Classroom Change In Developing Countries

Progressive Education, derived mainly from Anglo-American culture, has been the primary frame of reference for student-centered classroom change in developing countries for over 50 years. Yet in many developing countries, strong evidence shows that progressivism has not replaced teacher-centered formalistic classroom practice. Classroom Change in Developing Countries: From Progressive Cage to Formalistic Frame presents a robust case for why formalism should be the primary frame of reference for upgrading classroom teaching in developing countries. Theoretically rich yet grounded in practice, the book draws on case studies from Africa, China and Papua New Guinea to show how culturally intuitive formalistic teaching styles can induce positive classroom change. Synthesising research and evaluation literature on classroom change in developing countries, Guthrie examines some of the methodological flaws in the literature. The book considers the progressive cage, and looks at Confucian influences on teaching in China, progressive reform failures in both Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, as well as offering a critical take on some failings in comparative education. It examines the formalistic frame, addresses methodological issues in culturally grounded research and offers a model of teaching styles for basic classroom research. The book concludes by returning the focus back to teachers and considers the so-called teacher resistance to change. The book will be an essential purchase for academics and research students engaged in the fields of classroom teaching, teacher education and curriculum and will also be of interest to academics, aid officials, and decision-makers in developing countries.

This book provides a provocative but carefully argued addition to the theory and practice of education in developing countries. The book provides an ethical and empirical justification for support of formalistic teaching in primary and secondary schools in developing countries. It also refutes the application of progressive education principles to curriculum and pre- and in-service teacher education in such contexts. The central focus of this book is the formalistic teaching prevalent in the classrooms of many developing countries. Formalistic (‘teacher-centred’, ‘traditional’, ‘didactic’, ‘pedagogic’) teaching is appropriate in the many countries with revelatory epistemologies, unpopular and old-fashioned though these methods may seem in some western, especially Anglophone, ones. Formalism has been the object of many failed progressive curriculum and teacher education reforms in developing countries for some 50 years.

This book is a collection of thought-provoking papers that investigate empowerment within the context of language, education, and technology. In the seventeen papers published in the book, local and international ELT practitioners and researchers have analysed their experiences within a range of socio-linguistic situations. Adding significant insights and depth to a previously under-researched area, the publication will be of interest not only to ELT teachers and students, but also to social science researchers in developing and marginalised countries. The book based on selected papers presented at the 2007 Aga Khan University, Centre of English Language seminar in Karachi exemplifies the issues of language and empowerment. The papers deal with complex educational and socio-cultural issues and force readers to undertake a cultural journey to see them from a different perspective. The collection of papers, whatever one’s teaching-learning context, will become an essential resource book for all English language teachers, scholars, and researchers interested in learning more about the success stories and problems facing language education in the developing countries, especially Asia today.

The comparative effectiveness of schools in developing countries has become the center of a lively debate. Of particular concern is the appropriate analytic method to employ when examing school effects. This paper uses a multi-level approach to examine determinants of growth in grade 8 mathematics achievement in Thailand. Results of the analysis showed that schools in Thailand were equally effective in transforming pretest scores into posttest scores, and that schools and classrooms contributed 32 percent of the variance in posttest scores. Higher levels of achievement were associated with a higher proportion of teachers qualified to teach mathematics, an enriched curriculum and frequent use of textbooks by teachers. Individual characteristics, however, contributed 68 percent of the variance, with achievement higher for boys, younger students, and children with higher educational aspirations. The model developed in the paper was able to explain most of the between school variance, but significantly less of the within school variance. The implication of these results is that schools in Thailand are much more uniform in their effects than previous research in developing countries would have suggested.

"This book reviews different approaches and methodologies used in dealing with issues related to mobile ICTs, and presents successful examples mobile ICT adoption in developing countries, addressesing the impact of culture on mobile ICT adoption and deployment"--Provided by publisher.

In the educational arena, new ideas often compete as solutions to recurrent problems, making the concept of "innovations" a widespread discursive term. While expectations are substantial for each innovation, implementation of ideas has shown them to be more modest in practice. This book examines innovations in several developing countries, presenting case studies of technological, curricular, and organizational innovations selected for their magnitude in financial investment, scope, and duration. The case studies explore the social and political contexts that shaped the features of these innovations and what they accomplished over time in terms of teacher cost reduction, status mobility, access to education, and national unity. The experience of countries such as Brazil, Lesotho, the Philippines, and Namibia, and the influence of international agencies such as the World Bank are described and analyzed against theories of social and organizational change. The case studies themselves also serve as subjects for reflection on the prevailing positivist approaches to research and knowledge. The Politics of Educational Innovations should be of considerable interest to students of educational change, wither in the academic world or in the fields of government and international cooperation.

Takes a new look at problems that confront politicians, planners, curriculum developers and teachers in implementing educational innovations in developing countries. An international team of contributors based at Sussex University has drawn together case studies based on field research.

This book brings together the first book collection of African research in mathematics education in multilingual societies and chronicles current research in different linguistic contexts across the African continent, (including Algeria, Namibia, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa) on issues of multilingualism in mathematics education, but more importantly, it foregrounds pertinent issues for future research. With many of the authors building on earlier path-breaking African research, the book is a unique contribution of careful thinking through how linguistic diversity and multilingualism manifest in ways that differ from one geopolitical context to another. This volume is an important contribution to the growing recognition of multilingualism as the global 'linguistic dispensation' in mathematics education. It is an invitation to how we might (as an international community where more and more multilingualism is the norm rather than an exception) pay more attention to the multilingual agency and capabilities of both students and teachers in order to better harness the epistemic potential of multiple languages in contexts of language diversity in mathematics education.