Reconsidering Development (RD - E-Journal - Universiy of Minnesota)
Not a member yet
39 research outputs found
Sort by
Language of Instruction and Education Policies in Kenya
Full text linkThis policy synthesis addresses issues regarding the language of instruction (LOI) through distinct Kenyan educational policy documents. This work points out the ramifications of the lack of clear policies addressing language in the Kenyan education system and the implications, both context-specific and globally on individual identities in such contexts. The conceptual framework used in this policy synthesis follows de Galbert’s (2021) idea that emphasizes the impacts caused by lingering linguistic imperialism to highly influence the Global South in educational policies and how the language used in the classrooms might exacerbate inequalities instead of eradicating them. The methodology used analyzes three distinct documents, the Kenyan Constitution of 2010 (Kenya, L. O., 2013), the Republic of Kenya’s National Curriculum Policy (2018), and the Basic Education Curriculum Framework (2019) in an attempt to present a clear picture of Kenya’s LOI policy. This policy brief highlights the implications of positioning English as the LOI, especially regarding the equitable erasure of all the linguistic and cultural identities of the Indigenous languages
A ‘Gift’ of Neoliberalism: English as the Language of Instruction in the GCC
Full text linkBarnawi’s Neoliberalism and English Language Education Policies in the Arabian Gulf (2018) addresses language of instruction policies in the six Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, U.A.E., Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Barnawi takes the reader through a comparison of national language policies throughout the Gulf. He presents the neoliberal Western ideological roots of these policies and the resulting clash with traditional Islamic worldviews. Further pointing out that Gulf countries seek to transform their economies from oil-based to knowledge-based economies and in doing so, English language skills have become commodified and serve as a means to guaranteed economic prosperity. However, Barnawi does not offer an alternative vision to English medium instruction (EMI) for the reader to consider. Moreover, Barnawi has not successfully argued that the adoption of English language will by default lead to the adoption of Western cultural norms. Missing from the analysis is an alternative framework that advocates for a culturally relevant education policy which addresses the needs of a citizenry who must be both globally competent and culturally grounded
Schools, Land, and Power: Education and Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement
Full text linkThis essay reviews two recent books on the role of education in Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST), a far-reaching social movement that advocates for agrarian reform and social welfare of the rural poor. The first book, Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement Transformed Brazilian Education by Rebecca Tarlau offers an insightful examination of how the MST worked to reclaim formal education from their oppressors, establishing schools within their settlements, and developing tertiary education opportunities for members to train as both leaders and teachers. The Political Ecology of Education by David Meek explores the educational forces shaping the movement’s land ethic, with a focus on adult education, agroecology and foodways. Both Tarleau and Meek highlight the ways in which the MST promoted action learning and self-knowledge in creating meaningful and lasting education in Brazil’s countryside
Stitching Memories: Collaborative (Re)search of Epistemic Wholeness
Full text linkThis contribution describes the collaborative autoethnography that emerged between Aicha, a Syrian refugee living in Croatia, and myself, a researcher and a former refugee from Croatia. Aicha was one of seven refugees who took part in my narrative research on refugee youth’s schooling experiences as the novel COVID-19 virus shut the schools and established online schooling. In this manuscript, I write about two experiences while using metaphors of weaving and embroidery: one regards the journey of collaborative autoethnography that emerged between Aicha and myself accounting for building our relationship in reciprocity and vulnerability; the other looks into our shared stories and their resemblance cutting across different temporal contexts, while discussing long histories of social distancing against Muslims, migrants, and refugees as the racial and cultural Other. Aicha has become a sister, friend, co-writer and coagitator of solidarity and justice in times when her voice, hijab and language represent an ongoing war
The Crisis of Crisis Response: The Cultural Consequences of Global Mental Health Interventions
Full text linkThe long-term mental health impacts of international disasters have been given increased attention in development recent years. However, development actors working in crisis response lack a unified framework for dealing with mental health. Current western crisis response strategies have little evidence of efficacy and might erase culturally relevant coping mechanisms
Evaluation in the Global South: Practices, Problems, and Prospects
No full textIn recent years, evaluation activities have seen an uptick in the Global South; however, the evaluation discourse is largely dominated by discussions and actions around narrower dimensions such as monitoring and auditing, often driven by donor /funder requirements. Many countries are also limited in their capacity to conduct evaluations on their own and are often sites for large experimental and quasi-experimental studies that do not take into account the socio-cultural and political contexts in these settings. Additionally, the emphasis on assessing “impact” leaves program implementers with little information to improve program performance or understand the underlying mechanisms for why their programs work (or not). This paper discusses the gaps and challenges around evaluation in the Global South and presents recommendations for adopting recent evaluation approaches that value the complexity of context specificity of international development sectors. It also recommends intentionality on the part of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners around building local capacity to design and conduct evaluations
New Donors of Development Assistance: Theorizing the Future of the OECD Aid Apparatus
Full text linkThis paper explores the new role that non-OECD nations such as Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and, especially, China are playing in providing international development aid. While global aid flows from traditional OECD nations remain significant to the development of global politics and what William Robinson calls the “Transnational State” (TNS) apparatus, these new aid donors are challenging the Western nations’ vision of what development means and what kind of global economy is being built. The consequences of these increasing aid flows for the global economy and for the development of aid recipient nations at this point are unclear. But it is crucial for scholars to pay close attention to the rise in official development assistance (ODA) from non-OECD nations as a key indicator of global political and economic integration. Bringing together insights from world systems theory, world polity theory, field theory, Robinson’s Transnational State perspective, and Saskia Sassen’s work on deterritorialityand denationization, this paper considers the role that new donors are likely to play within the global political economy in the coming decades. Particular attention is paid to whether the so-called “South-South” aid from these new donors is really “South-South,” whether we can expect to see a counterhegemonic shift in aid practice, what kind of future conflicts between donors are on the horizon, what this might mean for world state formation, and finally, whether any of this amounts to the beginning of the end for the nearly 60-year old Western aid apparatus
The Global Education Reform Movement: Is it Working?
Full text linkThis is a review of the book Global Education Reform: How Privatization and Public Investment Influence Education Outcomes that examines the outcomes from two types of models – the GERM approach and the public investment model. The public investment model is one where the state invests in, and regulates the public education system to ensure resources reach all students equitably. The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) is one that champions private alternatives, individual choice, and competition between schools. In this review, I discuss how a major omission is that none of the countries discussed are as geographically populous or economically constrained as many developing countries. However despite its gaps, there are important lessons for countries that may want to limit the spread of GERM
