, P. 185 Flores, L. 716 Florida, R. 387 Fogelman, K. 950 Foner, N. 845 Fonseca, M. 568, 569 Ford, R. 810 Forde, C. 1067 Fordham, S. 786, 787 Fornäs, J. 472 Forrest, W. 425, 426 Foster, M. 765, 768, 795, 803, 810, 812, 855n.10, 872, 883, 886, 911, 1199 Foucault, M. 633, 753, 785, 1051 Foxman, D. 1087 Frances, B. 401 Franco, C. 605, 606, 615 Franco, M. L. P. B. 621, 631 Franklin, B. 953 Fraser, J. 183 Fraser, N. 256, 262 Frazier, E. F. 766
Frederiksen, J. 1081 Freebody, P. 225, 381, 383, 1058 Freiberg, J. 183 Freire, P. 81, 636n.20, 969, 975n.19 Freitag, B. 627, 635n.5 Freller, C. C. 634 Freund, B. 96, 98 Fried, L. 543, 544 Friedmann, J. 371, 1187, 1188, 1189 Frigerio, G. 697 Frisco, M. L. 361 Frost, D. 1065 Fruchter, N. 808 Fry, R. 825, 838n.2 Fuligni, A. 832 Fullan, M. 506, 660n.11, 867, 1038, 1039, 1042, 1043, 1063, 1129 Fuller, B. 186, 797, 814, 815 Fullick, L. 932, 936, 940, 1007, 1019, 1092, 1093, 1157 Fultz, M. 810 Furlán, A. 709 Furman, G. 1152 Furstenberg, F. 1057 Gabriel, K. 681n.13 Gadbois, C. 183 Gaebler, T. 1107 Gaine, C. 403 Gajardo, M. 703 Galbraith, J. 969 Gallart, M. A. 727 Galston, W. 813 Gamarnikow, E. 1140 Gamble, A. 975n.7 Gamoran, A. 362 Gándara, P. 872 Gandhi, L. 283n.2 Gans, H. J. 829 Gao, Q. 235 Garcia, J. M. 827 García, M. 714 García Espejo, I. 517 Garcia-Huidobro, J. E. 517n.13, 578n.13 Gardner, H. 176 Gardner, M. 1065 Garm, N. 401 Garrett, G. 305 Garrett, R. M. 185
Author Index Garrido, J. L. 720 Garrison, J. 885, 886 Garson, P. 146, 151 Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. 185 Gatti, B. A. 623 Gay, G. 787, 883, 912 Gaymes, A. 849, 855n.8 Gentili, P. 569 George, M. 796 Georges, P. 184 Gerard, H. 195 Gergen, K. J. 377n.1 Gewirtz, S. 933, 953, 965, 966, 1010, 1019, 1028, 1029, 1030, 1056, 1110, 1113, 1116, 1126, 1168 Ghosh, B. 421 Gibbs, J. P. 26 Gibson, K. 1060 Gibson, M. A. 828, 830, 845 Giddens, A. 359, 363, 368, 370–371, 385, 1107, 1108 Gidney, R. D. 809 Gil Calvo, E. 419 Gilbert, F. 1068 Gilbert, P. 381 Gilchrist, A. 1057 Gill, M. G. 361 Gillborn, D. 261, 290, 935–936, 979, 981, 982, 983, 986, 987, 988, 989, 990, 991, 992, 996, 997, 1001nn.6, 9, 1002n.14, 1023, 1033, 1084, 1107, 1118n.2 Gilly, M. 435 Gilroy, P. 385, 453 Gintis, H. 1081 Ginwright, S. 812, 817 Gipps, C. 983, 988, 992, 1084 Girardo Pierdominici, M. C. 733, 735 Giroux, H. A. 293 Gittell, M. 814 Gitz-Johansen, T. 400, 455 Glatter, R. 1010, 1029, 1030, 1106, 1108, 1115 Glazer, N. 782, 829 Gleeson, B. 387 Gleeson, D. 953 Glendinning, C. 1152 Glenny, M. 402 Gobbo, F. 397, 399, 408, 481, 485, 499, 500nn.1, 6
Godfrey, R. 995 Goertz, M. 863 Gogolin, I. 540 Goh, C. T. 371 Gold, E. 1070 Goldberg, D. T. 996 Goldstein, H. 1084, 1086, 1087, 1090, 1110 Gonder, P. O. 185 Gondra, J. G. 588 Gonzales, M. C. 20n.18 Gonzalez, J. 833 Gonzalez, N. 796, 893 González, P. 658 Goodenow, R. K. 944 Goodlad, J. I. 872 Goodman, A. 1028 Goodman, J. 950 Goodman, M. 359 Goodman, R. 312 Gootman, J. A. 883, 894 Gopinathan, S. 225 Gorard, S. 1064, 1110, 1111, 1112 Gordon, D. M. 728, 829 Gordon, E. W. 506 Gordon, G. 122 Gordon, M. 829 Gordon, T. 402, 447 Gotanda, N. 810 Gottdiener, M. 1158, 1165, 1166 Grace, G. 910, 934, 935, 936, 945, 950, 954, 959, 969, 970–971, 975nn.15, 17, 23, 24, 976n.33, 1041, 1158, 1206 Graham, C. K. 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45 Graham, S. 384 Gramsci, A. 796 Gray, J. 417, 1079, 1086, 1087, 1089, 1090, 1091–1092 Grayson, H. 1056 Greaves, D. 381 Green, A. 343, 636n.16 Greenberg, J. 1033 Greene, J. C. 905, 906, 915 Greene, K. 1056 Greenfield, P. M. 911 Gregg, A. 842, 855nn.2, 12 Gregory, S. 1192
1249
1250
Author Index
Grenier, G. 829, 835 Greve, B. 413 Grieco, E. M. 845 Griffin, S. 793 Griffith, A. 1058 Griffiths, G. 269 Griffiths, M. 506 Grindal, B. 34, 36 Grisay, A. 185, 200 Gronn, P. 1065 Grootenboer, P. 185 Grospiron, M.-F. 433, 440 Grosvenor, I. 949 Grotenhuis, S. 536 Guarido, R. L. 634 Guattari, F. 750 Guerrero, E. 786 Guggisberg, F. G. 41 Guillén, M. F. 312 Gundara, J. 981 Gunn, S. 1058 Gunraj, J. 1072n.6 Gunter, H. 1112, 1126 Gutiérrez, M. 681n.8 Gutiérrez, R. 517 Guttenberg, N. 870 Guven, I. 328, 335 Haberman, M. 148, 886, 1034 Habermas, J. 417, 747 Hage, G. 249 Hagy, A. P. 362 Hajnal, Z. L. 910 Hakala, K. 402 Hakim, C. 371 Hales, E. 975n.14, 1068 Hall, E. 1037 Hall, G. R. 185, 200 Hall, S. 367, 368, 449 Hallack, J. 728 Hallak, J. 315 Hallam, S. 990–991 Hallgarten, J. 1126 Hallinan, M. 444 Hallinan, P. M. 484–485 Halperin, S. 874 Halpin, A. 185 Halpin, D. 930, 970, 1016, 1019, 1056, 1113, 1114, 1126, 1129
Halsey, H. 1139 Halverson, R. 1065 Hambleton, R. 1149 Hameyer, U. 1085 Hamilton, C. V. 997–998 Hamilton, D. 585, 627 Hammersly, M. 627, 636n.16 Handa, A. 844, 849, 855n.7 Handler, J. 814 Hanna, J. W. 185 Hannum, E. 239 Hanushek, E. A. 1011 Harber, C. 19n.6, 21n.20 Harding, R. 944 Hardman, J. 1110, 1112 Hardy, L. 864 Hargreaves, A. 506, 535, 1063 Harrigan, P. J. 907–908 Harris, A. 660n.11, 1062, 1065, 1072 Harris, B. 1072 Harris, D. 945 Harris, J. 947 Harrison, C. 874 Harrison, S. 1149 Harry, B. 872 Hart, S. 1035, 1063, 1160 Hartnett, A. 975 Harvey, B. 845 Harvey, D. 293, 294, 386, 930, 961, 963, 964 Harvey, J. 806 Hatch, T. C. 867 Hatcher, R. 990, 1065–1066, 1147, 1149 Hattie, J. A. 869 Hau’ofa, E. 266 Hauck, F. 307 Hauya, R. 126 Hawkes, D. 363 Hay, H. R. 146 Hay, V. 1072n.3 Haynes, J. 981 Hayward, G. 1170 Heald, D. 1124 Healey, J. 362 Heater, D. 450 Heath, S. 1035 Heck, R. H. 185 Heikkilä, M. 400 Heinecke, W. 809
Author Index Held, V. 1069 Helg, A. 679 Heller, A. 416, 629 Hellmer, J. 552 Hellrung, M. 552 Helsper, W. 553 Heneveld, W. 9, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20n.8 Henig, J. 798, 807, 808, 844 Henriques, J. 997 Henry, A. 845, 850, 852, 855n.9 Henry, M. 258 Hentschke, G. C. 1107, 1117 Henze, R. C. 854 Hepburn, S. 995 Herbert, J. 183 Hericks, U. 543 Hernstein, R. J. 766 Herrmann, J. 555 Herschberg, T. 359 Hess, F. 809 Hess, R. D. 766 Hewes, G. M. 873 Hey, V. 402 Heyneman, S. P. 10, 11, 12, 20n.19 Hill, J. 981 Hill, P. 806 Hill, S. 381, 1058 Hilliard, A. G. 912 Hilliard, F. H. 26 Hilligius, A. H. 545 Hillman, J. 652, 1087 Hillmann, K. H. 416, 417 Hills, J. 1028, 1125, 1169 Hilsdorf, M. L. 585, 587 Hirsch, B. 893, 894, 896, 897 Hirschman, A. 443 Hirst, P. 305, 306 Ho, C. R. 355 Ho, P. S. Y. 355 Hobson, C. 1011, 1081 Hochschild, A. R. 222, 352 Hodgson, A. 1170 Hoffer, T. B. 362 Hogan, D. 225, 359 Holland, J. 451 Holland, P. 814 Hollar, D. 361 Holliday, I. 315 Hollingshead, A. 812
1251
Holmes-Smith, C. 471 Holton, R. J. 386 Holzer, H. 808 Honig, M. I. 867 Hood, C. 317 Hood, S. 920, 921, 923 Hopkins, D. 1043, 1063, 1086, 1132, 1134 Hopson, R. K. 905, 915, 920, 923 Horkheimer, M. 1196 Horsman, M. 305 Horton, J. 837 House, E. 905, 921–922 Houston, S. 627 Howard, J. 258, 382 Howell, W. 809, 815 Howson, J. 1063 Hsieh, H. C. 349 Hsieh, J. 351 Hsu, C. W. 309 Hughes, H. 102 Hughes, M. 1057, 1132 Hula, R. 798, 807 Hull, R. W. 24, 25 Hulse, E. V. 102 Humphries, S. 947 Hunt, T. 953 Hunter, L. 769, 779, 883, 884 Huntington, S. 766 Hursh, D. W. 886 Hutson, S. 359 Hutton, W. 385 Huxham, C. 1148 Huxley, M. 1060 Hymes, D. 185 Hynninen, P. 402 Hyslop, J. 96 Irby, M. A. 883 Ignatiev, N. 781 Ilieva, R. 846 Ince, M. 971 Inglis, C. 830 Innis, H. A. 221, 1179 Irvine, J. J. 885, 886, 912 Ison, L. 981 Jacobs, J. 1060 Jacobson, S. 384, 386 Jahreis, D. 543
1252
Author Index
James, C. 120, 844 James, C. E. 771, 803, 811, 841, 845, 846, 848, 849, 852, 853, 855n.4 James, R. 306, 307 James, S. 1072n.6 James-Wilson, S. V. 850 Janosz, M. 184, 185, 200 Jantzi, D. 1011, 1012, 1089 Jarvis, P. 809 Jaumandreu, G. 506 Jayasuriya, K. 306 Jencks, C. 1081 Jenkins, A. 1112, 1115 Jenkins, R. 359 Jennings, J. 998 Jensen, A. R. 766, 1081 Jerald, C. 813 Jesson, D. 1086, 1089, 1112 Jing, M. 355 Johansson, M. 406 John, G. 980, 981, 996 Johnes, G. 1010 Johnson, C. 315 Johnson, D. 793 Johnson, E. P. 787 Johnson, J. 886 Johnson, M. 932, 936, 1007, 1011, 1027, 1028, 1042, 1043, 1044 Johnston, K. 253 Jones, C. 398, 945, 946, 951, 964, 975n.11, 981 Jones, E. 256 Jones, G. E. 950–951 Jones, G. W. 352 Jones, K. 421 Jones, M. 1063 Jones, R. 807 Jordan, B. 484 Joseph, R. 784 Judge, H. 1028 Jupp, J. 133 Kacmar, M. K. 185, 200 Kadzamira, E. 121 Kahne, J. 815 Kakatera, F. 120 Kalantzis, M. 251, 252, 258, 382, 383, 385, 390 Kalb, P. E. 543
Kalinowski, T. 818 Kalis, M. C. 185 Kallos, D. 545 Kalmus, J. 625 Kamii, M. 870 Kamin, L. J. 636n.13 Kanyinga, K. 130 Kao, G. 361, 362, 832, 845 Kapitzke, C. 225, 381, 391 Kaplan, G. 253 Karier, C. J. 37 Karim, K. H. 388 Karlsen, G. 401 Karlsson, J. 6–7, 19, 91, 104 Karlsson, L. 406 Karumanchery, L. 815 Katz, M. 790, 805, 814, 923, 944 Katzenmayer, M. 1065 Kaunda, Z. 124 Kay, H. 1148 Kazal, R. 829 Kazamias, A. M. 328 Kazi, G. 323 Kaztman, R. 695, 699, 702n.19 Keating, M. 931 Keller, B. 767 Kelley, R. 780, 803 Kelly, J. A. 869 Kelly, R. 933, 1112 Kelly, W. 55 Kemerer, F. 814 Kemmis, S. 426 Kemp, P. 1022 Kemp, S. 989 Kendall, N. 124 Kendrick, A. 1145, 1147 Kennedy, H. 1100 Kenway, J. 254, 261, 1072n.3 Kerbow, D. 814 Kerckhoff, A. C. 950, 952 Kerr, M. 1084 Kessel, M. 622 Kessler, G. 699 Kessler, S. 1057 Kett, J. 359 Keuffer, J. 543, 548, 549 Keys, W. 1054, 1056, 1062 Khan, L. 996 Khapoya, V. 52, 53
Author Index Kherroubi, M. 440 Kiddle, C. 484 Kim, J. I. 343 Kim, Y. H. 348 Kimble, D. 29, 30, 31, 34, 37, 40, 44, 45 Kincheloe, J. L. 841, 842, 850, 910, 911 Kinder, K. 1140 King, J. 785 Kirp, D. 810 Kirst, M. 808, 815, 877 Klasen, S. 453 Klein, H. 359 Klein, R. 1124, 1125, 1134 Kleiner, A. 1038, 1042 Klicpera, Ch. 185 Klieme, E. 1169 Klingner, J. K. 872 Klinkner, P. A. 766 Klitgaard, R. E. 185, 200 Kluckhohn, C. 55 Knapp, M. S. 870 Knill, C. 306, 316 Koh, A. 371 Kohli, M. 359 Konadu-Agyemang, K. 32, 33, 35 Kong, L. 224 Konkol, P. 868 Korff, R. 322, 323 Kornblum, W. 130 Korthagen, F. 535 Kotkin, J. 766 Kovatcheva, S. 359 Kozol, J. 790, 812, 884, 885, 886, 1034 Kramer, S. 632 Kramsch, C. 388 Kretzmann, J. 1057 Krige, S. 146 Kronk, P. 383 Krug, A. 610 Kryger, N. 404 Kumashiro, K. 816 Kunje, D. 121 Kupfer, M. C. 634 Kuthemba-Mwale, J. B. 126 Kymlicka, W. 416, 417 Labarca, G. 727, 733 Labissiere, Y. 831 Labov, W. 872
1253
Lache, M. 681n.4 Ladson-Billings, G. 784, 810, 855n.1, 872, 912, 996, 1000 Lahelma, E. 402, 451, 456–457 Lahire, B. 583 Lakoff, G. 907, 908, 923n.1 Lam, D. 883, 886 Lam, E. 225, 1178 Lam, W. S. E. 388 Lambert, L. 1065, 1130 Lambert, M. 1065 Lamo de Espinosa, E. 417 Land, R. 383, 381 Lange, H. 542, 543, 546 Langman, J. 883 Lanphier, M. 842 Lappalainen, S. 402, 455 Lara, J. 871 Lareau, A. 1030, 1038 LaRocque, L. 846 Larson, R. W. 893, 900 Lash, S. 465 Lau, L. 334 Lau, S. 225 Lauder, H. 971, 1028 Lauria, M. 1070 Lauver, S. 893–894 Lauwerys, J. 944 Lawton, D. 1100 Lazarus, S. 154, 162, 176 Le Blanc, M. 185, 200 Le Roux, J. 146, 148, 152, 153, 157, 160, 161 Leacock, E. 912 Leathwood, C. 405 Lebelo, S. 146 Leblond, D. 1147, 1149 Ledoux, G. 526, 531 Lee, B. 990 Lee, C. 874, 894 Lee, H. L. 224, 371 Lee, M. N. N. 311 Lee, S. J. 849 Lee, V. 814 Lee, Y. J. 349, 350 Leech, D. 1168 Leeman, Y. 523, 524, 526, 527, 531, 536n.2 Lefebvre, H. 91, 110, 1188
1254
Author Index
Legault, L. 185 Lehmkuhl, D. 306, 316 Leithwood, K. 1062, 1065 Leiulfsrud, H. 406 Lemmermöhle, D. 543 Lemon, A. 95, 96, 107 Lemos, C. 636n.14 Leonardo, Z. 769, 779, 780, 783, 795, 883, 884 Lessard, C. 435 Levacic, R. 1110, 1111, 1112, 1115, 1118 Levin, B. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089 Lewin, K. M. 119, 120 Lewis, D. 1010, 1082 Lewis, J. 855n.10, 883 Lewis, O. 766, 781 Lewontin, R. C. 636 Leydesdorff, L. 308 Li, J. 353, 832, 844 Li, P. S. 831 Lie, S. 448, 449 Lieberman, A. 444 Liebowitz, M. 873 Liégeois, J.-P. 484 Lijtenstein, S. 698, 702n.20 Likert, R. 184 Lim, S. G. 355 Lim, S. S. 371 Limage, L. J. 81 Lin, A. 222 Lin, M. 1140 Lindberg, U. 472, 1224 Lindblad, S. 455 Lingard, B. 258, 260 Linklater, A. 450 Linn, R. 797 Linnakylä, P. 448 Lipman, P. 383, 813, 886, 899 Lipton, M. 909 Lister, R. 1060 Liston, D. 885, 886 Little, J. W. 869 Livingstone, K. 991 Lloyd, G. 1145, 1147, 1153 Lloyd, P. C. 32 Lo, Y. W. 311 Logan, J. R. 842, 855n.3 Logie, A. 1016 Lopez, D. 786
López, G. 811 Lopez, L. 816 López Goñi, I. 420 Lopez-Gonzalez, L. 833 Lord, H. 893, 900n.13 Lortie, D. 435 Lotto, L. S. 872 Louden, B. 1058 Louden, W. 381 Louis, K. S. 184, 1085 Low, L. 309 Lowinger, L. 944 Lucas, T. 1038, 1042 Lucey, H. 1111 Luckmann, T. 779 Ludwig, C. 1058 Luke, A. 226, 381, 383, 384, 385, 1177, 1179, 1183, 1187, 1191, 1195, 1199, 1203, 1204 Luke, C. 226, 381 Lumsden, L. 185 Lundström, C. 455 Lupton, R. 933, 934, 1060, 1097, 1140 Luthuli, P. C. 162 Luttrell, W. 792 Lyman, L. 1070 Lynch, D. 869 Lystad, R. 26 Lytle, J. 861, 873 Lytle, M. H. 860 Lytle, S. L. 869 Maalouf, A. 419 Macbeath, A. 1108 MacBeath, J. 1084 Macdonald, I. 996 Macedo, D. 872 MacGilchrist, B. 932, 937, 938, 940, 1010, 1011, 1018, 1039, 1079, 1169 MacGregor, K. 108 Machado, A. C. A. 634 Machado, A. M. 633, 634 Machin, S. 1019, 1114 Macjessie-Mbewe, S. L. W. 122 Macleod, D. 845 MacLeod, J. 444, 792 Maclure, J. S. 36, 951 MacLure, M. 907 Maclure, R. 21n.23
Author Index MacMaster, N. 402 Macpherson, W. 980, 983, 990, 997, 1001n.4 Maden, M. 1091, 1092, 1093 Maguire, M. 976n.31 Mahari, J. 883, 886 Mahmood, I. P. 309 Mahoney, J. L. 893, 900n.13 Mainardes, J. 613 Mak, G. C. L. 222, 224, 343, 349, 350 Makau, B. 131 Maksum, H. 323, 324, 330 Makumbe, J. 79 Malgesini, G. 416 Malone, B. 185 Maluf, M. R. 634 Malungana, G. 146 Manasevit, L. M. 869, 875 Manda, D. K. 129 Manderson, L. 830 Mangan, J. 1010, 1111 Mangena, M. 146 Mapesela, M. L. E. 146 Marais, F. 146 Marcoulides, G. A. 185 Marcuse, H. 1195, 1197 Marginson, S. 227, 306, 307, 308 Marland, M. 953 Marsden, W. E. 946, 948 Marsh, A. 1022 Marsh, H. W. 362 Marshal, J. 874 Marshall, A. 305 Marshall, B. 874 Marshall, G. 322, 335 Marshall, T. H. 448 Martin, E. C. 26 Martin, C. A. 28, 37, 39 Martin, I. 1148 Martin, J. 952, 1148 Martin, N. 874 Martin, P. 222 Martínez, A. M. 634 Martínez, E. 688 Martinic, S. 660 Marzano, R. J. 874 Mascall, B. 1027 Masemann, V. 42 Mason, J. 535
1255
Massey, D. 91, 451, 779, 789, 798n.1, 810 Masturah, I. 221, 222, 1187 Masud-Piloto, F. R. 836 Mathews, J. 870 Mathews, J. A. 309 Matluck, B. M. 185 Matsepe-Casaburri, I. 109 Mattos, I. H. 588 Matute-Bianchi, M. 830, 832, 834 Maughan, B. 1010, 1081 Mavberry, M. 184 Maw, J. 402 May, S. 996 Mayer, K. U. 359, 360 Mayhew, E. 1022 Mayo, M. 1150 Mays, J. B. 948 Mazzuca, J. 848 McAllister, G. 885 McCallum, B. 1132 McCarthy, C. 255, 404, 415 McCarthy, J. 92 McClafferty, K. A. 577n.4, 841, 842 McCollum, S. 148, 152 McConnell, B. 1016 McCready, L. 817 McCreath, D. 1108 McCulloch, G. 930, 931, 935, 943, 947, 948, 949, 951, 953, 1105, 1135, 1163, 1203 McCulloch, K. 1147, 1148 McDade, L. 792 McDermott, K. A. 863 McDowell, L. 459 McEwan, P. 660n.6 McGlaughlin, A. 995 McIntyre, D. 1063, 1160 McIsaac, E. 848 McKnight, J. 1057, 1060 McLaren, P. 92 McLaughlin, M. W. 869, 883 McLeod, J. 259 McNair, J. 425 McNally, S. 1019, 1114 McPartland, J. 1011, 1081 McPherson, G. 104, 113n.7 McPherson, I. 1065 McWhorter, J. 813 Meaney, C. S. 308
1256
Author Index
Meghir, C. 1019, 1114 Mehan, H. 883, 884, 885, 886, 887, 889, 890 Mehta, J. D. 361 Meira, M. M. 634 Melhuish, E. C. 1098 Mello, G. N. 632, 636n.22 Mello, S. L. 625 Memmi, A. 83, 784 Mencken, H. L. 769 Meneses, E. 723n.8 Menter, I. 965, 975n.8 Meo, A. 453 Mercer, J. 910 Merino, B. 872 Merson, M. 969 Merz, C. 1152 Merziger, P. 552 Metso, T. 451 Meyer, H. 552 Meyer, J. 432, 576n.6 Mignolo, W. 577n.1 Mijares, A. 734, 739 Mijares Ruiz, A. 731, 734, 739 Miles, M. 1085 Milewa, T. 1149 Miliband, D. 953, 1055 Miller, H. 953 Miller, T. 448 Miller-Kahn, L. 809 Millett, R. A. 915 Millington, J. 1010 Millward, A. 1140 Mina, A. 681n.3 Mingat, A. 443 Mingione, E. 466 Minow, M. 803 Miretsky, D. 868 Mirón, L. F. 577n.4, 911, 932 Mirza, H. S. 981, 982, 983, 986, 987, 1000–1001, 1002n.14, 1023 Mishra, R. 413 Mitchell, C. 156 Mitchell, T. R. 577n.4, 841 Mitrulis, E. 607 Miyeni, E. 147, 149, 164 Mizala, A. 660n.6 Modell, J. 359 Modood, T. 402, 403, 404
Mok, I. A. C. 225 Mok, K. H. 305, 306, 307, 308, 311, 312, 314, 316 Moletsane, R. 156 Molina, A. S. 634 Moll, L. 796, 893, 1033, 1036, 1058, 1061 Moller, G. 1065 Mona, V. 149, 179n.4 Monbiot, G. 974n.4 Montgomery, P. A. 827 Montibeller, L. 634 Montoya, Y. 185 Montt, P. 660n.12 Mood, A. 860, 1011, 1081 Moore, A. 535 Moore, D. 361 Moore, R. 930 Moore, T. G. 315 Mora, M. T. 361 Moraes, R. C. 566 Morás, L. 687 Mordaunt, E. 1140 Morduchowicz, A. 748 Moreno, L. 413, 422 Moreton-Robinson, A. S. 261 Morgan, S. L. 361, 362 Moriarty, B. J. 484–485 Morrell, F. 952, 962 Morrell, R. 95 Morris, B. 1067 Morris, R. J. 943 Morrison, A. 995 Morrison, D. R. 344 Morrison, I. 94 Mortimore, P. 185, 652, 933, 1011, 1031, 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084, 1087, 1094, 1097, 1099, 1100 Moseley, D. 1037 Moses, R. 887, 888 Moss, G. 118, 1163 Mouton, J. 155 Moyana, T. 81 Moyo, S. 79, 85, 207 Moysés, M. A. A. 627 Muijs, D. 1091, 1094, 1095 Muir, K. 784 Mujis, D. 660n.11 Muller, C. 361, 833 Muller, J. 150, 151
Author Index Mumford, L. 265 Mungazi, D. 76, 82, 83, 84 Munn, P. 1158, 1153 Muñoz, G. 569, 571, 578n.12, 650, 651, 660n.7 Munro, J. F. 32 Murillo, F. J. 652, 660n.11 Murphy, J. 864, 869 Murray, C. 766, 789 Muspratt, S. 381 Myers, D. 891 Myers, K. 1079 Nagata, J. 327, 332 Nagle, J. 599n.7 Nair, S. 415, 416, 419, 420 Nakagawa, K. 912 Nalebuff, B. 1119 Nathan, G. 363 Ndiaye, M. 200 Ndoye, A. K. 8, 183, 188 Ndoye, M. 184 Nee, V. 825 Neill, S. 1056 Nel, J. G. 102 Nell, M. 121 Nelson, J. 790 Nelson-Barber, S. 912 Neubauer, R. 613 Neubeck, K. 790 Neumann, E. 636n.15 Neves, M. M. B. J. 593, 634 Newman, J. 1135, 1148 Newman, K. 1075 Newsam, P. 975n.13, 1029 Newson, J. 307, 944 Neysmith, S. 803, 804 Ngara, E. 83 Nguyen, C. 183 Nherera, C. M. 77 Nhlengethwa, S. 146 Nieto, S. 783, 996 Nixon, H. 1058 Nixon, J. 1146 Njeuma, M. 54 Noble, G. 308 Noblit, G. 885, 886 Noddings, N. 883, 885, 886, 898 Noden, P. 1110
1257
Noguera, P. 783, 806, 812, 813, 847, 884 Nolan, K. 399, 401, 404 Norman, J. M. 185 Northcott, M. 975n.18 Novak, J. 797 Nóvoa, A. 632 Nozaki, Y. 293 Nsapato, L. 119 Ntshangase, D. 146 Nunan, D. 388 Nunes, C. 592 Nuñez-Estrada, H. R. 577n.5 Nussbaum, M. 515, 886 Nuttall, D. L. 1084 Nyamnjoh, F. B. 15, 19n.2 Nyathikazi, T. 113 O’Neill, S. 893 O’Connell, A. 803, 804 O’Connor, M. 975n.14, 1068 O’Connor, R. A. 322 O’Hara, P. 1140, 1148 Oakes, J. 784, 885, 886, 909, 990, 1063 Oancea, A. 1170 Oberti, M. 438 Obolenski, A. 552 Ochieng, W. 131 Oelkers, J. 542, 546, 548 Offner, P. 808 Ogbu, J. 787, 813, 829, 830 Ogot, B. 131 Ohmae, K. 305 Öhrn, E. 397, 402, 406, 457, 1191 Olagnero, M. 453 Olds, K. 223 Oliveira, B. de 594, 1195 Oliveira, R. 577 Oliveira, R. P. de 597 Ollila, L. O. 845 Olsen, L. 812 Onafowora, L. 855n.10, 883 Ong, A. 450 Ooi, G. L. 221 Openshaw, R. 293 Oppenheimer, D. 790 Orfield, G. 810, 864, 866 Orfield, M. 807 Orlofsky, G. F. 873 Ornstein, M. 842, 855n.6
1258
Author Index
Orr, M. 798, 807 Ortega y Gasset, J. 418, 420 Osborn, M. 435 Osborne, D. 1107 Oser, F. 542, 546 Osgood, C. E. 57 Osler, A. 460, 992, 995 Oucho, J. 130, 131 Ouston, J. 185, 1010, 1081 Overman, L. T. 873 Owen, C. 981 Owusu, G. 26 Oyugi, E. 129 Pacione, M. 1060 Pahl, R. 930, 961 Painter, M. 315 Palmer, H. 847 Palmu, T. 451 Pampallis, J. 104 Pandey, S. 336 Pang, V. O. 883, 885, 886, 898, 899 Pantoja Palacios, J. 731, 735 Paparelli, R. 625 Paquay, L. 632 Paquette, D. 148, 152 Parada, R. H. 362 Pardo, M. 660n.6 Parekh, B. 995, 1001n.2 Parent, S. 184 Parish, W. L. 352 Park, A. 238 Park, R. 930 Park, R. E. 829 Parker, A. 1128 Parker, L. 788 Parker, W. C. 524 Parkes, J. 184 Parsons, C. 995 Passeron, J. C. 118, 628, 667, 1069 Paterson, A. 146 Patto, M. H. S. 622, 625, 627, 628, 629, 631, 632, 636nn.13, 15 Patton, M. Q. 921 Patton, P. 252 Paulle, B. 526 Pavlenko, A. 388 Paxton, W. 1166, 1168, 1170 Peacock, A. 1069
Pearce, N. 1166, 1168, 1170 Pedescleaux, D. 798, 807 Peel, J. D. Y. 23 Peel, M. 387 Peele-Eady, T. 775, 883, 893, 897 Peller, G. 810 Pelletier, L. 185 Pels, T. 527 Pempel, T. J. 306 Peñalva, A. 397, 399, 404, 413, 414, 422, 423, 428n.6 Peng, S. S. 832 Penney, D. 1110 Pennycook, A. 389 Pérez, J. 516 Perez, J. G. 796 Perez, L. 835 Perlman, J. 825, 833 Perrenoud, P. 616n.2 Perry, G. 562 Perry, J. 1022 Persell, C. H. 118 Peshkin, A. 324 Peters, G. 313, 316 Peterson, A. 453 Petrie, P. 1163 Pewewardy, C. 912 Phelan, T. J. 841 Phoenix, A. 402 Pieck, E. 707 Pierre, J. 306, 313, 316 Pile, S. 91, 1178 Pindani, D. G. 123 Ping, Y. 362 Pink, W. 812, 1175 Pitt, J. 1058 Piven, F. 789 Planas, J. 728n.6, 744 Plewis, I. 363, 990, 1083 Podgursky, M. 541 Poggi, M. 697 Poglinco, S. M. 873 Pogrow, S. 873 Polesel, J. 260 Poliak, N. 752 Pollard, A. 636n.16, 1031, 1032, 1033, 1036, 1039 Pon, G. 849 Popkewitz, T. S. 448, 455
Author Index Portelli, J. 815 Portes, A. 791, 825, 826, 829, 830, 831, 832, 833, 834, 835, 838, 845 Portillo, G. 563 Portin, B. S. 870 Portz, J. 807, 808 Posch, P. 552 Powell, M. 1152 Power, S. 930, 1010, 1016, 1019, 1028, 1029, 1044, 1056, 1106, 1113, 1123, 1126, 1128, 1129, 1140 Presmeg, N. 844 Preston, V. 843–844 Préteceille, E. 438 Prieto, P. 400 Pring, R. 1124 Propper, C. 1016, 1125 Prosser, R. 1084 Pruyn, M. 886 Puamau, P. Q. 265, 269, 276, 283n.4 Puiggrós, A. 563–564, 567 Purdue, D. 1149 Purvis, J. 949 Putnam, R. D. 913, 914 Qin-Hilliard, D. B. 850 Queirolo, R. 688, 697 Quinn, J. 883, 893 Raczynski, D. 641, 650, 651, 654, 660n.7 Radcliffe, S. 76 Radford, D. 95 Rado, E. R. 31, 45 Raftopolous, B. 76, 79, 80 Rager, B. K. 920 Rama, G. 690 Ramesh, M. 316 Rampal, A. 226, 285, 290, 292, 302, 303 Ranson, S. 92 Rasbash, J. 1084 Ravitch, D. 944 Rawls, J. 3, 7, 132, 133, 667, 962 Rayou, P. 437 Razpotnik, S. 427n.4 Razzaque, K. 1149 Reay, D. 405, 970, 1057, 1072n.3, 1111 Reeder, D. 945, 946, 947, 950, 975n.12 Reese, E. 790 Reeves, J. 1067
1259
Regan, D. E. 1134 Reich, E. 728 Reich, R. B. 305 Reid, I. 1113, 1115, 1116 Reid, J. 391, 1058 Reid, J.-A. 381 Reid-Walsh, J. 156 Reihl, C. 1062, 1065, 1072 Reimers, F. 21n.20, 666–668, 680, 681n.6, 702nn.21, 22 Reinhart, A. 843 Reitz, J. 811 Ren, C. Q. 238 Rendall-Mkosi, K. 149, 159 Rennie, L. 254 Rex, J. 930, 961 Reynaga Obregón, S. 728 Reynolds, D. 652, 1011, 1080, 1082, 1084, 1086, 1095 Reynolds, E. 34, 39 Reynolds, H. 251 Reynolds, P. 652 Rhodes, A. W. 307 Rhodes, R. A. W. 1134–1135, 1136 Ribbens, J. 1057 Ribeiro, S. C. 623, 624, 636n.11 Rice, J. K. 362 Rich, W. 808 Richards, C. E. 185 Richards, G. 636n.13 Richards, M. H. 893 Richardson, J. G. 923n.1 Richardson, R. 986 Riddell, R. 934, 936–937, 938, 940, 1027, 1043, 1044, 1093, 1111, 1161 Riddell, S. 1141, 1152 Rifkin, J. 414 Rigg, J. 293 Riley, K. 1064, 1129 Rinehart, J. S. 185, 200 Ritter, G. W. 894 Rivalland, J. 1058 Rizvi, F. 250, 255, 258, 261, 997 Robbins, B. 222, 225, 1178 Robelen, E. W. 867, 878 Robert, L.W. 122 Roberts, K. 1028 Roberts, R. 415 Robin, D. 1085
1260
Author Index
Robinson, C. D. W. 68 Robinson, P. 915, 1009, 1021, 1098 Robles, F. 759n.3 Robson, E. 1038–1039, 1145, 1152 Robson, G. 1028, 1030 Rocha, A. D. C. 625 Rocha, M.L. 634 Rockwell, E. 571, 627, 636n.15 Rockwell, J. 627, 628, 629 Rodger, R. 943–944 Rodgers, J. P. 34, 43 Rodríguez, H. 701n.2 Roe, A. 448 Roe, E. 804 Roediger, D. 781 Roellke, C. F. 362 Rofes, E. 814 Roff, W. R. 326 Rogers, C. R. 186, 886 Rojas Mata, M. R. 731, 734 Rolff, H. G. 555 Rollow, S. 814 Rolnik, R. 565, 577n.5 Romaguera, P. 660n.6 Román, M. 660n.7 Romero, L. A. 747 Rosaldo, R. 708, 718 Rose, J. 947 Rose, N. 450 Rose, S. 636n.13 Rose, T. 796 Rosen, E. 177 Rosenau, J. N. 312 Rosenthal, L. 810 Ross, E. W. 886 Roth, W. M. 290 Rothstein, R. 806 Rothstein-Fisch, C. 911 Rovell, D. 787 Rowan, B. 432 Rowles, D. 1129 Roy, S. 294 Rozelle, S. 238 Ruck, M. 847–848 Rui, Y. 231, 312 Rumbaut, R. G. 825, 829, 830, 831, 832, 833, 835 Rummery, K. 1152 Russ, J. 1091
Russell, H. 1151 Russo, C. J. 872 Rutter, M. 184, 185, 1010, 1017, 1081, 1082, 1083 Ryan, J. 148, 152, 1070 Ryan, R. M. 185, 200 Sa’eda, B. 222–223, 228, 321 Sachs, J. 258 Sack, R. 12 Sacks, J. 973, 976n.29 Sadembouo, E. 68 Safia Mirza, H. 405, 1001 Sagor, R. 185, 200 Said, E. W. 87 Salamon, L. M. 313, 316 Saletti Salza, C. 500 Salonen, T. 466 Sameroff, A. 1057 Sammons, P. 652, 1010, 1082, 1084, 1086, 1087, 1098 Samoff, J. 5, 12, 13n.7, 20n.17, 21, 76, 185 Sampson, A. 149 Sandell, R. 421 Sanderson, V. 1057 Sandham, J. L. 873 Sandoval, E. 709, 721, 724n.22 Sangsue, J. 183 Santos, A. A. C. 634, 636n.21 Santos, B. S. 566 Santos, D. P. 614 Santos, M. 577 Saqib, G. N. 323 Sargent, T. 239 Sarlo, B. 747 Sassen, S. 399, 437, 972 Saul, R. 771, 841, 848 Savage, M. 1028 Savoie, A. 185 Sawaya, S. 632 Sawer, M. 253 Sayão, Y. 634 Scanlan, L. 893 Scanlan, T. 893 Scanlon, D. 944 Scharpf, F. W. 306 Scheerens, J. 652, 1082 Scherler, K. 549 Schick, C. 811–812
Author Index Schlesinger, J. 782 Schmoker, M. 874 Schneider, B. 774, 871 Schneider, M. 660, 841 Schön, D. 697, 907, 909 Schrag, P. 806 Schrim, A. 891 Schugurensky, D. 306 Schweinhart, L. J. 865 Schweittzer, J. 185 Scott, D. 98, 100 Scott, I. 306, 316 Scott, J. 322, 335 Sears, A. 806, 807 Seashore, L. K. 184 Sebring, P. 814 See, B. 1064 Sefton-Green, J. 385 Segarra, J. A. 81 Seguin-Levesque, C. 185 Selescovitch, D. 61 Semmens, R. 1140, 1145, 1147 Sen, A. 3, 133, 343, 348, 353, 357 Sene, D. 201 Senge, P. 1038, 1042, 1100 Sennett, R. 386, 754, 1107 Sergiovanni, T. J. 1152 Sernhede, O. 399, 404, 405, 408, 463, 472, 476 Sewell, T. 995 Shah, B. P. 411 Shah, S. 403 Shamsi, S. 991 Sharan, A. 295 Sharma, K. 296 Sharp, C. 1056, 1071 Sharp, P. 843, 844, 950 Sharp, R. 636n.16, 974n.3 Sharpe, B. 843 Shaw, J. 1028 Shen, F. X. 862, 877 Shephard, A. 1028 Shields, C. 1069–1070 Shimahara, N. 443 Shipman, V. C. 766 Short, P. 185, 200 Shultz, M. 125 Sigelman, L. 844 Silva, R. N. 613
Silva, Z. F. 613 Silveira, P. 594, 688, 697 Silver, R. 156 Silverman, D. 185, 1072n.1 Silvestrini, E. 500n.8 Simmons, W. 808 Simon, B. 947 Simon, E. 1070 Sims, B. 893 Singer, P. 728 Singh, J. 309 Siraj-Blatchford, I. 991, 1098 Sistrunk, W. E. 185 Sivanandan, A. 996 Skeggs, B. 405 Skelton, C. 401 Slaugher-Defoe, D. 912 Slavin, R. 652 Slee, R. 1052, 1084 Sleeter, C. 783 Slobin, Dan I. 57 Smith, A. 185 Smith, B. 1038, 1042 Smith, D. 947, 1058, 1083 Smith, K. 847 Smith, M. 809, 1146 Smith, N. 1016 Smith, R. 944 Smith, T. 869 Smylie, M. A. 868 Snyder, B. A. 873 Snyder, I. 388 Soares, M. 627 Soja, E. W. 385 Solano-Flores, G. 912 Solmon, M. A. 184 Solomon, R. P. 841, 847 Somerville, J. 867 Sorenson, A. B. 362 Soudien, C. 996 Sourang, M. 184 Sousa, C. P. 631 Sousa, S. Z. 603, 606, 611, 612 Souza, C. 631 Souza, D. T. R. 573, 619, 631 Souza, M. C. C. 631 Souza, M. P. R. 619, 631, 634 Souza, R. F. de 589, 590, 598 Sowell, T. 789
1261
1262
Author Index
Spence, N. 1149, 1150 Spencer, S. 950 Spiegelhalter, D. 1087 Spillane, J. 1065 Spinks, J. M. 1089 Spivak, G. 785 Spoehr, A. 265, 270 Spours, K. 1170 Spring, J. H. 308 Srinivasan, R. 295 St. John, E. P. 911, 932 St. Denis, V. 811–812 St. Louis, K. 796 Stack, C. 816 Staniec, J. F. O. 362 Stankovik, S. 427n.4 Stanton-Salazar, R. D. 834 Stead, J. 1145, 1147 Steel, D. 1124 Steele, C. 787 Steffgen, G. 185 Stein, L. 807 Steinberg, L. 184 Stephenson, J. 545 Stephenson, K. 1016 Stepick, A. 829, 830, 831, 832, 835, 836 Stepick, C. D. 831, 832, 835, 836 Stevens, J. J. 184 Stevenson, D. 385 Stewart, K. 1028, 1169 Stewart, M. 1149 Stickard, J. 184 Stiglitz, J. E. 224, 315, 316 Stoll, L. 1010, 1061, 1079, 1086, 1089, 1091 Stone, C. 807–808 Stott, A. 1140 Stovall, D. 1259 Strathern, M. 1056 Stroka, W. 1169 Stromquist, N. 911 Stronge, J. H. 185 Stuart, J. 156 Stubbs, M. 627, 636n.16, 1068 Stufflebeam, D. L. 921 Stulberg, L. 814 Suárez, D. 569, 571 Suarez-Orozco, C. 801, 850 Suarez-Orozco, M. 801, 828, 830, 831
Subrahmanian, R. 132 Subramanian, S. 851 Sugarman, S. 814 Sukhnandan, L. 990 Suminto, A. 327 Supovitz, J. A. 873 Suriano, J. 748 Sutz, J. 307 Swann, L. 981, 989 Sweeny, J. 185 Sylva, K. 1098 Sylvester, C. 81, 85 Tada, I. N. C. 634 Tadadjeu, M. 54, 57, 67 Taggart, B. 1098 Taguiri, R. 183 Takanishi, R. 912 Talbert-Johnson, C. 872 Tamboril, M. I. B. 636n.21 Tan, J. 311 Tan, T. M. 309 Tan, W. L. 309 Tanamachi, E. R. 628, 634 Tapia, J. 1061 Tardiff, M. 435 Tartuce, G. L. 567 Tassoni, E. C. M. 634 Taylor, C. 1110, 1112 Taylor, J. 1010 Taylor, M. 1135, 1149 Taylor, N. 150, 151 Taylor, S. 258, 261 Teasdale, G. R. 221, 224, 265, 279, 280, 283n.3 Teddlie, C. 1011, 1080, 1082, 1084, 1095 Tedesco, J. C. 671, 680 Teed, D. 831 Teese, R. 92, 260 Teixeira, A. 593, 594, 595, 596, 599nn.3, 7, 8 Tenorth, H. E. 543 Tenti, E. 671 Terán, O. 747 Terhart, E. 747 Tesser, P. 526 Tett, L. 934, 939, 940, 1021, 1031, 1044, 1109, 1139, 1140, 1141, 1146, 1147, 1148, 1149, 1150, 1151, 1152, 1163
Author Index Thaman, K. H. 281 Thernstrom, A. 884 Thernstrom, S. 884 Therrien, A. T. S. 624 Thiam, A. 200n.5 Thiara, R. 97 Thiebaud, M. 184 Thierack, A. 546 Thin, D. 583 Thloloe, J. 146 Thomas, K. 810 Thomas, R. G. 30 Thomas, R. M. 910 Thomas, S. 1083, 1090, 1101 Thompson, F. M. L. 947 Thompson, G. 305, 306 Thoms, D. W. 952 Thomson, P. 251, 387, 934, 937, 1030, 1034, 1049, 1053, 1056, 1057, 1058, 1059, 1063–1064, 1067 Thrupp, M. 441, 970, 974, 975n.25, 1011, 1034, 1051, 1052, 1066, 1072n.4, 1082, 1084–1085, 1095, 1096 Tienda, M. 362, 832, 845 Tiffin, H. 269 Tikly, L. 19n.2, 981 Tiramonti, G. 561, 570, 576, 747, 752 Tisdall, K. 1146 Tizard, B. 1083 Tizifa, J. 126 Toalster, R. 1053 Togneri, W. 1129 Tokai, E. 280, 283n.3 Tokman, V. 727 Tolonen, T. 450 Tomlinson, S. 830, 975n.14, 989, 1009, 1052, 1068, 1072n.3, 1083, 1084, 1099, 1169 Tooley, J. 1123 Tordoff, W. 44 Torrado, S. 748 Torrance, N. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089 Torres, C. 306 Torres, R. 566, 807 Touraine, A. 417 Toutounji, I. 990, 991 Tractenberg, P. L. 1132 Trainor, R. 949
1263
Trinidad, M. 413 Trondman, M. 402, 406 Troper, H. 842 Troyna, B. 990, 991, 996 Trumbull, E. 911 Tsang, A. K. T. 355 Tsang, M. S. 239 Tschekan, K. 555 Tsoka, M. G. 124 Tsolidis, G. 250, 254, 255, 263 Turner, B. S. 450 Turner, E. 1067 Turner, V. 312 Turrittin, A. 844 Turtel, J. 382 Tyack, D. 591, 944 Tyler, P. 1140 Tymms, P. 1011 Uhlenberg, P. 359 Useem, E. 878 Usher, R. 294 Valberg, M. J. 185 Valdes, G. 791 Valencia, R. 766, 833, 1072n.3 Valenzuela, A. 786, 812 Vallely, P. 975 van Dijk, T. A. 402, 403 Van Greunen, E. 153–154, 161, 162, 164, 176 Van Hook, J. 827 Van Velzen, W. 1085 Van Zanten, A. 399, 400, 405, 407, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 500, 523 Vangen, S. 1149 Varela, J. P. 701n.2 Varghese, L.S. 849, 852 Vaughan-Williams, P. 620 Veiga, C. G. 583 Verma, G. D. 296 Verma, S. 893 Vermeulen, B. P. 524, 528 Viadero, D. 878 Vianna, H. M. 614 Vidal Vila, J. M. 418 Vidovich, L. 312 Vieluf, U. 540
1264
Author Index
Villalpando, O. 768 Villavicencio, D. 731 Villela, H. 586, 599n.6 Vincent, C. 1072n.3, 1141 Vincent, G. 583 Vincent, K. 460, 1053 Vinjevold, P. 150, 151 Vinson, K. 886 Visco, I. 414 Vlaeminke, M. 951 Volante, L. 1024 Vorpe, G. 183 Vulliamy, G. 1140, 1148 Vygotsky, L. 1031 Wacquant, L. 228 Wade, R. 308, 316 Wagner, R. 1149, 1150 Waisanen, F. B. 45 Walberg, B. 183 Walberg, H. J. 878 Waldinger, R. 825–826, 833 Walford, G. 953 Walker, D. 1065 Walker, R. 156 Walker, V. S. 886 Walkerdine, V. 405 Wallace, C. 359, 360, 870 Wallace, J. 1146, 1163 Wallerstein, I. 416–417 Wang, F. 356 Warnier, J. P. 417 Warnock, M. 425, 1140 Warren, M. 788 Warren, S. 986 Wason-Ellam, L. 832, 833 Waterman, C. 1123 Watkins, D. A. 225 Watkins, K. 129, 186 Watling, R. 992, 1126 Watson, B. 887, 888, 889 Watson, N. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089 Watson, S. 386 Watters, J. R. 68 Weaver, J. A. 1058 Webb, R. 1140, 1148 Wee, C. J. W.-L. 361, 372 Weekes, D. 995
Weffort, F. 630 Wei, H. 356, 855n.5 Weikart, D. P. 865 Weikart, L. A. 872 Weiler, H. N. 292 Weill, S. 1196 Weindling, D. 1050, 1051 Weiner, G. 397, 398, 402, 406, 1052, 1084, 1191 Weiner, L. 774 Weinfeld, F. 860, 1011, 1081 Weinstein, E. 177 Weinstein, G. 931 Weir, K. 381 Weis, L. 402, 1060 Weiss, L. 316 Welch, A. 307 Wells, A. S. 1063 Wells, M. 1058 Weng, F. Y. 311 Werbner, P. 402 Wertsch, J. V. 426 West, A. 1114 West-Burnham, J. 1114 Westheimer, J. 815 Westwood, S. 76 Whitaker, B. 336 White, A. 992 White, G. 307 White, P. 1064 White, S. 1151 White, V. 253 Whitmore, K. 1061 Whitty, G. 436, 907, 929, 930, 931, 933, 939, 953, 964, 965, 966, 975n.8, 1010, 1019, 1028, 1029, 1030, 1031, 1039, 1056, 1084, 1094, 1097, 1099, 1100, 1106, 1113, 1123, 1126, 1129, 1140, 1157, 1203 Whyte, M. K. 352 Wieder, A. 151, 154 Wiese, A. 769, 775n.1 Wigfall, V. 1029, 1210 Wilcox, B. 1089, 1090 Wiliam, D. 874 Wilkin, A. 1140 Wilkinson, R. 1060 Williams, D. T. 39 Williams, J. 1016, 1029
Author Index Williams, R. 270, 444, 448 Willis, P. 404, 792, 1060 Willis, S. 254 Willms, J. D. 1084 Wilmott, R. 1051, 1066 Wilson, D. 1016 Wilson, R. 222 Wilson, W. J. 465, 766, 781, 789, 790, 807, 860, 909 Windschitl, M. 535 Winkley, D. 1068 Winter, H. J. J. 339n.8 Wirth, L. 751, 766, 769 Wise, C. 27–28 Wisenbaker, J. 185 Witkow, M. 832 Wohlstetter, P. 863 Wolfendale, S. 1146 Wolff, M. 943 Wong, C. 238 Wong, J. 315 Wong, K. 964 Wong, M. 843–844 Wong, S. F. 315 Wood, A. 986 Wooden, W. S. 842 Woods, G. J. 1116, 1118, 1119n.8, 1126, 1131 Woods, N. 305 Woods, P. 636n.16, 1029 Woodward, K. 377n.1 Wright, C. 990, 995, 1001n.6 Wright, D. 832 Wright, N. 1066 Wright Mills, C. 960, 970, 975n.16 Yair, G. 434 Yang, Q. 356
1265
Yang, Y. R. 348 Yates, L. 254, 256 Yeakey, C. C. 923n.1 Yeatman, A. 252, 257 Yee, G. 808. 809, 815 Yeoh, M. 316 Yeung, A. S. 362 Yonezawa, A. 312 Yoshikuni, T. 80 Youdell, D. 290, 991, 1001n.9 Young, D. 842 Young, I. M. 448 Young, M. F. D. 929 Young, R. 268 Young, S. 316 Youngs, H. 185, 1192 Yuan, Z. G. 244 Yuen, J. 818 Yun, J. T. 864, 866 Yuval-Davis, N. 450 Zapata Barrero, R. 420 Zhang, C. 845 Zhang, Y. L. 237, 241, 242 Zheng, Y. J. 315 Zhou, M. 826, 829, 830–831, 833, 835, 838, 845 Zibas, D. 567, 568, 569, 578n.10 Zibetti, M. L. T. 634 Zief, S. G. 894 Ziegler, S. 754 Zimmerman, D. 1065 Zine, J. 848 Zoltner-Sherer, J. 1065 Zufiaurre, B. 397, 399, 404, 407, 413, 414, 416, 421, 422, 423, 425, 426, 428
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