The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries

Gerard Guthrie

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries In Favour of Formalism

Gerard Guthrie Guthrie Development Consultancy Pty Ltd 12 Woodlawn Drive Budgewoi, NSW 2262 Australia [email protected]

ISBN 978-94-007-1850-0 e-ISBN 978-94-007-1851-7 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931525

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 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 Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

DEDICATION My high school’s motto was “receive the light and pass it on”. One of my teachers, Bonk Scotney, saw fit to write on a school report that I was better at passing the light on than receiving it. Many of the following teachers and colleagues would have agreed, but they do have my grateful appreciation for their contributions to the intellectual journey that lies behind this book. My particular thanks are due to Keith Buchanan, Bill Hall, Harvey Franklin, Gilbert Butland, Colin Tatz, Sharon Field, Sheldon Weeks, Cyril Rogers, C.E. Beeby, Max Maddock and Goru Hane-Nou. Thanks are also due to John Evans for his excellent editorial work. The book is dedicated with gratitude to my mother, Moo, and father, Harry.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD ......................................................................................................... xi References........................................................................................................xiv PREFACE ..............................................................................................................xv References.......................................................................................................xxix Educational Bibliography ................................................................................xxx SECTION 1

OLD CONJECTURES.............................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1 THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY ................. 3 1.1 Progressive Influences .......................................................................... 5 1.2 Theoretical and Methodological Objections to Stages ......................... 9 1.3 Practical Objections to Progressive Reforms...................................... 12 1.4 Cultural Context and Formalistic Classrooms .................................... 13 1.5 Country Studies of Formalism ............................................................ 15 1.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 17 References......................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2 FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ............... 21 2.1 Beeby’s Stages of Educational Development ..................................... 22 2.2 Initial Acceptance................................................................................ 25 2.3 Subsequent Use of the Stages ............................................................. 28 2.4 Findings about Formalism .................................................................. 30 2.5 Political Bias ....................................................................................... 36 2.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 38 References......................................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER 3 STAGES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT? ........... 43 3.1 Stages Methodology............................................................................ 44 3.2 Principles of Refutation ...................................................................... 49 3.3 Justification of Objectives................................................................... 51 3.4 Cultural Paradigms.............................................................................. 54 3.5 Conclusion........................................................................................... 58 References......................................................................................................... 58

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CHAPTER 4 TEACHER RESISTANCE TO CHANGE ........................... 61 4.1 Teachers’ Constructs........................................................................... 62 4.2 Types of Innovator .............................................................................. 65 4.3 Systemic Barriers to Change............................................................... 67 4.4 Conclusion........................................................................................... 74 References......................................................................................................... 74 CHAPTER 5 CLASSROOM TEACHING AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS 77 5.1 First Generation Literature Reviews ................................................... 78 5.2 Teaching Styles and Student Achievement......................................... 82 5.3 Classroom Processes and Cultural Context ........................................ 86 5.4 Data Collection Issues......................................................................... 90 5.5 Methodological Overview................................................................... 92 5.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 97 References......................................................................................................... 98 SECTION 2

REFUTATIONS .................................................................... 103

CHAPTER 6 FORMALISTIC SCHOOLING SYSTEM IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA.............................................................................. 105 6.1 Teacher Education Hypotheses......................................................... 106 6.2 Secondary Teacher Training ............................................................. 110 6.3 Secondary Inspection System ........................................................... 116 6.4 Practical Theory of Formalism ......................................................... 119 6.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 123 References....................................................................................................... 124 CHAPTER 7 FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVE REFORMS IN PNG....... 127 7.1 Beeby’s Progressive Influence.......................................................... 128 7.2 Earlier Curriculum Failures .............................................................. 130 7.3 Later Reform Failures ....................................................................... 138 7.4 Failed South-South Transfer ............................................................. 144 7.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 146 References....................................................................................................... 148

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CHAPTER 8 CULTURAL CONTINUITIES AND FORMALISM IN PNG............................................................................... 153 8.1 Traditional Formal Education ........................................................... 154 8.2 Traditional Epistemology and Teaching Methods............................ 157 8.3 Modern Formalism............................................................................ 159 8.4 Community Context .......................................................................... 161 8.5 Process and Product .......................................................................... 165 8.6 Cultural Continuities ......................................................................... 167 8.7 Conclusion......................................................................................... 169 References....................................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER 9 FORMALISTIC TRADITIONS IN CHINA ...................... 173 9.1 Confucianism and Other Philosophical Schools............................... 174 9.2 Confucianism and Education ............................................................ 176 9.3 Confucian Teaching Styles ............................................................... 179 9.4 Modern Educational Developments.................................................. 182 9.5 Recent Classroom Studies in China .................................................. 183 9.6 Conclusion......................................................................................... 189 References....................................................................................................... 191 SECTION 3

NEW CONJECTURES......................................................... 195

CHAPTER 10 EDUCATION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS..................... 197 10.1 Formalist Paradigms ......................................................................... 198 10.2 Teaching Styles Model...................................................................... 202 10.3 Applications of the Model................................................................. 208 10.4 Classroom Observation Techniques.................................................. 211 10.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 213 References....................................................................................................... 214 CHAPTER 11 GROUNDED EDUCATIONAL CHOICES ....................... 217 11.1 Framing Pilot Projects....................................................................... 218 11.2 Cognitive Levels ............................................................................... 222 11.3 Adoption of Innovation ..................................................................... 224 11.4 Improving Formalistic Teaching....................................................... 229 11.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 233 References....................................................................................................... 234

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CHAPTER 12 IN FAVOUR OF FORMALISM.......................................... 237 12.1 Universal Patterns?............................................................................ 238 12.2 Emotional Atmosphere ..................................................................... 241 12.3 Cultural Context ................................................................................ 242 12.4 Values and Language Groups ........................................................... 244 12.5 Growth of the Brain .......................................................................... 246 12.6 Conclusion......................................................................................... 249 References....................................................................................................... 250 INDEX ................................................................................................................. 253

FIGURES Figure 2.1 Figure 11.1 Figure 11.2 Figure 11.3 Figure 11.4

Stages in the Growth of a Primary School System ........................ 23 Invalid Curriculum Experiment ................................................... 219 Valid Curriculum Experiment...................................................... 221 Simplified Flow Chart for Decisions on Teaching Styles ........... 226 Relationships between Amount and Likelihood of Change ........ 227

TABLES Table 2.1 Table 5.1 Table 10.1 Table 11.1

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Contrast between Formalistic and Meaning Teachers ................... 31 Summary of Results in Literature Survey...................................... 79 Classroom Teaching Styles Model............................................... 205 Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ..............223

FOREWORD

Michael Crossley Professor of Comparative and International Education Research Centre for International and Comparative Studies Graduate School of Education University of Bristol,UK This book is written by a seasoned academic and development consultant with considerable international experience in contexts as diverse as New Zealand, Australia, China and Papua New Guinea. It is a book that develops and extends a number of challenging arguments and perspectives that the author has engaged with throughout a varied and distinguished career. While the book has direct relevance for students, academics, development agency personnel, policy-makers and practitioners worldwide, it is deeply grounded in the author’s professional experience in the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea. Indeed, to some extent this is a personal and polemical book that enables its author to reflect upon the key issues that have characterised many of the academic publications that he has produced from the 1980s through to the present day. Emerging from this original and detailed review of diverse empirical and theoretical material is a stimulating and controversial central thesis, the Progressive Education Fallacy. This thesis is put forward for the first time in Chapter 1 and articulated throughout the book to highlight what Gerard Guthrie claims is an unnecessary linking of enquiry teaching as a process with enquiry skills as a product. In doing so, the core theme, relating to teaching and learning pedagogies, is thoroughly interrogated with reference to a wide and challenging range of arguments. These stem from research on methodological paradigms, stages of educational development, school effectiveness, the management of educational reform, and comparative perspectives on the place of culture and context in educational development. At the heart of this is a long-considered and carefully argued critique of the uncritical international transfer of ‘progressive’, learner-centred pedagogies from Western education systems to a diversity of low-income ‘developing’ countries. This latter theme, along with the connection to Papua New Guinea, links this reflective, longitudinal study to my own on-going research in the field of comparative and international education (see Crossley and Watson 2003).

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When I first arrived to work at the University of Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s, it was to research the impact of a new pilot project designed to promote curriculum change via processes of school-based curriculum development (Crossley 1984a). At this time my own research revealed concerns about the failure of project planners to consider how contextual realities in Papua New Guinea schools could inhibit school-based curriculum development in practice. On a broader level, this research challenged the uncritical international transfer of educational policies, and in this case change modalities, from Western systems (notably Australia and the UK) to Papua New Guinea and other developing countries (Crossley 1984b). Also embedded within this particular change initiative were many assumptions about the benefits to be gained from a move away from a tradition of formalistic teaching and learning styles throughout the education system. As I engaged with these issues, parallel work, then being carried out in Papua New Guinea by Gerard Guthrie, first came to my attention. His research was then focussed more directly upon teacher training, teaching and learning styles and the implementation of educational reform (Guthrie 1983). This empirically grounded research was based on a theoretically informed critique of C.E. Beeby’s (1966) influential Stages of Educational Development – leading to a significant debate within the comparative and international literature of the day (Guthrie 1980; Beeby 1980; 1986). This early work informs the present study, as revisited in Chapters 2 and 3. What moves the story on, and heightens the contemporary significance of the analysis, is the way subsequent research and experience is used to demonstrate the enduring centrality of these key issues in contemporary development cooperation initiatives and internationally inspired educational development agendas worldwide. Chapters 4 and 5 thus examine the literature on barriers and resistance to change, along with international research on school effectiveness, teaching styles and student achievement. This is followed by Section 2 (titled Refutations) and a group of chapters that focus the analysis upon Papua New Guinea (Chapters 6-8), and formalistic traditions in China (Chapter 9). Throughout these chapters readers can see how Gerard Guthrie’s conceptualisation and defence of formalistic teaching and learning styles is related to traditional epistemologies, and cultural traditions and continuities. Running alongside this are related practical arguments that draw attention to the complexities (and costs) involved in promoting learnercentred pedagogies in low income countries. The third section of the book, titled New Conjectures, consists of Chapters 1012 in which the core arguments and themes of the book are drawn together. Here the defence of formalistic pedagogies is extended in ways that connect well with contemporary international development discourses and advances in numerous fields of research. By revisiting core debates about pedagogy over a 30 year period, Gerard Guthrie makes a significant, if challenging and controversial, contrixii

Foreword Michael Crossley

bution to the international literature on education and development. While some may disagree with his proposals, or various dimensions of the analysis, the book draws the attention of all to critical thinking and positioning on an issue that is too often taken as unproblematic. International development agencies worldwide are, for example, often deeply committed to the promotion of learner-centred pedagogies at all levels of education systems, and in widely differing contexts and cultures. While much can certainly be gained from such developments, this challenging book asks those involved to think more carefully about the differences between contexts, to explore the philosophical, political and practical implications of such differences, to acknowledge the extent of implementation ‘failure’, and to reflect upon the limitations of ‘one size fits all’ models and assumptions. Indeed, voices are increasingly being heard within low income countries that echo aspects of this critique (Tabulawa 1997), at the same time as they identify contrasting and more creative notions of ‘formalistic’ teaching and learning (see Biggs 1996). In Botswana, for example, Tabulawa (2003, p. 7) presents a stronger political critique by arguing that learner-centred pedagogy can also be seen as “…an ideological outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of society and people. It is in this sense that it should be seen as representing a process of westernisation disguised as quality and effective teaching.” Recognising the Western values that are embedded in learner-centred pedagogies, Carney (2008) also explores the political dimension of the transfer of internationally inspired reforms to Tibet; and, returning to Papua New Guinea, Le Fanu (2010; 2011) documents the barriers that continue to be faced by contemporary reforms designed to move local teachers away from formalistic styles of teaching and learning. His recent empirically grounded research in Eastern Highlands primary schools reveals that “although the teachers’ practice has changed in some ways since the introduction of the curriculum, they had not adopted many of the ‘student centred’ teaching and learning precepts prescribed in curriculum documents” (Le Fanu 2010, p. 1). Le Fanu’s research also explicitly acknowledges how formalistic teaching can be seen to have a positive role to play, for teaching some types of skills, in such contexts. Today, the quality of education is once again at the forefront of international debate and commands the attention of many development cooperation agencies (UNESCO 2004). The latest empirical and theoretical research is beginning to acknowledge differing notions of quality and how these relate to pedagogical and contextual differences (Tikly and Barrett 2011). Gerard Guthrie’s insightful and challenging book makes a valuable contribution to this trajectory of new research by stimulating a more critically informed debate; by helping to bridge past and present scholarship; by alerting those concerned to the potential of different forms of teaching and learning, including those seen as formalistic pedagogies; and by

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demonstrating how contextual factors deserve greater attention in much educational and development planning and implementation. References Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beeby, C.E. (1980). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439444. Beeby, C.E. (1986). The stages of growth in educational systems. In Heyneman, S.P., & White, D.S. (Eds.), The quality of education and economic development: A World Bank symposium (pp. 37-44). Washington: World Bank. Biggs, J. (1996). Western misperceptions of the Confucian-heritage learning culture. In Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 45-67). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Carney, S. (2008). Learner centred pedagogy in Tibet: International education reform in a local context. Comparative Education, 44(1), 39-55. Crossley, M. (1984a). The role and limitations of small-scale initiatives in educational innovation. Prospects, 14(4), 533-540. Crossley, M. (1984b). Strategies for curriculum change and the question of international transfer. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16(1), 75-88. Crossley, M., & Watson, K. (2003). Comparative and international research in education: Globalization, context and difference. London: Routledge Falmer. Guthrie, G. (1980). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438. Guthrie, G. (1983). An evaluation of the secondary teacher training system. Report No.44. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Le Fanu, G. (2010). Promoting inclusive education in Papua New Guinea. EdQual Quality Brief No.7. Bristol: University of Bristol. Le Fanu, G. (2011). The transposition of inclusion: An analysis of the relationship between curriculum prescription and practice in Papua New Guinea. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Bristol. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (2003). International aid agencies, learner-centred pedagogy and political democratisation: A critique. Comparative Education, 39(1), 7-26. Tikly, L., & Barrett A. (Eds.) (2011). Researching education quality in low income countries: Policies and practice. Special Issue of Comparative Education, 47(1). UNESCO (2004). Education for All: The quality imperative. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005. Paris: UNESCO.

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PREFACE

One of the legacies of post-modernism is that it now seems compulsory for authors to situate and contextualise their work, preferably with impenetrable jargon. Rather than being self-indulgent, a preface is an integral voice in establishing the authenticity of a negotiable and contestable discourse. Who am I to disagree? The intellectual history of this book traces to my childhood in the 1950s, when my father, Harry Guthrie, was the head teacher of an authoritarian school in Wellington, New Zealand. On occasion, he would come home and rant to my mother, Muriel, about the school inspectors who were currently perpetuating endless bastardries on his school. We lived, although I did not know it then, less than ten kilometres from the Director of Education, C.E. Beeby, whose writing is central to this book. Paradoxically, Beeby was trying to democratise education, but the formalistic inspectorate ranged heavily. To hear my father tell it, the most evil of all the educational pirates who rampaged through his school was one “Black Jack” Logan. Oddly enough, some ten years later I worked on a building site excavating foundations for a house being built for Jack. My father came to visit the work, and the two had a civil enough conversation. But the day after I finished working there, a landfall engulfed the site. My father and I never once discussed religion, but I am sure that on this day he thanked God for divine retribution. The same year, 1969, I went through the dreariest educational experience of my life, a postgraduate secondary teaching diploma course at Christchurch Teacher’s College, and skated through on the least work that I could get away with. A rare highlight was the graduation speech by Peter Lawrence, the Professor of Education at the University of Canterbury, who based his talk around seven paradoxes, the fifth of which resonated alarmingly in the late 1960s: “until now you have been against authority; now you are authority.” Unsurprisingly, I disliked high school teaching the following year and took part in the first ever strike by secondary school teachers in New Zealand, which was against the inspectorial system. My ambition was an academic career, so I was pleased to escape in 1971 to a position as a Teaching Fellow in Geography at the University of New England in Australia. I cannot have been much of a geographer because it took me three weeks in Armidale to find a map and work out where the place was. I was lucky, however, to be in a large and capable department, although one hidebound about course design. Despite myself, my teacher training kicked in and I found a strength as a tertiary teacher. Another curiosity was that the Department had to me the surprising

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habit of debating the nature of geography. My first degrees at Victoria University of Wellington from 1965 to 1968 had been in Third World Geography and Asian Studies, the first subject under the noted radical China specialist, Keith Buchanan, the second under an anarchist, Bill Hall. Buchanan, I later discovered, was a cultural geographer, which was in distinct contrast to the regional geography that had been predominant in New Zealand, but not once in four years of geography courses do I recall him or anybody else discussing the nature of geography. Nor did I care because my interest was in ‘underdevelopment’, as it was then called, and then as now disciplinary boundaries seemed artificial. However, at New England everyone worried away at the nature of geography. The bon mot of the day, which I readily accepted, took a sociological perspective: geography was what geographers did. What I did at first was to follow an intellectual obsession with Harvey Franklin’s work on systems of production and appropriation and their possible application to Australian Aboriginal history, finding in resonance with the research on the growth of the brain reviewed briefly in Chapter 12.5, that, now aged 24, I could quite readily comprehend material that had previously seemed impenetrable. With a free and very generous departmental rein, I read a great deal in political economy and economic anthropology. However, the concepts did not readily apply to empirical research so, applying Occam’s razor, I turned seamlessly enough to a social science research thesis on Aboriginal perceptions of migration, based in another academic oddity, behavioural geography. In 1975 my developmental interests and teaching qualifications helped me to obtain a position in the Third World as a Lecturer in Social Science at Goroka Teacher’s College, which had just become a faculty of the University of Papua New Guinea. My own perspectives on education in Papua New Guinea came to straddle the period from just before Independence in 1975 for some eight years to 1983, through occasional visits as a consultant during the 1980s and 1990s, to a return to Goroka in 2002 and 2003 as Foundation Professor of Education at what had become the University of Goroka, and subsequently consulting as the Director of 16 nation-wide urban crime victimisation surveys over a five year period until 2008: in all, some ten years in the country. Goroka Teacher’s College was the only secondary teacher’s college in Papua New Guinea in 1975. It had previously been a government institution, but had a staff spill with the amalgamation, and a fresh group held lively meetings about the teacher training programme. Once at Goroka, I still needed a doctorate, so I carried one step further the definition of geography. If geography was what geographers did, who were geographers? My crude but functional answer was that geographers were people who were paid to be geographers. And what now was I? I was paid by a newly independent nation to be a teacher educator: so now I was an educationalist. My ethical obligation, I felt, was to research teacher education, settling

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on an evaluation of the secondary teacher education programmes, which were split between different educational approaches at the College in Goroka and the separate Faculty of Education in Port Moresby. Obtaining a year of leave in 1978 to start my PhD, I sat down at the University of Newcastle in Australia and read systematically on education for the first time. My interest in the central topic of this book – teaching styles – had arisen at Goroka, where I had spent three years failing to teach social science students how to use progressive teaching methods, including student-focussed lesson planning. In looking for reasons for the dismal failure, I came across Beeby’s work on educational stages. His description of formalism was the best available account of what was before me and some of the reasons for my inability to change it. However, a deconstruction of Beeby’s analysis (much updated in Chapters 2 and 3) led me to disagree strongly with his position that countries like Papua New Guinea would inevitably follow Western progressive educational patterns (albeit, he did think, much more slowly than some of his confreres would have liked). From my perspective as a specialist in development studies who happened to be working in teacher education, with in-depth training neither in education nor psychology, but well read in anthropology and sociology and interested in methodology, the stages model had many formal weaknesses. The major failure was lack of recognition that the model was teleological without justification of its ends in contextually-relevant cultural terms, which monumental lack of validity carried the import, to me at least, that the model should not even be used for research let alone practical application. Nonetheless, my lack of educational reading was an advantage in many ways because I came to the subject open-minded about explanatory educational theories and not caged by preset intellectual constructs other than a liking for working from first principles. Some of the methodological first principles in which I was interested were clarified soon after when reading Karl Popper for the first time. Although I was versed in the principles of falsification from an undergraduate sociology course in Wellington and a reluctant learning of non-parametric statistics for my migration research, Popper’s Objective Knowledge resolved two key issues to my satisfaction. One was the traditional Western metaphysical dichotomy between materialism and idealism, and the role in this of skepticism, which is strong on logic but a dead end operationally. Popper’s commonsense realism cut through all this with the view that a sound metaphysical base is unnecessary for the advancement of science; rather, critical analysis is the way forward. His concept of objective knowledge that is independent of the originator once verbalised also removed the notion that all knowledge was subjective and internal (although objectified and externalised seem better terms than objective). However, this did and does not make me a positivist. My viewpoint remains phenomenological, i.e. that scientific and

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methodological schools (including positivism) originate as mental constructs, and I do not hesitate to mix objectivist and subjectivist methods as the occasion requires. Personally, I see this as radical in the early adjectival sense of the word as going to the root of things, wherever that may lead methodologically. While mixed method research is now common, my own underpinning remains a slightly maverick mixture of old and new paradigms, maintaining a path between extreme positivist troglodytes and post-positivist trendoids, as the two schools tend to perceive each another. As I delved into the teacher education research, I still had an attitudinal set about educational authority. So it was somewhat to my own surprise that I started to take seriously a suggestion from the secondary school Superintendent of Inspections, Ivor Lopes, that I should use inspection reports as the basis of my evaluation of teacher effectiveness. My study of the teacher training graduates from various programmes in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1970s and the way in which their performance was evaluated by inspectors in schools led me to a position far removed from my value set at the beginning of the study. To base the evaluation of teachers and the teacher training system on the inspection system and to write what became a sympathetic analysis of the inspectorate required, in later jargon, radical reflection. Incremental improvements to formalism, I soon concluded, were the way forward rather than ill-founded attempts to change teachers to other styles. In 1979, I commenced work in the Educational Research Unit in the Education Faculty of the University in Port Moresby, fitting my doctoral research around a range of research projects on formal education with the support of the Director, Sheldon Weeks. The newly arrived Professor of Education, Cyril Rogers, also an expatriate New Zealander and formerly Vice Chancellor of the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, was interested in my analysis of Beeby’s stages and put us in touch. When I submitted the analysis to the International Review of Education, the editor persuaded Beeby to write a response, and we also used our correspondence as part of the exchange published in 1980. Beeby, who preceded Popper by a few years at the University of Canterbury in the 1930s, was also familiar with Popper’s work and introduced Popperian principles of falsification into his defence, which leads to some symmetry in structuring this book around Popper’s conjectures and refutations. Later, Cyril arranged for Beeby to be an external consultant to the Education Faculty, so I met him for the first time in 1982. We got on very well, he volunteered his services as a referee and, after leaving Papua New Guinea in 1983 to work again in Australia, my partner and I used to call on him with a bottle of whisky during visits to my family in Wellington. In 1984, he wryly inscribed my copy of his book, “Gerard Guthrie, who has studied this book more thoroughly

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than any other person – including the author.” I well remember Beeb, as he was known to all his friends, over 80 years old, rolling around on the floor playing with our little daughter. Nor, despite being over twice my age, was there ever any question that his intellect was entirely fit for the task of defending his stages. Comparative education, in which Beeby’s work and mine are broadly located, partly originated as a field of study in attempts by 19th century Europeans to learn from each other’s educational systems and partly in their curiosity about the rest of the world. Imperialism was at its peak and growing awareness of other continents saw people travelling widely and writing about what they saw. This arose in Europe from interest in learning ideas from other education systems that might be useful to educational reformers and also as part of a broader role in liberal education about the world at large. More than any other ‘disciplinary’ perspective, it seems to me that comparative education is about the geography of education. Beeby, born in 1902, was an adolescent and adult during the period encompassing World Wars I and II, during which time well-meaning intellectuals looked for ways of preventing war. Educationalists turned to international education, which gained prominence in the aftermath of World War II. Beeby was part of a coterie of educators who established UNESCO in the late 1940s and who had a worldview, written into the founding articles, that its educational purpose was to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations. For some decades, UNESCO provided leadership in international education and, indeed, the International Review of Education was published by the UNESCO Institute of Education. In the main, Beeby’s stages model was embedded in a philosophy of education that he was responsible for implementing as Director of Education in New Zealand from 1940 to 1960. The philosophy related to the equalisation and democratisation of schooling in the sense of opening up opportunity to all individuals. A natural extension of this idea and of Beeby’s administrative role (his responsibilities included education in Western Samoa and other New Zealand dependencies in the South Pacific) was an interest in improving the quality of schooling in ‘developing’ countries. After his retirement he systematised his thoughts in a book published in 1966 as The Quality of Education in Developing Countries, which generalised from his practical experience as a high-level educational administrator in an attempt to develop educational theory that would provide justification for progressive educationalists’ efforts to improve the quality of education in developing countries. Nowadays, of course, ‘international education’ is also code for university marketing. World War II also marked a watershed in imperialism. From then on, pressure mounted on the colonial powers to grant independence, which resulted in increasing focus on the needs of the colonies themselves and on the role of education in

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them. The 1960s and 1970s saw the growth of a third field, development education, which focussed on educational problems in developing countries. In contrast to Beeby’s international education interest in promoting a commonality of international goodwill through enlightened educational philosophies, my approach was as a development educator interested in problem-solving in newly independent nations. This was and is my framework, coming to education from a primary interest in development issues. My approaches to development education in this book are, more than any other subject areas, from the cultural side of educational sociology and from comparative education as educational geography. In the 1970s and 1980s, to a considerable extent under the influence of returnees from Papua New Guinea, Australian academic interests in education in developing countries focussed pragmatically on development education, but it was a minute field in universities there in the 1980s. Leaving Papua New Guinea in 1983, I spent a couple of years back at the University of Newcastle as Director of its Curriculum Resources & Research Centre. My academic environment was heavily locked into the publish or perish syndrome, so loosely recalling the dictum that the point is not to study the world but to change it, in 1985 I took up a very professionally rewarding management position at the International Training Institute in Sydney, mainly overseeing short courses for middle level teacher educators and public servants from all over the developing world as part of the Australian aid programme. By now an Australian, the following years from 1988 to 1990 were a fascinating period for me in Beijing as Counsellor for Technical Cooperation at the Australian Embassy; China remaining an interest from my studies in Wellington. The subsequent decade or so was spent mainly as an administrator in the head office of the Australian Agency for International Development in Canberra. During this period, my contact with academic research was sporadic, but I was able to carry on with applied development work, including involvement in a number of training projects, the NGO programme, and writing AusAID’s incomegeneration rural development strategy. One benefit of working in government was that good public service writing turned out to be much tighter than academic writing. Rarely in the public service did I find the luxury of 5,000 words; more likely fewer than 500 were required, especially for ministerials. I adapted to these professional requirements readily enough, having already clarified my writing for second language users of English. Other learning experiences were valuable as well. The Embassy in Beijing and the foreign affairs environment in Canberra were heavily focussed on Australian national interests, an approach to diplomacy that reflects philosophical pragmatism. Pragmatism – found in education through the work of John Dewey, in particular – is basically concerned with following actions that can arrive at chosen

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outcomes. This turns conventional causal thinking on its head because in essence one works backwards from the desired outcome to plan the steps required to achieve it, which in the real world is much more effective and flexible than the normal academic focus on the primacy of causes. A relevant if broad example was the classical Hobson-Lenin thesis that capitalism was fundamentally responsible for the economic ills of the international world. However, attempts to destroy capitalism, whether through liberation wars or terrorism, did not remedy the problem, and the communist cure usually became worse than the capitalist disease. In any case, the collapse of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s destroyed any credibility held by the underlying Marxist economics. It was also clear that China’s already astounding economic growth had arisen because it had been ditching those economics following its 1978 open door policy. Later, during the 1990s, influential World Bank reports showed that economic growth, the growth of international trade, and regulation of capitalism were the most effective means of achieving a poverty reduction outcome. As part of this approach, the conventional social science wisdom about lack of education and health as causes of poverty was quite unpersuasive. Much more focussed remains the economics approach, which carries the basic semantic meaning of ‘poverty’ as lack of money: lower educational and health levels are thus social correlates of financial poverty not causes. These insights reinforced my prior view that schooling in developing countries is essentially a means not of directly changing conditions of poverty, but of helping escape them by increasing employment prospects. All this still plays out academically in post-colonial analyses that build on dependency theory to point out how the period of imperialism, which is conventionally and conveniently forgotten (at least in the West), still influences developing countries. As a statement of historical fact, I have no problem with the postcolonial position, but it offers little in the way of practical solutions. In practice, it often seems to provide an excuse for many developing countries’ leaders even now to blame the colonial powers, assert an endless entitlement to foreign aid and, insofar as they take remedial responsibility, to deny that their policy decisions should be open to outside scrutiny. A half century or so after Independence for most developing countries, blaming colonialism is a thin excuse for those leaders who appear not to know whether they are leading their nations into Independence or the 21st century. Despite the interesting exposure to the international diplomatic environment, working in AusAID was an increasingly depressing experience given the excrescent culture that seeped over the years from the top of the organisation. Fed up with its bureaucratic nastiness, another lucky escape saw me back at Goroka in 2002 and 2003 for two academic years. Returning after 25 years, some 15 of them

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as an aid bureaucrat with little direct involvement in universities, I was determined to maintain the advantages of an open educational mind and was concerned not to assume that my previous theories about formalism might still hold sway. In treating these theories hypothetically, I deliberately used a range of teaching styles in a quasi-experimental action research approach to my own teaching. My approaches ranged from formalistic teaching in two undergraduate and postgraduate courses to an andragogic, student-directed undergraduate course. In particular, a postgraduate tutorial course on teaching styles and a formalistic undergraduate one on education and society in Papua New Guinea provided opportunities to revisit my earlier work and to expose it to the questioning of the postgraduate students, in particular. While I did not have time to replicate my earlier empirical research, what I saw, heard and experienced led me not away from formalism but further towards its cultural roots and their continuities in the present. One result was a symposium in 2003 with very restricted circulation in the Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, which contained an analysis of the roots of formalism in traditional, precolonial epistemology (revised in Chapter 8). The previous tendency in the literature, still current in much informal educational discussion in the country, had been to see formalism as an unwanted impost from the colonial period and, implicitly, one prone to remediation through curriculum change and teacher education as a relatively recent import. Most of the commentators in the symposium agreed with my view that cultural continuities traced back to the pre-contact role of formal teaching in tribal societies, and were not very susceptible to change. My return as an educationalist to Papua New Guinea initially gave me an opportunity to revisit and update on its educational issues, and later encouraged me to read again the international literature in between consulting assignments for AusAID and the World Bank. I was slightly appalled to find that debate about formalistic and progressive teaching styles remained relevant decades after my original interest: hence this book. And now spending much time again in China, I have had the incentive to investigate the relevance of formalism to its Confucian educational traditions, which provides an extra test of some of the propositions herein. The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism is intended as a contribution to the theory, methodology and practice of education in developing countries. The focus is on the merits of formalism in countries in which it is appropriate and on the on-going risks associated with what I identify as the Progressive Education Fallacy, which is the false premise that progressive, enquiry teaching styles are necessary to promote intellectual enquiry skills among primary and secondary students, in this case in non-Western, espe-

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cially non-Anglophone cultures. While conceptualised for the first time in this book, the Fallacy was embedded in Beeby’s stages model, which is an influential example of the progressive position. Beeby’s model is used here as a coat-hanger on which to array a formal analysis of ideas inherent in the Fallacy, using progressive as a label to encapsulate teaching styles that have been variously called ‘meaning’, ‘student-centred’, ‘enquiry’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘constructivist’, ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’, and which are often associated with ‘integrated curricula’, ‘school-based innovation’ and the like. The assumption that development of the enquiring mind needs enquiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools has rarely been treated as a proposition to be systematically debated or as an hypothesis to be tested experimentally in non-Western cultures. The contrary case put in this book is that formalistic (‘teacher-centred’, ‘traditional’, ‘didactic’, ‘instructional’) pedagogy is appropriate in many countries, unpopular and oldfashioned though these methods may be in some Western ones. My long-standing conclusion from theoretical analysis and empirical evidence is that progress is not necessarily a case of moving to a progressive style but can well be a case of improvement within a style (e.g. upgrading formalistic teaching). This view was put first in Papua New Guinea in 1981, in presenting the model of teaching styles used in Chapter 10, and in 1983 in reporting on my inspectorial research in Chapter 6. Later, it was put for a wider international audience in a 1986 paper entitled “To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries”, published eventually in 1990. Additionally, and regardless of its merits in the abstract, the evidence strongly suggests that progressive education reforms will generally fail in countries with revelatory cultures, which adds a reality check to the ethical argument against progressive education. Despite the preceding intellectual history and despite the fact that four chapters are devoted to analyses of issues raised by Beeby’s stages and another three to education in Papua New Guinea, this is neither a book about Beeby or his stages model as such, nor is it a book about education in Papua New Guinea. The analysis herein applies beyond Beeby’s stages to other progressive cases that rely on similar arguments. Structuring the book around Popper’s conjectures and refutations means that the country case studies are used in what I trust is a methodologically elegant refutation provided by the failure of progressive education reforms in Papua New Guinea. Perhaps more than in any other developing country, Beeby’s progressive ideas were put into official practice by the Department of Education from the late 1960s as part of many curricular efforts to change formalism. My own research experience there also allows me to draw heavily on its domestic educational literature to provide the single country example necessary to refute (in the Popperian sense) any universal claim for the progressive approach. Those not methodologically inclined might ask whether this matters very much, given that

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Papua New Guinea is a small country, so some generalisability is added with the very much larger case of China, which also has a revelatory epistemology going back millennia. The Progressive Education Fallacy recalls Philip Foster’s famous Vocational School Fallacy from 1965, which instigated much debate about the roles of academic and vocational education. Foster argued, in essence, that it was fallacious to assume that vocational schooling was more likely to generate employment for its graduates, the evidence being that the community used a conventional academic education as a path to employment. Similarly conservative, my Progressive Education Fallacy puts the view that it is fallacious to assume that a progressive enquiry-based education is more likely to develop higher level enquiry skills than a formalistic one building on memorisation. The contrary position is that a traditional formalistic education can provide the intellectual foundations on which enquiry can later rest. Indeed, the fact that Western universities traditionally used formalistic methods to teach formal research skills seems to question the necessity for enquiry methods at all, although I would not go that far myself. One purpose of this preface is to highlight an important aspect of the Fallacy. The analysis is based in the cognitive realm, with issues treated as intellectual concerns, but the reason for their persistence is found in the affective domain. Ultimately this book is about educational values, and values are hard to change. Beeby exemplified this – the zeal of the international educationalists of his period was his own. Beeby understood this clearly and never questioned it. After all, the progressive premise was an important part of his life’s work, as his 1992 autobiographical book, The Biography of an Idea, made clear. Indeed, there was a quasi-religious element to his unquestioning faith in the revealed truth of progressive education. Other than his responses in the International Review of Education, Beeby himself ignored the criticisms of his approach in his later formal writing, and in The Biography of an Idea mentioned only that the thesis of stages had sometimes been criticised by academics. I intuit from this that Beeb could be a cunning old administrator. My experience was that he set strategic objectives and thought about his ideas, but did not deviate from their essentials. Others were free to disagree and he was very willing to engage with them, up to a point, but he was not open to changing his core ideas or to publicising contrary views more than he had to. In his 80s, he was delighted that his ideas were taken seriously, but he was not about to reject the affective values that were a central tenet of a widely respected life’s work. Of course, having accused Beeby of failing properly to justify his value judgements, I should at least briefly indicate my own. To add another convolution to the argument, I actually do share many of the progressive educational values within my own cultural context. In that context, my scepticism relates to the timing of the

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introduction of enquiry methods into schooling. What I do not share is the value position that progressive values should be transferred to other cultures and that developing countries should attempt to follow Western, predominantly Anglophone, educational paths regardless of the evidence that progressive educational reforms are widely prone to failure in the developing world. In short, do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you: their tastes may be different. In attempting in this book to separate value-laden ethical issues (such as Beeby’s belief in progressive education) from empirical ones (such as the evidence that progressive education does not work in many countries), I am in no way attempting to side with the traditional positivist view that science should be value-free. The purpose of separating the two issues is more properly to select those features amenable to empirical and/or ethical analysis and to improve the quality of such analysis so that any social action that may be based on it can itself be as sound as possible. Nor, by separating empiricism from ethics, am I trying to imply that empirical methodology itself is value-free or ethically neutral. The type of intellectually tough philosophical and scientific rationalism in my analysis is derived from a Western academic sub-culture, the members of which have influence, derived from their knowledge, disproportionate to their numbers. This knowledge is neither complete nor ever likely to be, and in cross-cultural situations may be badly distorted by its mode of rationalism, hence one need for caution. Culturally-based educational choices may involve criteria of development not only different from those considered in Western contexts, but antithetical to many Western beliefs. Religious fundamentalists can argue (and this is not a view that I share personally) that religious values should be the basis for educational norms, e.g. to teach the literal truth of the Christian Bible or the Islamic Koran. Thus we may find both innovative change (i.e. attempts to achieve patterns new to a country, whether based on indigenous or foreign criteria) or, paradoxically, conservative change (i.e. attempts to reinforce previous patterns). The emphasis on national goals as criteria of judgement makes clear that models of education from other developing countries may be as irrelevant as those from developed ones. However, I am not advocating uncritical acceptance of educational decisionmaking within other cultures. Many actions taken by decision-makers in both ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries could undoubtedly be made more humane and/or effective if based on sounder research and enlightened by rational analysis rather than political games. One reason why it is important to clarify the ethical and analytical issues in educational reforms is to ensure that the Western goals implicit in many of them are not uncritically accepted in ignorance, either of their existence or the ubiquity of their consequences in practice. If an educational re-

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form is based on false premises, it does not matter much to the children negatively affected by it whether the decision-maker was indigenous or foreign. The negative connotations that formalism developed in Western countries often mean that educators who go forth from them to multiply progressivism in developing countries are unable to view dispassionately the operation of formalism in these new and different contexts, where their often-misplaced educational philosophies influence indigenous professionals, scholars and students. My professional experience has included working with progressive educators who, like Beeby, did not exercise radical reflection. Many of my professional colleagues, both indigenous and foreign, have had a faith that Western styles of teaching represent educational progress in developing countries and have underestimated the significance of contextual cultural factors. For whatever reason – perhaps professional commitment, limited academic horizons, or notions of cultural superiority – they often did not even begin to question the revealed truth that progressive education in its various guises is the way forward for all educational systems. Even when notionally supportive of traditional cultural values, an element of cognitive dissonance sometimes remained and often they still felt obliged to promote progressive values. Rather than riding forth like white knights, my advice to ‘educational experts’ newly arriving in foreign countries (whether as consultants, advisers, aid officials, teacher trainers, curriculum specialists, managers, employees or volunteers) is to keep an open mind. At first, avoid the official plans. Instead, prior to departure, Google educational research on the country. As soon as possible after arrival, organise to spend a few days in an appropriate school before, during and after classroom hours attending meetings and visiting classes. Find out what teachers and pupils are doing in the classroom, what they think about it, how they think it can be improved (whether it is formalistic or not) and what is some of the cultural reasoning behind what they say. Then read official policy and see if it is grounded in classroom reality. If it is not, the problem is with the policy not the reality. A key element in the widespread and persistent influence of the progressive paradigm has been the role of English language universities predominantly in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They continue to provide the bulk of overseas university study for developing-country teachers, researchers and aid professionals, who often imbibe modern educational theories as international students. These theories can be superficially attractive in that they implicitly attack old-fashioned Western educational values commonly associated with colonialism, but they seem to me to be just another culturally arrogant form of academic and professional neo-colonialism. Indeed, so irrelevant to developing countries do I consider research on education in Western countries that this book contains almost no examples of it.

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A consequence of progressive influences is confused attempts at curriculum reform that often lack professional rigour because they treat the process of teaching as the end product rather than student learning. Such reform attempts are based on the usually untested assumption that progressive teaching in developing countries will accelerate higher-level cognitive learning. In the absence of experimental research systematically testing whether learning how to enquire needs enquiry teaching methods, the introduction of progressive teaching styles is wide open to the criticism that developing countries still have untried theories being foisted naïvely on them. Developing-country governments and aid donors alike often continue to waste considerable efforts on changing teaching styles on the unverified assumption that student learning will somehow improve as a result. In essence, they can get away with this because weak governance systems in many developing countries mean that institutionalised checks and balances are uncommon. Such thoughts gave rise to the urge to revisit the issues by bringing together and updating the ideas in this book about the cultural relevance of formalism. While a-ha experiences are probably not going to change older educationalists’ minds, the hope is that the book will sufficiently subvert the younger ones that they seriously consider the appropriateness of progressive innovations in developing countries. The book uses as starting points a number of papers in which I have written about these issues since the mid-1970s. The full list of my educationrelated publications and papers is given in the following bibliography, which indicates a range of relevant academic and professional experience. The key material incorporated herein has all been heavily edited, revised and updated to reflect current versions of the issues under discussion. While it is common practice to regard older academic material as outdated and therefore irrelevant, this book deals with continuities in progressive educational thought since the middle of the last century and with other educational traditions that date back centuries. I have therefore not hesitated to retain older material and citations where the approaches are seminal, the analyses remain valid, they provide research evidence that remains reliable (either by having established major empirical findings or where subsequent research has not updated or refuted it), and/or they demonstrate historical perspectives. Nor have I hesitated to use currently unpopular Popperian principles as a methodological framework because rigorous logic should be neither time nor fashion dependent. Some lessons from my work as an administrator are reflected in Chapter 11, where an effort is made to reduce over-intellectualised academic work to analysis practical for decision-making purposes. One major conclusion reached in this book is that formalistic teaching is not an intermediary step on the path to educational development, but is likely to remain central to many school systems because it is compatible with traditional and on-

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going cultural practices. Formalism in many countries is symptomatic of age-old cultural preferences, not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. It should not be regarded as a classroom problem readily fixed, but as a deep-rooted cultural behaviour capable of playing an important role long into the future. In all this, I am conscious that some will be inclined to view the book as a mirror image of their own progressive value sets, i.e. that it argues a formalistic case derived from a pre-set starting position. My view is that it presents conclusions that are based on systematic methodological and theoretical analysis, are evidence-based, have stood the test of time, and that are far removed from my original progressive views. Indeed, I am not wedded to formalism as such. My case is simply that formalism is appropriate in many cultures in many countries. There, improvements to primary and secondary schooling will come more rapidly from working with the existing styles of formalistic teaching in an attempt to improve them, rather than trying to work against or replace them. Improving formalism does not require rocket science or another round of school effectiveness research. Plenty of teacher education textbooks, old and new, provide tips on techniques. For example, a 2001 text for Melanesia by Gabriel Kubul, Practical Tips for Teachers in Melanesia, abounds with constructive ideas that are neither overburdened with angst about the formalism of schools nor unapologetically accepting of it. Hopefully, current generations of teachers and teacher educators will continue to walk down the path of improving teaching in ways that are effective because they are culturally meaningful. While the substantive case is limited to developing countries, Chapter 12 does speculate on the relevance of the argument to Western, especially English language, countries. Given that the cultural issues are embedded linguistically in various language groups, and that revelatory epistemologies are much more common worldwide than scientific ones, scientific enquiry values embedded in the English language may actually not be widely shared. Progressive education in Anglophone countries appears to be highly successful at helping school children to ask questions, but not so successful at helping them to answer questions. The reasons for this may have to do as much with biology as with teaching. An assumption inherent in progressivism was that the brain completes its growth by the early teens, and improvements in thinking subsequently would come from improved teaching to better use the brain’s capacities. Recent neurobiological research has found that the prefrontal cortex, where higher intellectual operations are located, does not actually finish growing until the mid-20s. This suggests that the difficulty that adolescents have developing the formal operations necessary for higher level enquiry and analysis may be as much a function of biology as attitude or education. This indication could reinforce the proposition that the most effective level to

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concentrate on higher level cognitive skills is not primary or lower secondary education, but tertiary. If physical maturation is a key issue, the underpinnings of the failure of progressive teaching innovations may be as much biological as educational, cultural and social, and therefore apply to youth in developed countries. If this book helps provoke further investigation into this matter, the results may raise the possibility that progressive education is as much a fallacy in developed countries as developing ones.

Gerard Guthrie References Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beeby, C.E. (1980a). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439444. Beeby, C.E. (1980b). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Beeby, C.E. (1992). The biography of an idea: Beeby on education. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Guthrie, G. (1980a). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438. Guthrie, G. (1980b). Response [to C.E. Beeby] from Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 445-449. Guthrie, G. (1981). Teaching styles. In Smith, P., & Weeks, S. (Eds.), Teachers and teaching: Proceedings of the 1980 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 154-168). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In Rust, V., & Dalin, P. (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Guthrie, G. (2003). Cultural continuities in teaching styles. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism]. 39(2), 57-78. Kubul, G. (2001). Practical tips for teachers in Melanesia: A survival guide for student teachers and beginner teachers. Sydney: Longman. Popper, K. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Rev. Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Educational Bibliography 2010. Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. 2007. Regional Multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence, Mauritius, World Bank feasibility study. Canberra: Educo (with Rughooputh, S., Smith, A., Sobhee, S., Hutchinson, F., & Parahoo, S.). 2005. PNG Primary and Secondary Teacher Education Project: Independent completion report. Canberra: Educo. 2004a. Typology of educational knowledge. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 40(1), 111. 2004b. Educational aids – CRYSTAL 2.0. CD-ROM Review No.19. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. 2004c. Global Education Database, 2003 Edition. CD-ROM Review No.18. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. 2003a. Cultural continuities in teaching styles. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism]. 39(2), 57-78. 2003b. Developing the Melanesian teaching style. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism], 39(2), 101-107. 2003c. Comparative education in the South Pacific. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 39(1), 1-13. 2003d. 2004 Handbook of undergraduate studies in education. Goroka: University of Goroka (Ed. with Kata, J., & Kukari, A.). 2003e. Handbook of postgraduate studies in education, 2004-2005. Goroka: University of Goroka (Ed.). 2003f. Handbook of postgraduate studies in education, 2003-2004. Goroka: University of Goroka (Ed.). 2003g. English language programs for large scale training applications: ‘Planet English’. CDROM Review No.6. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. 2003h. English language programs for large scale training applications: ‘English Discoveries’. CD-ROM Review No.5. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. 2002. Crumbs from the table: The impact of globalization and internationalization on the poverty of Third World universities. In Ninnes, P., & Tamatea, L. (Eds.), Internationalizing education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Proceedings of the 2002 ANZCIES conference (pp. 325-338). Armidale: Australian and New Zealand Comparative & International Education Society. 2001a. Then and now: Secondary teacher education 20 years later. Papua New Guinea Journal of Teacher Education, 5(4) & 6(1), 1-8. 2001b. African Virtual University Initiative scoping study for design and delivery. Canberra: AusAID (with Ley, R., & Smith, A.). 2001c. PNG Agricultural Training Project final design document. Canberra: AusAID (with Ferraris, R.). 2001d. Book review: Practical tips for teachers in Melanesia: A survival guide for student teachers and beginner teachers, G. Kubul. Papua New Guinea Journal of Teacher Education, 5(2), 54-55. 1992. The Papua New Guinea Community Teachers’ College Lecturers Professional Development Project: Report of the mid-term review team. Canberra: International Development Program (with Penias, W., & Toomey, R.). 1990 & 1991. The economics of distance education. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(2) & 27(1), 189-200.

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1990. To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In Rust, V., & Dalin, P. (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. 1989. Higher degree theses and educational decision making in developing countries. International Journal of Educational Development, 9(1), 43-52. 1987a. Current research in developing countries: INSET and the impact of examinations on classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 3(1), 65-76 (with Crossley, M.). 1987b. Basic research techniques. Report No.55. Port Moresby: National Research Institute (Ed.). 1987c. Changing directions for Australian training assistance. Paper presented to the Association of Development Research & Training Institutes of Asia and the Pacific, New Delhi. 1987d. New directions for ITI. ITI Newsletter No.14 (p. 1). Sydney: International Training Institute. 1987e. Progress on the African Food Security Training Program. African Food Security Training Program Newsletter No.1 (pp. 1-3). Sydney: International Training Institute. 1987f. Principal’s report. Development Report 1986-1987 (pp. 3-5). Sydney: International Training Institute. 1986a. Current research in developing countries: The impact of curriculum reform on teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 2(1), 81-89. 1986b. Technical assistance for education in Papua New Guinea, 1986 to 1990: Recommendations to the Australian Development Assistance Bureau. Sydney: International Training Institute (with Allaburton, R., Croft, J., & Hunter, R.). 1986c. Research literature on teacher education in developing countries: Report on South Pacific Association of Teacher Education Research Initiatives Grant. SPATE Newsletter, 9(1), 13-17. 1986d. The cost of education. Papua New Guinea Education Gazette, 20(1/2), 21-22. 1986e. Principal’s report. Development Report 1985-1986. Sydney: International Training Institute, 4-5. 1985a. Current research in developing countries: Teacher credentialing and distance education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 1(1), 81-90. 1985b. The role of teachers in national development. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 265-281. 1985c. Summary of recommendations for PATCOP program in education, 1986-1990. Report to ADAB and Department of Education, Port Moresby. 1985d. Summary of ADAB support for educational planning in Papua New Guinea, 1984-1985. Report to ADAB and Department of Education, Port Moresby. 1985e. The establishment of priorities in education and the implications for management training. Paper presented to Hanns Seidel Foundation Seminar, Port Moresby. 1984a. Papua New Guinea. In Thomas, R.M., & Postlethwaite, N. (Eds.), Schooling in the Pacific Islands: Colonies in transition (pp. 28-64). Oxford: Pergamon (with Weeks, S.). 1984b. Secondary teacher training effectiveness in Papua New Guinea. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 10(2), 205-208. 1984c. Education strategy 1986-1990: Sector report of the Education Sector Committee. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education (Roakeina, S.G., Chairman) (Advisor and Draftsman). Reprinted in National Planning Office (1984) Medium Term Development Strategy: Education strategy discussion papers (pp. 105-166). Port Moresby: NPO. 1984d. A statistical review of the education sector: Interim report of the Education Sector Committee. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education (Roakeina, S.G., Chairman) (Advisor and Draftsman). Reprinted in National Planning Office (1984) Medium Term Development Strategy: Education strategy discussion papers (pp. 15-104). Port Moresby: NPO. Abbreviated

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version published as NPO (1984). Education. National Public Expenditure Plan 1985-1988 (pp. 127-144). Port Moresby: Government Printer. 1984e. Resource allocation between education sub-sectors. Policy paper for the Education Sector Committee, Port Moresby. 1984f. Resource implications of provincial high school expansion. Policy paper for the Education Sector Committee, Port Moresby. 1984g. Resource constraints and the attainment of universal primary education. Policy paper for the Education Sector Committee, Port Moresby. 1983a. The secondary inspectorate. Report No.45. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. 1983b. An evaluation of the secondary teacher training system. Report No.44. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. 1983c. Conflict and consensus in the development of the University of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 19(2), 35-45. 1983d. Policy issues in planning secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 11(1), 33-42. 1983e. Directions for education research: Proceedings of the 1982 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea (Ed. with Martin, T.N.). 1983f. Policy outcomes for education research. In Guthrie, G., & Martin, T.N. (Eds.), Directions for education research: Proceedings of the 1982 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 192-202). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea (with Currin, C.). 1982a. Reviews of teacher training and teacher performance in developing countries: Beeby revisited (2). International Review of Education, 28(3), 291-306. 1982b. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 18(2) (Ed.). 1982c. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 18(1) (Ed.). 1982d. First level education: Community schools. In King, D., & Ranck, S. (Eds.), Papua New Guinea atlas: A nation in transition (pp. 26-27). Port Moresby: Robert Brown (with Weeks, S.). 1982e. Second and third level education: High school and beyond. In King, D., & Ranck, S. (Eds.), Papua New Guinea atlas: A nation in transition (pp. 27-29). Port Moresby: Robert Brown, 27-29 (with Weeks, S.). 1982f. An evaluation of secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea. Research thesis, Doctor of Philosophy in Education, University of Newcastle, Australia (University Microfilms International No. DA832824). 1981a. Teaching styles. In Smith, P., & Weeks, S. (Eds.), Teachers and teaching: Proceedings of the 1980 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 154-168). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. 1981b. Secondary teacher training output in the 1970s. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(1), 102-110. 1981c. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(2) (Ed.). 1981d. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(1) (Ed.). 1981e. Criterion-referenced measurement: Towards a new school assessment policy. Research Report No.37. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea (with Townsend, G., & O’Driscoll, M.). 1981f. Book review: Education bibliography 1979-80, D. Wormsley (Ed.). Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(2), 243-244. 1981g. Book review: Planning the future of Goroka Teacher’s College, C.A. Rogers (Chairman). Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(2), 234-236. xxxii

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1981h. Book review: Constructing test instruments for student evaluation, Colombo Plan Staff College. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(1), 119-121. 1981i. Foreword. In Tuppen, C., School and student differences: Grade 10 examination and assessment results. Research Report No.39 (p. 6). Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. 1981j. Criterion-referenced testing. Papua New Guinea Education Gazette, 15(8), 245. 1980a. Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438. 1980b. Response [to C.E. Beeby] from Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 445-449. 1980c. The education of the Papua New Guinea child: Proceedings of the 1979 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea (Ed. with Smith, P.). 1980d. Day high schools. Research Report No.34. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea (Ed.). 1980e. Standards and quotas: High school selection in the North Solomons. Research Report No.31. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea (with Kemelfield, G.). 1980f. Adaptation: Grade 9 social science textbook, part 2. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture (with Field, S., & Lornie, R.). 1980g. Adaptation: Grade 9 social science teachers’ guide, part 2. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture (with Field, S., & Lornie, R.). 1980h. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(2) (Ed.). 1980i. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(1) (Ed.). 1980j. Children, education and society. In Guthrie, G., & Smith, P. (Eds.), The education of the Papua New Guinea child: Proceedings of the 1979 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 5-21). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea (with Smith, P.). 1980k. Current approaches in schools to education about urbanization. In Jackson, R. (Ed.), Urbanization and its problems in Papua New Guinea: Papers presented to the 1979 Waigani Seminar (pp. 37-47). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. 1980l. Towards a new social science syllabus for the 1980s. In Lornie, R. (Ed.), Introduction to the revised secondary social science course. Occasional Paper No.3 (pp. 97-110). Port Moresby: Teaching Methods & Materials Centre, University of Papua New Guinea. 1980m. Criterion-referenced testing for Papua New Guinea. Australian Journal of Education, 24(3), 326-327 (with O’Driscoll, M., & Townsend, G.). 1980n. Book review: Jacaranda Papua New Guinea school atlas. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(2), 211-212. 1980o. Book review: A world catalogue of theses concerning the education of the people of the Pacific Islands ... and, Theses and dissertations on Papua New Guinea, W.G. Coppell. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(1), 77-78. 1980p. Book review: Academic success in Papua New Guinea high schools, J. Silvey. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(1), 87-89. 1980q. Foreword. In O’Hara, G., Boards of governors operations: Six highlands case studies. Research Report No.32 (pp. 6-7). Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. 1980r. High school selection in the North Solomons Province. Papua New Guinea Education Gazette, 14(9), 201-202 (with Kemelfield, G.).

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1980s. Urbanization and the education system. Papua New Guinea Education Gazette, 14(1), 1013. 1980t. Proposals for a criterion-referenced measurement system for community and provincial high schools. Report to the Secretary for Education, Department of Education, Port Moresby (with Townsend, G., & O’Driscoll, M.). 1980u. An evaluation of secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea. Discussion paper for the APEID Regional Workshop on Educational Research, Tokyo. 1980v. The uses of criterion-reference tests in Papua New Guinea. Discussion paper for the APEID Regional Workshop on Educational Research, Tokyo. 1980w. Nutrition and education in the North Solomons Province, Papua New Guinea. Discussion paper for the APEID Regional Workshop on Educational Research, Tokyo. 1980x. Primary school standards and high school selection in the North Solomons Province, Papua New Guinea. Discussion paper for the APEID Regional Workshop on Educational Research, Tokyo. 1979a. How can we improve poor community schools in the North Solomons Province? NSERP Research Report No.3. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea & North Solomons Provincial Government (with Kemelfield, G.). 1979b. How should we select children for high school in the North Solomons Province? NSERP Research Report No.2. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea & North Solomons Provincial Government (with Kemelfield, G.). 1978a. Adaptation: Grade 9 social science textbook, part 1. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture (with Field, S., & Lornie, R.). 1978b. Adaptation: Grade 9 social science teachers’ guide, part 1. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture (with Field, S., & Lornie, R.). 1978c. Equalization of secondary schooling in Papua New Guinea 1975-77. In Hanson, J. Agard J., & Smith, P. (Eds.), Underway on a five year plan: Proceedings of the fourth Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 30-42). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. 1978d. Secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea: Student readings. Goroka: Goroka Teacher’s College, University of Papua New Guinea (Ed. with Wrightson, T.). 1978e. Suggestions for the new provincial high school syllabus. Report to the Social Science Syllabus Advisory Committee, Department of Education, Port Moresby. 1978f. Helping the student teacher. Teacher (Journal of the Papua New Guinea Teachers’ Association), 2, 46-48. 1977a. Motivation and ability: selection of in-service trainees. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 13(2), 29-39 (with Robin, R.). 1977b. Basic research techniques: A handbook for fieldworkers in Papua New Guinea. Working Paper No.2. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea (Ed. with Field, S.). 1976. Rationalization of secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea. In Weatherhead, J. (Ed.), Toward a philosophy of teacher education for University of Papua New Guinea: Proceedings of the Third Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 24-32). Port Moresby: Teaching Methods & Materials Centre, University of Papua New Guinea. 1975. The success of the Cherbourg state school’s program for Aboriginal students. The Aboriginal Child at School: A Professional Journal for Teachers of Aboriginals, 3(5), 48-53. 1975. Aboriginal migration: A survey amongst Cherbourg residents. The Aboriginal Child at School: A Professional Journal for Teachers of Aboriginals, 3(4), 49-59. 1974. Attitudes of Cherbourg Aborigines to education. Report to the Principal, Cherbourg State School, Queensland. xxxiv

SECTION 1 OLD CONJECTURES

Karl Popper’s approach to the development of scientific knowledge involves a series of conjectures and refutations. Existing conjectures, propositions and hypotheses are analysed and either accepted, rejected or modified through logical analysis and research. New ones arise, and they too are subject to refutation. Section 1 considers some long-standing progressive education conjectures. Chapter 1 posits the Progressive Education Fallacy and summarises the book. The Fallacy is based on the false premise that enquiry teaching methods are necessary in primary and secondary schools in developing countries to develop students’ enquiry skills. C.E. Beeby’s conjectures about educational stages and progressive education remain an important influence on much academic and official literature on educational reform in non-Western cultures, especially the equation of improvement in the quality of education with change to teaching styles. Strong theoretical and practical reasons exist for modifying formalism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. Additionally, there are considerable methodological issues with the school effectiveness literature on which much international analysis is based, including a serious lack of engagement with cultural context, which is a vital prior condition influencing classroom behaviour that the cases of Papua New Guinea and China illustrate. The progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s stages still remain active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to change formalistic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism. Chapter 2 details the model of stages and its widespread acceptance in the educational literature in the 1960s and 1970s. Since, there has been only limited acceptance of the formal properties of the stages model, except in some curriculum work derived from the World Bank, and little in the way of empirical research based on it. However, the progressive education values implicit in the model have persevered in quite different schools of educational thought. Some country-based research provides examples of classroom formalism giving a fuller picture of formalism in practice as well as six key findings that illustrate in some depth the nature of formalistic teaching and the merit of not making premature assumptions about it in any particular context.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

Analyses of the use of stages in economics have been far more detailed than those of the educational stages. Chapter 3 considers some of the critiques to see how they affected Beeby’s model, finding that his stages model had several serious logical and methodological weaknesses. The key problem in logic was that the progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Additionally, from a measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently distinct, used imprecise labels, and over-generalised from the experience of British-tradition South Pacific school systems. From the Popperian perspective introduced by Beeby in his defence, the stages model failed the key scientific test: the proposed inevitable progression towards the stage of Meaning was unscientific because it could not be falsified. In contrast, more recent developments in the literature, especially cultural paradigms, provide a compelling explanation of the cultural depths of the revelatory epistemologies with which progressivism seeks to compete. Beeby’s conjectures included that the key to a school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change, but he saw formalistic teachers, in particular, as obstructive. Chapter 4 considers teachers’ perceptual constructs, systemic barriers to change and the roles of different types of teachers in change. Failure of teachers to innovate may be rational, reasoned responses to complex progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom, are not compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable outcomes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will diffuse through classrooms depends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs (which may vary among different teachers), practical barriers to change including work and social pressures, schools’ professional climates and structural inducements. The influence of context-specific cultural paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive reform. The last of Beeby’s main conjectures was a hypothesised relationship between levels of professional training and general education of teachers and their ability to progress through the stages. Chapter 5 considers this through the medium of a review of school effectiveness research and its methodological limitations in developing countries, this research having come to dominate international measurement of education. The outcome, that the effectiveness of teacher education and of teaching styles are context-based, appears to have stood the test of time. The chapter then analyses lack of attention to teaching styles, the classroom and cultural context, progressively focussing on methodological limitations in school effectiveness research. In concentrating on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations, school effectiveness research has underestimated context by not taking culture and classroom processes seriously, churning repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground. 2

CHAPTER 1 THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY

Karl Popper’s approach to the development of formal knowledge is as a series of conjectures and refutations. Section 1 considers some long-standing progressive education conjectures. Chapter 1 posits the Progressive Education Fallacy and, summarises the book. The Fallacy is based on the false premise that enquiry teaching methods are necessary in primary and secondary schools in developing countries to develop enquiry skills. The culturallybiased conjectures of C.E. Beeby about educational stages and progressive education remain an important influence on much academic and official literature on educational reform in non-Western cultures in developing countries, especially the equation of improvement in the quality of education with change to teaching styles. Strong theoretical and practical reasons exist for modifying formalism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. Methodological issues in the school effectiveness literature, on which much international analysis is based, include a serious lack of engagement with classroom processes and cultural context. Context is a vital prior condition influencing classroom behaviour that the cases of Papua New Guinea and China illustrate. A common educational fallacy is that the variously labelled ‘enquiry’, ‘meaning’, ‘student-centred’, ‘learner-centred’, ‘active learning’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘discovery’, ‘andragogic’, ‘participative’, ‘constructivist’, ‘liberal’, ‘democratic’ teaching methods are necessary in primary and secondary schools in developing countries to develop enquiry skills. I name this false premise the Progressive Education Fallacy. It generates continuing efforts to change teachers away from formalistic classroom methods on an assumption little researched cross-culturally that progressive methods will help students learn enquiry skills. One result is that logical fallacies and cultural biases are implicit in much progressive academic and official literature on educational reform in non-Western cultures. Yet,

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_1, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

 

there is no necessary indication that enquiry intellectual skills must be introduced in primary and secondary schools in revelatory cultures where knowledge is there to be revealed rather than created; nor that changing teaching styles is a necessary precondition.

The formalistic teaching that is prevalent in many developing country classrooms has been the focus of progressive curriculum and teacher education reform efforts for some 50 years. Essentially, the key distinction is between teachercentred formalistic classrooms and student-centred progressive classrooms with underlying ways of viewing knowledge that are revelatory or scientific, respectively. Formalistic classrooms are constructed around the teachers’ pedagogical role as an expert who transmits or reveals culturally valued knowledge as a product. Progressive classrooms centre around students’ culturally-defined learning processes, in particular the view that students should discover or construct their own knowledge from a young age, which the teacher facilitates. Formalism is frequently portrayed as an obstruction to modernisation and, at best, an intermediary stage on the path to progressive Western-style educational development. The conclusion from my analysis, which this chapter overviews and summarises, is that formalism is neither a problematic obstruction to modernisation nor a passing stage. Rather, formalism is likely to remain embedded in many school systems because it is symptomatic of pervasive cultural continuities compatible with traditional and on-going pedagogical practices. Formalism should not be regarded as a classroom problem readily subject to educational remediation – it is remarkably difficult to change – but as a deep-rooted cultural paradigm capable of adaptation and of performing important educational functions now and in the foreseeable future. A major reason for the prevalence of formalism is its compatibility with societies that value respect for knowledge and for authority, and that regard ritual as meaningful in itself. While a considerable barrier to the international acceptance of formalism is its connotation of a domineering authoritarianism, not uncommon is a ‘benevolent paternalism’. The affective consequences of formalistic teaching can be rather more positive than is commonly assumed. Despite the disapproval of many progressive educationists, the evidence is that formalism is effective and appropriate in the many educational and cultural contexts where it has value in itself. Formalism (variously having labels such as ‘teacher-centred’, ‘traditional’, ‘didactic’, ‘pedagogic’, ‘whole-class’, ‘expository’ or ‘instructional’) turns out to be appropriate in many countries, unpopular and old-fashioned though these methods may seem in some English-speaking ones, in particular. Whole-class formalistic processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with the emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, is effective at promoting learning, particularly at the lower cognitive levels required in primary and 4

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

secondary schools, thus providing building blocks for later intellectual endeavour. Formalistic teaching is consistent with the formalistic teacher training, inspections and examinations that provide coherence in many educational systems, providing a base on which to build in the many situations where teachers and students feel comfortable with it. The functionality of formalism in schools and classrooms with poor facilities is a considerable asset, although formalism is not just a response to lack of resources. Even were financing of education and working conditions in schools and classrooms improved, formalism would still prevail. Formalism has been the subject of many failed reforms. Regardless of any merits of progressive education reforms in the abstract, the evidence strongly suggests that they generally fail in countries with revelatory epistemologies, which adds a reality check to ethical arguments against progressive education. Pragmatically, one could argue, the high likelihood of failure is the only necessary reason to reject progressive reforms. However, in looking for explanations for the failures, the instigators often misdirect attention to the teachers themselves, to teacher training and educational bureaucracy, rather than to the key underlying reasons, which are the cultural incompatibility of progressivism and their own ignorance about this. Remaining relevant is the proposition that, “the question to ask is not, how can we change the quality of teaching by promoting alternatives to formalism, but, how can we improve the quality of formalism?” (Guthrie 1990, p. 228). 1.1 Progressive Influences A central tenet of progressivism is that progress is a unilinear and inevitable process of socio-cultural development. From the end of World War II, a belief that education was the most important factor in development became well entrenched among academics, scholars, policy-makers and practitioners, as well as in agencies such as UNESCO and the OECD (Hawkins 2007, p. 147). Education was not just one of many factors in development; it was often seen – naïvely in my view – as the most crucial factor. This belief has persisted and become central to the thinking of many in the field of education and national development. The theoretical analysis in this book will focus on the example of progressive beliefs embedded in C.E. Beeby’s well known model of stages of educational development, which is still one of the few attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of classroom change in developing countries (Chapter 2). The model presented in Beeby’s 1966 book, The Quality of Education in Developing Countries, had four basic theoretical propositions, which can be summarised as: 1.

There are four stages of primary schooling, being the Dame School, Formalism, Transition and Meaning.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

2. 3. 4.

Movement through the stages is inevitable, usually sequential, and evolutionary. The key to a school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change. The ability of teachers to promote change is a function of their confidence, itself a function of their general and professional education.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the stages model was widely accepted in the literature, although since my 1980 deconstruction of Beeby’s model revisited in Chapter 3.1, the stages as such have received limited support. So, what is their relevance some 30 years later? Why focus on a theory that is no longer taken seriously as a formal model of change? The reason is that in various forms the essence of these progressive propositions is still pervasive in the educational literature on developing countries. Central issues are the false association of improvement in the quality of education with change to teaching styles and the Western, predominantly Anglophone, cultural values often found in progressive attempts to change teaching in a direction similar to Beeby’s Meaning stage. Beeby’s values, as a particular example of the progressive paradigm, influenced directly two of the literature’s dominant approaches, both the contrasting progressive/humanist and the economist traditions, as shown in a recent review of the educational quality literature by Barrett et al. (2006, pp. 2-12). The review found that both traditions built on Beeby’s stages model and included elements with an ideological preference for progressive schooling. The humanist approach of Hawes and Stephens (1990), for example, addressed primary school education in low-income countries with four central principles of practice, one of which was “learner-based”. Similarly, the 1996 UNESCO Delors Report contributed to the humanist Education for All movement. Beeby also directly influenced the economist tradition of the World Bank, especially the stages approach maintained by Verspoor and associates (Chapter 2.3; see also the summary of the influence on the World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF and USAID in Ginsburg 2009, pp. 5-6). Many scholars remain influenced by the progressive paradigm, as we will see throughout this book. The progressive values encoded in Beeby’s model remain part of a continuing tradition influencing quite different schools of thought about educational quality in nonWestern countries, which share a central belief that teaching practices from the West can raise pupil achievement across very different cultural settings. What does the research literature tell us about the classroom practices linked to formalistic and progressive teaching styles? Reviews focussed on teaching styles are uncommon. A recent one commented briefly that there was a general rejection among educationalists of traditional expository teaching and reported on the two main proposed alternatives of structured teaching and discovery-based approaches. Their area of common agreement was on learning as a constructivist 6

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

process. Gauthier and Dembele (2004, pp. 9-10) found support from the research for structured teaching practices (which are closer to expository teaching or formalism). Structured teaching practices:

     

were well-established and widely studied, mainly in industrialised countries; were successfully institutionalised; had results derived from their application that were conclusive with respect to student learning; had proven effectiveness, in particular among children from disadvantaged backgrounds; were apparently accessible to any ordinary teacher and appropriate for large classes; and had operational clarity and were therefore subject to consistent interpretations.

For discovery-based approaches closer to progressivism, there was less than ringing endorsement:

    

the majority of current programmes had been developed recently and on a small scale; attempts to institutionalise them, both in industrialised and developing countries, had met with limited success; their effectiveness was not yet established insofar as learning outcomes were mixed or inconclusive; they were apparently inaccessible to ordinary teachers; and they lacked operational clarity and were therefore subject to a variety of interpretations.

Primarily these findings came from research in developed countries, with few references to findings from developing countries and no discussion of the rejection of formalistic expository teaching. Gauthier and Dembele (2004, p. 35) did properly caution, however, that in developing countries, “it should be borne in mind that beyond the novelty syndrome of the pilot project, and beyond the whims of fashion trends, it is important to measure the stability of student learning gains.” Progressive approaches have been identified as part of pressure for educational reform efforts in numerous countries, including Botswana (Tabulawa 1997), China (Halstead and Zhu 2010), Hong Kong (Morris 1985; 1992; Watkins and Biggs 2001), India (Clarke 2003; Sriprakash 2010), Jamaica (Jennings-Wray 7

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

1984; Jennings 2001), Kyrgyzstan (de la Sablonniere et al. 2009), Namibia (O’Sullivan 2002; 2004), Papua New Guinea (O’Donoghue 1994; Guthrie 2003), South Africa (Harley et al. 2000; Nakabugo and Sieborger 2001; Nykiel-Herbert 2004), Tanzania (Mtahabwa and Rao 2010), Uganda (Altinyelkin 2010) and Vietnam (Saito and Tsukui 2008). All these reforms were reported as being inappropriate and/or having major implementation difficulties. Perhaps the most scathing comment among these papers applied to South Africa, where curriculum reformers chose, on ideological rather than pragmatic grounds a radical progressive/ constructivist pedagogy model, with the expectation that it would help to redress … inequalities of the country’s inglorious racist past. However, a severe shortage of the necessary expertise … turned the intended recipe for educational success into a new variety of educational malpractice, producing yet another generation of illiterate, innumerate South Africans (Nykiel-Herbert 2004, p. 250). The schools of developing countries are thus littered with the remnants of attempts to change formalistic teaching. Even so, professional educators, especially in internationally funded teacher education and curriculum projects, still frequently attempt to accelerate the replacement of formalistic teaching in developing country schools with inappropriate discovery-oriented teaching styles despite enough warning from the research findings in Chapter 5.2 that formalistic teaching can be more effective. This situation arises because the type of thinking embodied in Beeby’s stages remains part of an enduring and only superficially questioned educational tradition, on which Barrett et al. (2006) commented at some length. They noted that Beeby drew upon his experience as an educational administrator in a number of high and low income countries, almost all within the British Commonwealth, making his educational stages of development vulnerable to my criticism (Guthrie 1980) that they contained a teleological purpose of westernisation disguised as ‘better’ teaching. Beeby’s fourth and final stage of Meaning represented ideas about quality of education and the characteristics of education systems that were popular among educationalists in English-speaking Western countries, and which had influenced his own educational values. In this respect, Barrett and colleagues found that there was little to distinguish Beeby’s approach from later texts on educational quality, which have evolved to embrace contemporary preoccupations with human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability. Cast in a new set of terms (learner-centred, active-learning, participative, democratic), progressivism is an enduring tradition within education: “On the other hand, the cultural basis of Guthrie’s … and other researchers’ assessment of the viability of learner-centred pedagogies … that notions of education quality are restricted by 8

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

a Western-bias, demands attention be given to other possibilities” (Barrett et al. 2006, p. 4). 1.2 Theoretical and Methodological Objections to Stages Strong theoretical reasons exist for modifying formalism from within in an evolutionary fashion rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. Chapter 3 will expand and update four theoretical and methodological problems with stage analysis: 1.

2.

3.

4.

The logic of stages is circular and invalid. The notion that Western styles of teaching represent educational progress is at the centre of my criticism that Beeby’s stages of educational development are teleological. Teleology is a type of false circular logic where there is a prior and inherent bias towards an outcome that is not explicit: in Beeby’s stages, the circular logic was based on a poorly considered proposition that teaching for ‘meaning’ represents universal educational progress. The criterion of judgement is Western and culture-bound. Education is values based, but we should be quite clear whose values apply in different cultural settings. Objectives should be clearly justified in cultural as well as other terms. If paradigms about progressive education are not deconstructed, culturally biased and often false assumptions about teaching style will remain unexamined and untested. This book will present many examples of reforms that failed because they underestimated contextual factors, especially the depth of traditional epistemological and pedagogical paradigms. The association of student ability to enquire (a major product objective of progressive education) with enquiry-based teaching techniques (a major process objective of progressive education) has rarely been tested experimentally in developing countries. On the contrary, evidence is supportive of the hypothesis that formal enquiry abilities develop with mental maturation in conjunction with the biological growth process. Curricular attempts to have students develop higher-level cognitive skills may be inappropriate with immature school pupils in primary and secondary schools. Where changes to teaching style are required by higher cognitive skills or greater maturity among students, they are probably best adopted in tertiary education.

Stages belong in the methodological dustbin: dead ends that apparently give form and structure, but which have so many loose elements that they generate few hypotheses of lasting value for serious research, let alone practical application. 9

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

Allied to these weaknesses is the school effectiveness literature that has been a major influence on donor agencies over the last 40 years. While school effectiveness research has properly focussed on student achievement as the key dependent variable, Chapters 5 and 12 find that much of this research remains looking down the wrong end of the telescope in a vain search for illusory patterns. Token recognition of culture and the classroom often amounts to little more than a disclaimer – culture is an often recognised element of educational change, but it has generally received only superficial recognition in the search for the holy grail of international generalisations. A focus on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations has meant that school effectiveness research has lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological validity or context and by not taking classroom processes seriously. Clearly enough, it behoves all research to improve reliability, but its pursuit is of little value if critical underlying validity issues are not addressed. The neglect at one end of the educational process of cultural framework and, at the other end, of classroom processes, has meant that woefully little light has been cast on some very important issues. In the failure to break free of the reliability shackles, the school effectiveness field has churned repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground. A number of allied technical faults that underlie much school effectiveness and, especially, curriculum research, provide further sources of error: 1. Curriculum studies continue to use invalid assumptions to evaluate the effectiveness of change. The primary objective should be change in student performance, which is properly central to school effectiveness research. However, much curriculum reform research treats teaching style (which should be an independent or an intervening process variable) as a dependent product variable, unnecessarily making it the primary objective of change. 2. When formative curriculum research studies rely on indirect techniques such as questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, they can misrepresent what is actually occurring in the classroom. School effectiveness studies about the classroom have also generally used questionnaires as part of quantitative survey methods derived from economics and structural-functional sociology. However, structured observational techniques from educational psychology and direct observation using ethnographic techniques derived from anthropology are the valid approaches to identifying actual teacher and student behaviour (Chapters 5.4 and 10.4). In part, they avoid the power relations in evaluative research that can distort interview data, in particular. Ethnography is also the appropriate method for providing understanding of the depths of cultural paradigms lying be10

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

hind classroom behaviour, as illustrated by Richard Tabulawa’s (1997; 1998; 2004) brilliant analyses of classrooms in Botswana. 3. As we will see in Chapters 7 and 8 with Papua New Guinea, superficial research can be an issue, especially in formative evaluations of wellfunded aid projects providing high but unsustainable levels of professional support in pilot projects. Many reports on curriculum innovations fall breathlessly into the trap of announcing from lightweight studies that teachers support progressive reforms and implementation is successful. For example, Ginsburg (2009; 2010) synthesised case studies of teacher in-service development projects supported this century by USAID in Cambodia, Egypt, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and Malawi, which suffered from all the above faults. These projects were found squarely within the Progressive Education Fallacy, focussing on “active-learning pedagogies” advanced within international organisations during the previous 25 years and derived in part from Beeby’s work (Ginsburg 2009, pp. 5-9). None of the five pilot projects apparently used student learning as the dependent variable. The evaluations assessed teachers’ classroom behaviour using self-reported data from interviews and focus groups, finding that teachers could articulate active-learning policies. From this loose data, changes in classroom behaviour were inferred, but only the Egypt study actually added classroom observation. It found that any changes towards active-learning teaching were modest. Nonetheless, a key conclusion went way beyond the data to claim that classroom change did occur: “While it would be an overstatement to say that teachers involved in projects radically transformed their instructional practices, it seems appropriate to conclude that real changes occurred as a result of sustained training and supervisory support” (Ginsburg 2009, p. 22). This conclusion carried the vested implication that more aid funding was justified (Ginsburg 2009, p. 23). Superficial research findings like these influence aid agencies and practitioners to make ill-considered and unnecessary attempts to change classroom teaching practices. As Alexander (2008, pp. 1-2) recently put it, some of those who insist that specialist expertise is necessary for handling the complexities of access, enrolment, retention and outcomes … exercise no such caution about pedagogy, cheerfully peddling unexamined certainties about the conditions for effective teaching and learning. This failure properly to engage with pedagogy creates a vacuum into which are sucked a plethora of claims about what constitutes ‘best practice’ in teaching and learning and about the virtues of this or that pedagogical nostrum – group work, activity methods … child-centred teaching … and so on. Such claims … are rarely discussed, let alone evaluated against hard evidence, with the result that they 11

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

rapidly acquire the status of unarguable pedagogical truth and become transmuted into policy. … The whole cycle then becomes self-reinforcing. 1.3 Practical Objections to Progressive Reforms Even were there a valid theoretical cross-cultural case for progressive education, there are many practical barriers to change.1 The implication is that many reforms will not succeed for practical reasons, including cost, and therefore they should not be attempted. In sum, six main practical problems exist in developing countries (Chapter 4.4): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Classroom conditions may not be appropriate for some teaching styles. Teachers may have insufficient time to innovate. Examinations often emphasise learning inconsistent with innovations. Educational administrators may be unable to provide appropriate organisational support, particularly during extension phases. Costs of reform may be prohibitive. The difficulties in introducing progressive reforms can be underestimated.

At the end of the day and regardless of the theoretical and ethical matters, the issue is whether progressive innovations succeed in developing countries. Failing reformers have been known to treat teachers as scapegoats and label them as conservative resisters of change, as did Beeby (1966, pp. 29-47) and many of the reports referred to throughout this book. Chapter 4 will show that an alternative view is that the cultural values of teachers and students, the realities of classroom conditions, and the constraints within which schools operate influence the implementation of curriculum reforms. From this perspective, the resistance of many teachers to innovation is rational behaviour based on their experiential understanding of their working environment and its limitations rather than just irrational resistance to change. E.M. Rogers’ (2003) analysis of different types of potential innovators demonstrates that organisations contain a wide range of people, from innovative adopters to resistant laggards. Blanket categorisation of teachers as obstructionist does not take us far and may indeed reveal as much about the prejudices of the critics as the attitudes of the teachers. Innovations are likely to be more effective if selected with regard to their probability of success as well as their desirability. Headquarters and aid personnel en-

1

Chapters 1.3 and 1.4 draw on Guthrie (1990). Paraphrases are used here with permission from Taylor and Francis. 12

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

sconced in the relative comfort of the capital city may be more at fault for not understanding the difficulties of change than the teachers who do understand. 1.4 Cultural Context and Formalistic Classrooms The approach to culture and the classroom in this book is consistent with Fuller and Clarke’s (1994, pp. 139-142) view that understanding underlying differences among schools requires cross-cultural study of teacher authority, rules of classroom participation, the structure of classroom work, and how teaching tools mediate these social forces. Led this century by Michael Crossley in particular, many in comparative education have called similarly for an increase in cross-cultural relevance and practical application to developing countries through more attention to context (Crossley 2000; 2002; 2008; Alexander 2001; Crossley and Watson 2003; Crossley and Tikly 2004; Stephens 2007). Crossley (2000, p. 323) presciently summarised these calls: context matters, and comparative and international research in education is especially well placed to demonstrate this in a future in which the sociocultural analyses of global trends and developments will require concerted attention. This is well illustrated by contemporary critiques of educational policy borrowing, and the intellectual antecedents of such perspectives that are consistently visible ... This book’s approach nearly fits with Epstein’s (2008, p. 380) characterisation of an epistemology in comparative education that he labelled historical functionalism. This conceptual position synthesises positivist and relativist ones, with most studies in the field probing deeply into the historical and social context of education to arrive at an understanding of how education is affected by context, and how in turn education influences that context. At the same time, historical functionalism uses cross-national generalisation to show the universality of theories about education. The qualification is, in my view, that there are international commonalties in education and generalisations that can be made about it, but no universally applicable theories about school teaching (Chapter 12.1). Two central definitions need stating. In this book, I use the term culture in the deep sense that Hall (1983, pp. 6-7) described particularly well: there is an underlying, hidden level of culture that is highly patterned – a set of unspoken, implicit rules of behaviour and thought that controls everything we do. This hidden cultural grammar defines the ways in which people view the world, determines their values, and establishes the basic tempo and rhythms of life. 13

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

This approach is similar to Sternberg’s (2007, pp. 5-6) definition of culture as the set of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours shared by groups and communicated from generation to generation through language and other means of communication. The second key definition is of the classroom teaching style of formalism, which has several elements. Formalism places the teacher firmly in control. Teaching involves organised, whole-class processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with the main emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles. Teachers have dominant hierarchical roles, while students are generally passive, although limited overt teacher-student and student-student interaction may be permitted under conditions controlled by the teacher. Generally, questions are closed and come from the teacher in whole-class settings. Students may be set individual work, but other types of activity, such as group work, are infrequent. Additionally, formalistic teacher training, syllabuses, inspections, examinations, and administrative systems usually reinforce the classroom situation. Chapter 2.4 shows examples of classroom formalism that give a fuller picture of formalism in practice: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Formalistic teachers do not necessarily rely just on lecturing. There can be variation among formalistic teachers. Teachers and students can share the same expectations about the value of formalism. Formalism can be perceived as hierarchical without being authoritarian. Formalistic teaching can foster student engagement and generate high academic standards that go beyond surface memorisation. Formalistic systems can be structured to give incentive to teachers to upgrade their skills.

These findings derive from studies in different countries. There is no indication about how widely they apply, but they do indicate the merit of not making premature assumptions about formalism in any particular context. In particular, we should note in anticipation of some of the rejections of formalism in the literature that the definition of formalism (first presented in 1981 but based on Beeby’s 1966 one) does not equate formalism with authoritarianism or corporal punishment. Formalism is not necessarily typified by domineering authoritarianism, but may have connotations closer to benevolent paternalism. My own model of five teaching styles in Chapter 10.2 labels the most teacher-centred style as Authoritarian, which may frequently involve physical sanctions focussed on enforcing obedience. Formalism is the next most teacher-centred style. It involves strong negative sanctions focussed on failure to learn but less ready use of

14

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

physical ones. Critics of formalism tend to blend these two styles, but not all formalistic teachers use violence; nor is the definition tied to this. That some formalistic teachers are violent is true; however, most are not, and other types of teachers can be violent on occasion too. Nor should the assumption be made that formalism necessarily correlates with low student achievement. Much of the recent research on the Chinese classroom has been driven by interest in what John Biggs (1996) labelled the Paradox of the Chinese Learner, which is the apparent contradiction between large formalistic classes, yet high educational achievement on international tests by Confucianheritage students. Essentially, the evidence is that their performance is not passively due to superior memorisation, but to superior cognitive strategies (Chapter 9.5). Rather than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts, teaching encourages active, ‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. The evidence is that Chinese teachers often use formalistic methods in a highly sophisticated fashion that actually encourages student engagement in classroom material. The obvious dominance of teachers in the formalistic classroom should not necessarily be taken for an absence of mental engagement by the learner. In Chapter 10.2, we will turn to a teaching style model rather than a teacherstudent dichotomy. This model has five classroom teaching styles in a continuum from conservative to progressive, being Authoritarian, Formalistic, Flexible, Liberal and Democratic. Until then, the focus will be the two predominant teachercentred and learner-centred classroom styles of Formalism and Progressivism, in large part because this is how the discussion has been couched for several decades now. 1.5 Country Studies of Formalism The summaries of the objections to formalism may be misconstrued as supporting formalistic teaching by default, by virtue of a series of negative findings about the alternatives. This is not the intent. The on-going prevalence of a formalistic teaching style in primary and secondary schools in many countries is paradigmatic. Formalism is associated with long-term cultural patterns and epistemologies that provide deep-rooted value systems. It can also provide coherence in educational systems through teacher training, inspections and administrative support. This is demonstrated by a detailed study in Chapters 6-8 of educational research findings from Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s smaller countries. Papua New Guinea occupies an important methodological position in this book, acting as a Popperian test that falsifies any claims to the universal applicability of the progressive approach. Karl Popper’s (1969; 1979) approach to the development of formal knowledge is as a series of conjectures and refutations, analysis of which proceeds on the basis of the principles of refutation or falsifica15

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

tion. His approach was based on a rejection of inductive logic in which research cannot prove correct conjectural theories or hypotheses derived from them, but can only prove them incorrect. Popper is identified as a positivist and is therefore highly unfashionable with large parts of the social science community. However, his logic was not only accepted by Beeby, but also offered in his own defence, and it provides an appropriate framework around which this book is structured. Beeby (1980, pp. 468-473) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved relatively easily by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems, either by finding a system that follows quite a different progression from his prediction, or by discovering one that leapfrogged one of the stages. Papua New Guinea provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s progressive model. Perhaps more than in any other developing country, his ideas were put into official practice from the late 1960s and, despite the failure of seven major progressive reforms recorded in Chapter 7, still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. My conclusions for Papua New Guinea are that:

  

Formalistic teaching is culturally congruent with traditional epistemology and pedagogy that predated European colonisation in the 1870s. Formalism was reinforced by the similar style brought by missionaries and other educators in colonial schools in the 20th century. These cultural influences have been a key element in the resistance of formalistic pedagogy to the change efforts of recent progressive educational reformers.

In contrast is the largest country, China, which remarkably enough has many epistemological elements in common with the seemingly very different Papua New Guinea. A review in Chapter 9 of influence of the Confucian tradition extends the generalisability of the test to provide a further refutation of Beeby’s proposition that the universal adoption of progressive education is inevitable. China demonstrates the unlikelihood of a progressive education approach barely two centuries old replacing a formalistic Confucian tradition dating back two millennia and more. The Confucian-heritage tradition also demonstrates that formalistic teachers can pay considerable attention to the progress of their students both inside and outside the classroom. Other evidence from classroom research in Asia and Africa is also brought to bear. The implications of the book for the theory, methodology and practice of education in developing countries are brought together in Chapters 10-12. In particular, Chapter 11.4 will turn to some of the more straightforward ways in which formalistic systems can be upgraded, including increased time on task, increased 16

Chapter 1 The Progressive Education Fallacy

class sizes, provision of textbooks, provision of supplementary language readers, use of distance education for in-service programmes, and practice of moderate versions of reflection. Chapter 12.5 also reviews briefly current research on the interactions among physical maturation and culture, the location in the lateral prefrontal cortex of complex reasoning, the type of teaching methods used in primary and secondary schools, and the timing of curricular activities. All this has implications for the earlier progressive assumption that the brain is fully developed by the early teens and that enquiry teaching is appropriate early in schooling. Rather, it seems, advanced capacities do not finish developing in the brain until a decade or so later. The hypothesis that the introduction of enquiry learning methods in primary and early secondary school is premature, given the later growth of the lateral prefrontal cortex, may be a stretch but the issue is on the table. If physical maturation is one key factor, the underpinnings of the failure of progressive teaching innovations may in part be biological and not just educational, cultural or social, and therefore apply as much to youth in developed as developing countries. 1.6 Conclusion Culture is a prior condition for classroom change. If contextual research does demonstrate deep-seated cultural paradigms with revelatory epistemologies, progressive classroom interventions are unlikely to survive. On the other hand, improvements to formalism are highly likely to survive because they are congruent with the pervasive cultural setting. Cultural context may not be controllable scientifically or administratively, but it does exist and it does have real effects. The many failed attempts in developing countries to replace formalism with progressive teaching styles demonstrate that culture-bound reformers who do not understand the depth of the cultural issues are in for a very difficult time. The naïve introduction of fashionable educational theories from different cultural contexts is highly inappropriate. In Papua New Guinea, China and other countries with similar pedagogical and epistemological underpinnings, the future lies not in promoting alternatives to formalism, but in improving its level. Formalistic teaching is not an intermediary step on the path to educational development, but is likely to remain central to many school systems because it is compatible with traditional and on-going cultural practices. Formalism is symptomatic of ageold cultural preferences, not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. In those countries where it is appropriate, it should not be regarded as a classroom problem readily fixed, but as a deep-rooted cultural behaviour capable of playing an important role long into the future.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

References Alexander, R. (2001). Border crossings: Towards a comparative pedagogy. Comparative Education, 37(4), 507-523. Alexander, R. (2008). Education for All, the quality imperative and the problem of pedagogy. Create Pathways to Access Monograph No.20. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Altinyelken, H. (2010). Curriculum change in Uganda: Teacher perspectives on the new thematic curriculum. International Journal of Educational Development, 30(2), 145-150. Barrett, A., Chawla-Duggan, R., Lowe, J., Nikel, J., & Ukpo, E. (2006). The concept of quality in education: Review of the ‘international’ literature on the concept of quality in education. Working Paper No.2. Bristol: EdQual. Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beeby, C.E. (1980). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Biggs, J. (1996). Western misperceptions of the Confucian-heritage leaning culture. In D. Watkins & J. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 45-67). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Clarke, P. (2003). Culture and classroom reform: The case of the District Primary Education Project, India. Comparative Education, 39(1), 27-44. Crossley, M. (2000). Bridging cultures and traditions in the reconceptualisation of comparative and international education. Comparative Education, 36(3), 319-332. Crossley, M. (2002). Comparative and international education: Contemporary challenges, reconceptualisation and new directions for the field. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 4(2), 81-86. Crossley, M. (2008). Bridging cultures and traditions for educational and international development: Comparative research, dialogue and difference. International Review of Education, 54(3-4), 319-336. Crossley, M., & Tikly, L. (2004). Postcolonial perspectives and comparative and international education. Comparative Education, 40(2), 147-156. Crossley, M., & Watson, K. (2003). Comparative and international research in education: Globalization, context and difference. London: Routledge Falmer. Epstein, E.H. (2008). Setting the normative boundaries: Crucial epistemological benchmarks in comparative education. Comparative Education, 44(4), 373-386. Fuller, B., & Clarke, P. (1994). Raising school effects while ignoring culture – Local conditions and the influence of classroom tools, rules, and pedagogy. Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 119-157. Gauthier, C., & Dembele, M. (2004). Quality of teaching and quality of education: A review of the research findings. Paper commissioned for the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2005, The Quality Imperative. Ginsburg, M. (2009). Active-learning pedagogies as a reform initiative: Synthesis of case studies. Washington: American Institutes for Research. Ginsburg, M. (2010). Improving educational quality through active-learning pedagogies: A comparison of five case studies. Educational Research, 1(3), 62-74. Guthrie, G. (1980). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438.

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Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V. Rust & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Guthrie, G. (2003). Cultural continuities in teaching styles. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism]. 39(2), 57-78. Hall, E. (1983). The dance of life. New York: Doubleday. Halstead, J.M., & Zhu, C. (2010). Autonomy as an element in Chinese educational reform: English lessons in a senior high school in Beijing. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 29(4), 443446. Harley, K., Barasa, Mattson, E., & Pillay, S. (2000). ‘The real and the ideal’: Teacher roles and competences in South African policy and practice. International Journal of Educational Development, 20(4), 287-304. Hawes, H., & D. Stephens, D. (1990). Questions of quality, primary education and development. Harlow: Longman. Hawkins, J. (2007). The intractable dominant educational paradigm. In P. Hershock, M. Mason, & J. Hawkins (Eds.), Changing education: Leadership, innovation and development in a globalizing Asia-Pacific (pp. 137-162). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Jennings, Z. (2001). Teacher education in selected countries in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The ideal of policy versus the reality of practice. Comparative Education, 37(1), 107-134. Jennings-Wray, Z. (1984). Implementing the ‘integrated approach to learning’: Implications for integration in the curricula of primary schools in the Caribbean. International Journal of Educational Development, 4, 265-278. Morris, P. (1985). Teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to the implementation of a pedagogic innovation: A South East Asian case study. International Review of Education, 31(1), 3-18. Morris, P. (1992). Political expectations and educational reform: The case of Hong Kong prior to its return to the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Compare, 22(2), 153164. Mtahabwa, L., & Rao, N. (2010). Pre-primary education in Tanzania: Observations from urban and rural classrooms. International Journal of Educational Development, 30(3), 227-235. Nakabugo, M., & Sieborger, R. (2001). Curriculum reform and teaching in South Africa: Making a ‘paradigm shift’? International Journal of Educational Development, 21(1), 53-60. Nykiel-Herbert, B. (2004). Mis-constructing knowledge: The case of learner-centred pedagogy in South Africa. Prospects, 34(3), pp. 249-265. O’Donoghue, T. (1994). Transactional knowledge transfer and the need to take cognisance of contextual realities: A Papua New Guinea case study. Educational Review, 46(1), 183-195. O’Sullivan, M. (2002). Reform implementation and the realities within which teachers work: A Namibian case study, Compare, 32(2), 219-237. O’Sullivan, M. (2004). The reconceptualisation of learner-centred approaches: A Namibia case study. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(6), 585-602. Popper, K. (1969). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge (3rd Ed.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Popper, K. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Rev. Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovation (5th Ed.). New York: Free Press. de la Sablonniere, R., Taylor, D., & Sadykova, N. (2009). Challenges of applying a studentcentered approach to learning in the context of education in Kyrgyzstan. International Journal of Educational Development, 29(6), 628-634.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

Saito, E., & Tsukui, A. (2008). Challenging common sense: Cases of school reform for learning community under an international cooperation project in Bac Giang Province, Vietnam. International Journal of Educational Development, 28(5), 571-584. Sriprakash, A. (2010). Child-centred education and the promise of democratic learning: Pedagogic messages in Indian primary schools. International Journal of Educational Development, 30(3), 297-304. Stephens, D. (2007). Culture in education and development: Principles, practice and policy. Oxford: Symposium. Sternberg, R.J. (2007). Culture, instruction, and assessment. Comparative Education, 43(1), 522. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 249268. Tabulawa, R. (2004). Geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice: A case study from Botswana. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 53-73. Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 115-134). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong.

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CHAPTER 2 FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s stages still remain active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to change formalistic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism. Chapter 2 describes the model of stages and its widespread acceptance in the educational literature in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, there has been only limited acceptance of the formal properties of the stages model, except in some curriculum work derived from the World Bank, and little in the way of empirical research based on it. However, the progressive education values implicit in the model have persevered in quite different schools of educational thought. Some country-based research provides examples of classroom formalism giving a fuller picture of formalism in practice as well as six key findings that illustrate in some depth the nature of formalistic teaching and the merit of not making premature assumptions about it in any particular context. In the main, Beeby’s 1966 book generalised from his practical experience as a high level educational administrator in an attempt to promote the development of educational theory that would provide justification for educationalists’ attempts to improve the quality of education in developing countries. As a later autobiographical book explained, the ideas were embedded in a philosophy of education that he had been responsible for implementing as Director of Education in New Zealand from 1940 to 1960 (Beeby 1992; also Alcorn 1999, pp. 95-161). The philosophy related to the equalisation and democratisation of schooling in the sense of opening up opportunity to all individuals. A natural extension of this idea and of Beeby’s administrative role was an interest in improving the quality of schooling in developing countries. He was responsible for education in Western Samoa and other New Zealand dependencies in the South Pacific, became one of the founding figures in UNESCO, was seconded to it as Assistant Director-General in 1948-49, was New Zealand Ambassador to UNESCO from 1960-63, and was consulted widely on major educational reform in developing countries. In Papua New Guinea, he was an influential figure in the latter half of the 1960s as a member of the important Weeden Committee on Education (Weeden, Beeby, and Gris 1969). He also contributed a major analysis

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 21 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_2, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

of education in Indonesia (Beeby 1979) and directly influenced the World Bank’s educational policies. This came about because Beeby was a keynote speaker at a World Bank seminar on quality in education in 1983, which resulted in Bank staff shifting their thinking so that quality of schooling became an overriding concern (Heyneman and White 1986; Alcorn 1999, pp. 354-355; Barrett et al. 2006, pp. 48). Prior to the formal analysis in Chapters 3 and 4, the first half of this chapter describes Beeby’s model of stages and their widespread acceptance in the educational literature in the 1960s and 1970s with remarkably little critical analysis. The second half then draws six important findings from the subsequent literature about formalism that demonstrate the depth of the formalistic paradigm and on-going cultural reasons for rejection of the progressive approach. 2.1 Beeby’s Stages of Educational Development Beeby presented his progressive approach to improving educational quality as a formal stages model with analytical properties intended to generate research (Beeby 1966, p. 50).2 The theory as presented in 1966 was a modification and extension of one presented four years before (Beeby 1962). In this previous article, Beeby presented three stages of educational development to explain changes in primary school systems. These stages were extended to four in the book, but the essence of the argument was the same and most of the article was included. Later, as part of the exchange in the International Review of Education (Guthrie 1980a; 1980b; see also 1982; Beeby 1980a; 1980b), Beeby made some minor revisions to the model. We can concentrate on the 1966 book, where necessary as amended in 1980. The purpose of the stage analysis was essentially an action-oriented concern to promote progress through the stages, Beeby (1966 p. 50) stating that his views were the result of administrative experience rather than scholarly research. His case, as an educator concerned with quality, was presented in counterpoint to the alleged quantitative concerns of economists. On the one hand were economists, concerned with quantity, analysing educational inefficiency, and attacking educators for conservatism; on the other hand were educators, aware of these problems, but concerned with promoting quality as well. Unlike educators, economists were seen as theoretically sophisticated: Rostow’s (1971) well known theory of eco2

Chapters 2.1 and 2.2 draw on Guthrie (1980a) and (1980b) with permission from Springer Science and Business Media. Quotations and Figure 1.1 are from Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, copyright 1966 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, used by permission of the publisher.

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

nomic stages and Harbison and Myers’ (1964) classification of 75 countries into four levels of human resource development were claimed by Beeby (1966 p. 48) to give form and shape to an elusive complex that educators had failed to match in their own field. To match the economists’ theory, and familiar with Stanley Hall’s earlier educational psychology on stages of growth in early childhood (Beeby 1980a, p. 439), Beeby presented a theory of stages, incorporating changes in the quality of classroom teaching. To paraphrase Beeby, schools could usually be found at one of the four stages of Dame School, Formalism, Transition or Meaning. Columns 1 and 3 of Figure 2.1 were used to summarise the discussion of stages. In sum, as a school system moved through the stages, schools became less rigid (with fewer external controls such as exams and inspections), teachers less formal in teaching style, discipline less authoritarian, and syllabuses and textbooks less prescriptive. Corresponding to these changes, learning would become more meaningful, the classroom more pupil-centred, and the school more self-directed. Figure 2.1 (1) Stage

Stages in the Growth of a Primary School System (2) Teachers

(3) Characteristics

I. Dame School Ill-educated, untrained

Unorganized, relatively meaningless symbols; very narrow subject content – 3R’s; very low standards; memorizing all-important.

II. Formalism

Highly organized; symbols with limited meaning; rigid syllabus; emphasis on 3 R’s; rigid methods – ‘one best way’; one textbook; external examinations; inspection stressed’ discipline tight and external; memorizing heavily stressed; emotional life largely ignored.

III. Transition

IV. Meaning

Ill-educated, trained

Better-educated, trained

Well-educated, well-trained

(4) Distribution of Teachers

X

A P

Roughly same goals as stage II, but more efficiently achieved; more emphasis on meaning, but it is still rather ‘thin’ and formal; syllabus and textbooks less restrictive, but teachers hesitate to use greater freedom; final leaving examination often restricts experimentation; little in classroom to cater for emotional and creative life of child. Meaning and understanding stressed; somewhat wider curriculum, variety of content and methods; individual differences catered for; activity methods, problem solving and creativity; internal tests; relaxed and positive discipline; emotional and aesthetic life, as well as intellectual; closer relations with community; better buildings and equipment essential.

t years

B Q C R Y

Source: Beeby (1966, p. 72), by permission of the publishers.

When Beeby (1980b, pp. 457-460) revisited the stage of Meaning, he wrote that this would be the area in which he would make the greatest changes were he to rewrite the book because his description had oversimplified it. The difficulty he

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

identified was that the Meaning stage had pluralistic meanings subject to differing interpretations from traditional and progressive educational philosophies, and he rewrote the description of the stage to reduce his own progressive orientation. The 1980 revision to Stage IV in Column 3 read: Meaning and understanding stressed; variety of content and method to cater for individual differences; problem-solving plays an increasing part; pupils’ own active thinking and judgement encouraged, and the control of language appropriate to this developed (Beeby 1980b, p. 457). The modification removed some elements related to curriculum and classroom activities, discipline, emotional and aesthetic life, and facilities, but remained embedded in progressive views. Regardless of this redefinition, Beeby did not resile from his 1966 view that progress through the stages was inevitable, sequential and evolutionary: “there are certain stages of growth through which all school systems must pass; although a system may be helped to speed up its progress, it cannot leapfrog a stage or major portion of a stage” (Beeby 1966, p. 69). Stage I, the Dame School stage, was not essential, however, because in many countries modern educational systems were introduced by foreign teachers who were the products of more advanced systems. But, unless expansion of a system was very slow and was undertaken with a very high proportion of such expatriate teachers, it was unlikely that the earlier levels of Formalism would be by-passed. Thenceforth, change was evolutionary, because “for teachers ... the goals of education are emergent, in the sense that they must be within the range of the teachers’ capabilities, and will evolve as those capabilities expand” (Beeby 1966, p. 128). In particular, a sense of intellectual and emotional security was essential for teachers at Stage IV, this sense of security partly depending on the gap between teacher and pupil knowledge. Thus change was likely to occur most easily in lower grades where this gap was widest, and was likely to be slower in higher grades. The 1966 book contained two major qualifiers of the stage analysis. The first, mentioned very much in passing, was the idea that there could be upper and lower levels or sub-stages in each stage. The second qualification was a very explicit explanation that it would be an oversimplification to think of all parts of a system being at exactly the same stage, thus a national system could straddle more than one stage (Beeby 1966, p. 70). The time factor was shown elegantly in Column 4 of Figure 2.1. Line X-Y represents the continuous scale of growth of a system. B is the average teacher’s position at a given time, A-C is the range of teachers in the system, t is the number of years over which an attempt is made to reform the system, Q being the point where teacher B may be expected to stand after t years,

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

with P-R being the new range. CBQ is the “angle of reform”. An administrator who attempted to create too acute an angle of reform could be pulled down as a radical by the press and public; if the angle were too near a right angle, the system would stagnate. The key to change from stage to stage was seen by Beeby as teacher ability. Ability was used to refer to the capacity of teachers to bring about the changes necessary to raise a school system to a higher stage. In effect, Beeby actually meant teacher inability. This was implicit in much of his discussion and was made explicit, in particular, when causes of professional conservatism were discussed in relation to both developed and developing countries (Beeby 1966, pp. 35-47). Five factors focussed on teachers’ limitations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Lack of clear goals in the system affecting teachers’ thinking. Lack of understanding and acceptance of reforms by teachers. Teachers, as products of a system, not being prone to innovate. Isolation of teachers in their classroom slowing down diffusion of innovations. A wide range of ability of teachers making diffusion rates uneven.

Ability to change was posited as a function of teachers’ confidence, itself depending on two key teacher education variables: 1. 2.

Their level of general education. Their amount and kind of professional education.

As Column 2 of Figure 2.1 shows, Beeby’s view was that educational quality would improve as teachers moved from being ill-educated and untrained at the Dame School stage to being well-educated and well-trained at the Meaning stage. 2.2 Initial Acceptance When Beeby’s book appeared, it was very positively reviewed, on the whole as a much needed attempt to create a theoretical framework for development education. Reviewers commended what they thought was the apparent validity of the stages and their potential to create testable hypotheses, and accepted its view of educational change as evolutionary (Guthrie 1980a, p. 416). In the 1960s and 1970s, the model passed into the literature with little formal criticism and with frequent reference to its application to different educational systems, mainly in developing countries. Castle (1972) approvingly used Beeby’s framework in a general analysis of Third World education, claiming that most countries were in the Dame or Formalism stages; while Griffiths (1975) used a modified version to

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

analyse Sudanese primary education after the 1930s. The stages received particular attention in countries of the South Pacific area, in part because the book was one of the few works discussing education in the region, commentators noting that it appeared to be a descriptively accurate picture of education there. Research derived from the model was limited, but Musgrave (1974) did carry out a minor questionnaire study among a small group of school inspectors from 10 Southeast Asian and Pacific areas of the Commonwealth. The results were interpreted as indicating three categories: Pacific countries (British Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, Niue and Papua New Guinea) corresponding to Stage II; Southeast Asian countries (Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore) that corresponded to Stage III; and westernised countries (Australia, England and New Zealand) that corresponded to Stage IV. A number of educational practitioners agreed with Musgrave that the Papua New Guinea educational system was in the stage of Formalism. Coyne (1973) outlined Beeby’s stages and reviewed 15 authors’ comments that showed Papua New Guinea to be in Stage II. Others essentially agreed (Beevers 1968; Donohoe 1974). However, two research studies gave some clues about the importance of the cultural context for teacher education. Larking’s (1974) study of 230 students in a primary teachers’ college over 1972-73 showed the students were weak in nurturance, strong in authoritarianism and that significant changes in these, predicted from Beeby’s model, had not occurred during their training. Larking followed Hagen (1962) and contended that in pre-literate societies the authoritarian personality is common and that changes from this in Papua New Guinea would only occur with changes in the social personality of the society itself. The implication was that any changes inferred from Beeby’s model would be very slow if the prospect of such change were, indeed, likely. Another study (Rowell and Schultz 1977) reported on research with 139 students undertaking three different courses at a different primary college during 1970-71. This study found low levels of attitude change and concluded that peer group influence was perhaps stronger than lecturers’ influence. These two studies indicated that attitudinal change was very much dependent on social and cultural contexts that might be opposed to the type of progressive change promoted in the courses, so that prospects for behavioural change seemed low. The stages were also referred to in the context of ‘underdeveloped’ sectors of ‘developed’ countries. Bowles (1969) cited Beeby’s description of the stages at some length and claimed that the majority of teachers in the Black school system in the United States were in the Formalism or Transition stages; while Medlin’s (1968) review had commented that the stages provided a meaningful framework for analysis of Russian development policies in Central Asia. Additionally, and mainly in Australia and New Zealand, the stages were used in analyses of previous

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

and current change in developed countries. Arnold (1973) and Dakin (1976) used the stages to interpret educational change in New Zealand, during the 1870s in the former case and current change in the latter case. In Australia, Meadmore (1978) used the stages in an historical analysis to explain reforms in Queensland primary education in 1860 and 1875 as bringing Queensland from Stage I to Stage II, this system described as eventually arriving in Stage III during the 1960s. Hughes (1969) carried out a similar historical analysis of Tasmania from 1804. Musgrave (1976) also carried out a second questionnaire study among 54 teacher educators in Victoria, which was interpreted to show much Australian teaching as being in the Transitional Stage III, with colleges of education believed by their staff to be agents of social change moving schools into Stage IV. In addition to these geographic applications, Beeby’s model was used in the 1960s and 1970s to illuminate some of the thematic aspects of education. In particular, the concept of formalism was widely used to describe teaching style. Sanders (1969) wrote that Beeby’s stages might provide the basis of a set of categories for analysing instructional procedures in the classroom. Sheffield (1974) also used a modification of the stages to provide insights into then recent and generally unsuccessful attempts in developing countries to innovate with modern educational technology. McKinnon (1976) used the stages as the basis of a historical model of curriculum change in Papua New Guinea, which named five curriculum stages – Imitative, Derivative, Venturesome Local, Modern Local and Integrated Modern Local – but included little further analysis. Dore’s (1976) attack on the “diploma disease” also included some reactions to Beeby’s conception of educational development, but could not be taken too seriously as formal criticism. Thus, Beeby’s book was taken up rapidly. What King in 1968 (p. 148) called an “excellent book” had, nearly a decade later, become the “celebrated taxonomy” (Taylor 1975, p. v), part of the educational lexicon. The book was full of common sense and valuable insights, the result of long years of experience and valuable to others with similar interests. Yet three-quarters of the studies cited above were interpretative and they mostly took Beeby’s model uncritically at face value. The logic had many weaknesses that saw little detailed examination; as did dubious claims for generalisability of the model. Only Vaizey (1966), Musgrave (1974), Griffiths (1975) and Dore (1976) commented on the properties of the model (and generally briefly), while only Larking (1974), Musgrave (1974; 1976), Griffiths (1975) and Meadmore (1978) used the stages as the foundation of either historical or survey research. In contrast to the open and frank discussion at a 1961 conference on Rostow’s stages (Rostow 1963) was a 1966 UNESCO conference on ‘Qualitative Aspects of Educational Planning’, which was chaired by Beeby himself. Like many such quasi-diplomatic conferences, the record contains only indirect analysis of many of the issues raised (Beeby 1969). Thus, what purported to

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

be a major theory of educational change became an accepted part of the educational literature of the period with little serious analysis or application. This was the context in which my deconstruction of Beeby’s model was undertaken in 1980 as part of an evaluation of secondary teacher education in Papua New Guinea in the late 1970s. 2.3 Subsequent Use of the Stages Since the exchange in the International Review of Education in 1980, Beeby’s ongoing influence on education in developing countries has been mainly as a progressive educator concerned about quality. A search of Google Scholar showed some 100 citations of Beeby’s book in the 20 years from 1990 to 2009, for comparative education a respectable enough average of about five a year. Other than his responses in the International Review of Education, Beeby himself ignored the criticisms of the model in his later writing (e.g. Beeby 1982; 1986); and in the autobiographical review of his key educational ideas, he mentioned only that the thesis of stages “has sometimes been criticised by academics” (Beeby 1992, p. 214). However, apart from historical reference to contextualise research (e.g. Barrett 2007, pp. 275-276), application of the stages model to research has been very limited in recent decades. There has been only limited acceptance of the formal properties of the stages model and little in the way of empirical research derived from it. Citations of Beeby have mainly related to three aspects of the book: the stages model, the formalistic teaching style, and political biases in the model (underlying cultural issues will be discussed in Chapter 3.4 while another aspect, the teacher education variables, will be taken up in Chapter 6.1). Nonetheless, the progressive education values underpinning the model have persevered in quite different schools of educational thought, in particular in the 1996 UNESCO Delors Report and the World Bank’s 1999 Education Sector Strategy (as indicated in Chapter 1.1). The limited positive references to the stages methodology as such were mainly in the World Bank. Since the late 1980s, the Bank has built on the work of human capital theorists, rates of return and school effectiveness research to argue for costeffective investment in primary school education (Barrett et al. 2006, pp. 4-8). As part of this approach, Verspoor and Leno (1986, pp. 11-14) and Verspoor and Wu (1990) loosely combined Beeby’s stages model with findings from Hall (1978) showing eight levels of behaviour among American teachers confronted with innovation. They adapted four levels from Hall that corresponded roughly to Beeby’s stages: Unskilled (where schools are mainly staffed by unqualified teachers who use rote learning techniques), Mechanical (where most teachers have limited training and education and slavishly follow the curriculum), Routine (where

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

teachers have adequate training and some variation in techniques), and Professional (where teachers are well-trained and student needs are the central focus of teaching). Each stage included factors related to teachers, curriculum, textbooks/materials, teaching techniques, supervision/support, and teacher reaction to innovation. While cautioning against expectations of rapid change, the approach was firmly and explicitly based on progressive ideals as an end point, consistent with Verspoor’s (1989, p. 134) view that large curriculum projects were often based on good ideas but problems lay in underestimating implementation difficulties. Curiously enough, the work of Verspoor and his colleagues noted criticisms of the stages approach but largely ignored the depths of its methodological invalidity. This was a surprising exception to the economic literacy of the World Bank given the rigorous rebuttal in the 1960s by Myrdal and Kuznets of Rostow’s methodologically similar stages of economic growth (which will be revisited in Chapter 3.1). Nonetheless, the Bank revisions in turn influenced some writers particularly concerned with the implications of the different stages for the in-service education of teachers (INSET). These writers were focussed particularly on southern Africa (de Feiter et al. 1995, pp. 65-68; de Feiter and Ncube 1999, pp. 182-184; Harvey 1999; Rogan and Grayson 2003; see also Johnson et al. 2000; Johnson et al. 2001, p. 146; Villegas-Reimers 2003, pp. 123-124). De Feiter and Ncube (1999), for example, reinforced the pragmatic outcome of Beeby’s approach that educational support must realistically take into account the conditions under which formalistic teachers often work in developing countries: “when conditions are ill-resourced, teachers are not well-trained, and the school organisation is weak … improving conventional teaching is potentially a more effective strategy” (de Feiter and Ncube 1999, p. 184). This, indeed, is a central position of the present book, but the stages mentality was still reflected in their further comment that “more student centred methodologies can be introduced at higher levels of school development” (ibid). Harvey (1999, pp. 604-608) reached a similar but more explicit end point, also arguing that Beeby’s stages helped define the type of INSET appropriate to teachers at different stages. However, his enthusiasm for the stages approach was such that it seems to have led him to seriously misinterpret my own analysis. He stated, “even Guthrie (1980a) concedes that the ease with which various researchers have applied this model to a diversity of contexts attests to the generalisable descriptive validity of the stages and their sequence” (Harvey 1999, p. 600), somehow interpreting the following statement as providing such support: “given that the model was particularly based on experience in New Zealand and Western Samoa it would have been wiser to restrict the model’s application to the British-tradition metropolitan and colonial countries of the South Pacific (and within that area to

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

claim greater applicability to the ‘developed’ rather than the ‘underdeveloped’ countries), and thus … [give] a clear indication … of the universe to which generality is claimed” (Guthrie 1980a, p. 425). Furthermore, Harvey stated, “I join Beeby (1986), Guthrie (1980a) and de Feiter et al. (1995) in urging that more attention be paid to developing interim models of excellence appropriate to each stage of development” (Harvey 1999, p. 606). Lest any ambiguity remain from the 1980 discussion of teleology, I can only reiterate that the teleological invalidity of Beeby’s assumption, that progressive teaching was universally desirable, implied that his model should not be applied either in research or educational practice. Formalism is not in my view an interim path to progressive teaching because progressive or meaning stage teaching is not a universally valid end point in schools. School development and curriculum innovation were also seen as a movement towards more sophisticated higher levels by Rogan and Grayson (2003, p. 1174). However, they qualified this view usefully in noting that the stages approach implied a linear view of complex and idiosyncratic curriculum change processes, and that higher levels should be seen as inclusive of the lower ones rather than replacements. The thrust of their argument was that curriculum changes should build on existing strengths, which is not dissimilar to my own point that, “the different styles are not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than each other, only more or less appropriate. There is no point in using styles from overseas just because they appear to represent ‘modern’ thinking in other countries. Progress … can well be a case of improving within a style (e.g. training ‘bad’ Formalists to become ‘good’ Formalists)” (Guthrie 1981, p. 166; see also 1983, pp. 50-53; 1990, p. 228). In those cultures where it is appropriate, formalism is a legitimate end point. 2.4 Findings about Formalism Formalism is often referred to in the educational literature, although not always by name or with reference to Beeby. Often the references are pejorative, an example being Kumar (1988), who criticised the official “textbook culture” in India and its requirements for formalistic teachers to follow “slavishly” official dictates backed up by bureaucratic powers that left open considerable punishment for noncompliance, such as compulsory transfer of teachers to any school. Rather than a broad survey of such references, more detailed reporting of research from Nepal, Botswana, Namibia and China, in particular, provides examples of classroom formalism that give a fuller picture of formalism in practice and casts light on some key issues about its nature. These case studies contain six findings: a) formalistic teachers do not necessarily rely just on lecturing; b) there can be variation among formalistic teachers; c) teachers and students can share the same expectations about the value of formalism; d) formalism can be perceived as hierarchical with-

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

out being authoritarian; e) formalistic teaching can foster student engagement and high academic standards; and f) formalistic systems can be structured to give incentive to teachers to upgrade their skills. These lessons are based on case studies and there is no indication about how widely they apply, but they do indicate the merit of not making premature assumptions about formalism in any particular context. a) Lecturing. A first finding is that formalistic teachers do not necessarily rely solely on chalk and talk. In a rare use of Beeby’s model for empirical classroom research, Pfau (1980) reported on the use of the stages in a study of classroom behaviours that compared 5th grade science classes in Nepal with the United States. Pfau did not appear to fall into the progressive trap, and made no judgements about the teaching styles, instead using the stages as a taxonomic device to judge the construct validity of quantitative classroom observation instruments that used category systems. Table 2.1 collapses student-focussed data from 11 categories in Caldwell’s Activity Classification Instrument drawn from samples in 23 Nepalese schools in 1974 and prior data from 30 American teachers in 1966 (the type of instrumentation will be discussed further in Chapter 10.4; here the concern is with the findings). Pfau reported that the differences between the formalistic teachers in Nepal and the meaning style American ones were statistically significant, but the table shows that the differences were generally of degree not kind. Classes in Nepal were not restricted just to lecturing, and American ones were far from devoid of it. Table 2.1 Contrast between Formalistic and Meaning Teachers Teaching Category

Nepal

United States

78%

40%

Teacher Questioning

7

17

Student Speaking

7

19

Workbook Work, Laboratory Experiences, Group Projects, Student Demonstrations, Library Research and Field Trips

2

15

Teacher Demonstrations

0

5

6

4

Lecture

Silence or General Havoc Source: Based on Pfau (1980, p. 407).

The formalistic Nepali science teachers predominantly lectured, with some 78% of classroom time in this activity. My own interpretation is that this is 31

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

instructive for two reasons. First, it did not show that the entire time was spent lecturing, which is a supposition about formalism reflected in some of the literature. Teachers asked questions and students spoke 14% of the time in total. There was a small amount of workbook use, at 2%, although no other form of student-focussed activity; nor did teachers demonstrate using audio-visual aids. Second, while the American teachers spent about half the time of Nepali teachers lecturing (at 40% of classroom time), lecturing was still their most frequent activity. However, the American science classes had nearly as much time (36%) in teacher questions and student talk, another 15% in student-focussed activity, and they used audio-visual aids 5% of the time. In all, 34% of American class time apparently had students as the central focus. In both cases, students spent as much time speaking as teachers did asking questions, which may imply that student talk was generally responsive. Similar amounts of time in both countries were spent in the residual category of silence and the evocatively labelled “general havoc”. In sum, the formalistic Nepali teachers lectured three-quarters of the time. Additionally, they asked questions that students answered, but they used few other student-focussed methods. The American meaning teachers lectured half as much. This was more often than any other activity, but they also had about one-third of time in a variety of student-focussed activities. The difference between the types of teaching was not the presence or absence of teacher- or student-centred activities, but their extent (78% v. 40% and 9% v. 34%, respectively). b) Variation within Formalism. Formalistic classrooms can appear dull and repetitive, the teachers bored and uninterested, and the pupils quiet and passive (Ackers and Hardman 2001, p. 256), but a second finding from observation studies in Botswana and Tanzania is that there can be variation among formalistic teachers. Fuller and Snyder (1991) reported from a structured classroom observation study of three lessons each by 154 junior secondary and 127 primary teachers in Botswana. While teachers were predominantly formalistic, there were many variations in teacher practice. The teachers were vocal and dominant in most classrooms, but they did not always use chalk-and-talk and their pupils were not always passive and silent. Substantial variation was found in the extent to which teachers used textbooks, written exercises and materials, in part depending on the subject and the size of the class. A good deal of time was spent on question, answer and recitation, mainly involving closed-ended questions, but again with considerable variation and with many teachers attempting to generate pupil action. The teachers varied among themselves, but the inference was that there were overriding cultural commonalities in approach. In Tanzania, Barrett (2007) also found considerable variation in the nature of pupil-teacher interactions. She conducted research in primary schools in two regions of Tanzania in 2002-03 using inter-

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views with 32 teachers in 18 schools and observation in 28 lessons to compare what teachers said was good practice with their classroom behaviour. In classes averaging around 45 students, lessons were fairly standardised but there was variation that seemed influenced by school culture, exposure to INSET, plus teacher confidence, subject knowledge and pedagogical skill. There was scope to improve teacher practice within the existing pedagogical palette and to avoid the tendency to promote uncritically educational ideas from English-speaking countries. c) Student Expectations. A third important finding from observation studies is that teachers and students can share common expectations about the value of formalistic classroom teaching. Although not placed in the context either of the stages or formalism as such, Tabulawa (1997; 1998; 2004) conducted highly insightful investigations into the meanings attached to pedagogical practices by both teachers and students in a grounded case study of geography teachers in a rural secondary school in Botswana in 1993. Tabulawa mainly used qualitative methods, particularly unstructured ethnographic classroom observation of the school’s three geography teachers over a 2-month period, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with them and four other departmental teachers and interviews with 10 students. The small sample in a single school found somewhat less classroom variation than Fuller and Snyder’s (1991) larger Botswana study, but added to the cultural depth. Tabulawa (1998) reported little variation in routine, formalistic classroom practices. The teachers usually started lessons with recapitulation of the previous lesson, followed by lecturing and writing of brief notes of the board. Few questions came from the students, who generally sat quietly. The lessons usually ended with recapitulation by the teachers or quizzing of the students. Teacher-student relationships were paternalistic and formal. Teachers expected traditional respect and deference and maintained a social distance. Essentially, they treated the students as a single mass and had little individual contact. There was little attention to individual student needs and classes moved from one activity to another as a whole. The limited verbal contact was initiated by the teachers in highly formalised question and answer sessions. Considerable emphasis was put on students demonstrating the ‘right answers’ to closed questions, part of a central concern about maintaining teacher control. Teachers emphasised attentiveness, formality and orderliness in their lessons, and corporal punishment, which was common in the school, was an option. Mastery of subject matter, which was dependent on good lesson preparation and presentation, was an important aspect of control that rendered corporal punishment unnecessary. Knowledge was a utilitarian commodity; the teachers’ job being to impart it, the students’ job to acquire it. The teachers all viewed schooling as a vocational

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

route to employment mediated by the public examination system and the possibility of higher education. They perceived that “imparting” and “delivery” of curriculum knowledge and keeping order in class were their main responsibilities so that students received the knowledge needed to pass the exams. The students’ role was perceived as “receiving” the teachers’ knowledge. The teachers’ perception was that students should read and listen to the teacher in class and be ready to receive instruction. Students were considered to be doing meaningful work when they were asking and answering questons, writing assignments and taking notes, and therefore learning school knowledge from teachers and textbooks. Thus, “if the role of the teacher is that of purveying knowledge, then his/her role is to ‘teach’. If the role of the student is perceived as that of a receptacle of knowledge, then his/her role is to ‘learn’ by way of assimilating the teacher’s knowledge” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 264). The distinction between teaching and learning simplified and defined the classroom roles for the actors. Adherence to the roles created a stable and orderly classroom atmosphere, and the actors were conscious of deviations from them. “In fact, the study shows how teachers employed overt and more subtle strategies to maintain their dominant role in class and how students, likewise, employed strategies to keep the teachers in an information-giving position” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 264). Tellingly, students had a very similar perspective to teachers. Student-student interaction was conspicuously absent except in occasional small group discussions. Students actually resisted variations in teaching practice, such as group discussion. They viewed knowledge as external, a commodity possessed by the school and teachers and found in textbooks. If they wanted to pass the examinations, they had to get it from these sources: “Thus, attempts to have them construct knowledge in the classroom would be a waste of time, and group discussions are, therefore, resisted” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 263). A later article (Tabulawa 2004), cast in the context of power relations in the classroom, explored student views of knowledge in more detail with a further report on their perceptions. Teacher dominance was not necessarily perceived just as a product of teachers’ inherent desire for social control. In many instances teachers were “forced” into a dominant position by the students themselves. Teacher dominance was a mutually constructed, negotiated product resulting from students and teachers exercising power on each other within the constraints set by their context. Students contributed to teacher-centredness through their expectations of teacher behaviour and actually had considerable informal power over teachers’ reputations. The students particularly defined teacher competence as deriving from their subject knowledge and their ability to impart it efficiently. Teachers were aware of the importance of their own reputation and actively avoided teaching acts that might get them labelled as incompetent by students. Student silence in class

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

was not a sign of laziness, deviance or powerlessness, but was rational behaviour communicating their expectation that teachers would tell them the required knowledge and, Tabulawa argued, was actually a form of power. The teachers’ apparent dominance was not so much imposed as a co-constructed, negotiated authority that was a product of teachers’ and students’ mutual expectations of schooling derived from their shared cultural context. d) Authoritarianism. A fourth finding about formalism, which comes from Chinese culture, is that Western perceptions of formalistic teaching as authoritarian may not be shared. One finding about the working role and the formalistic culture of teaching in Hong Kong and China compared with Australia was that the Chinese teacher-student relationship was hierarchical but not necessarily authoritarian, and was not limited to the classroom. There were authoritarian classroom practices, but they were surrounded by active and more informal friendly interactions outside the classroom (Cortazzi and Jin 2001; Ho 2001). Other studies on teaching in China will be discussed in Chapter 9.5, and the issue of authoritarianism will return in Chapter 12.2. e) Student Engagement and Academic Standards. The key element in formalism is that teacher lecturing predominates, even though there may be some variation in teacher behaviours. However, the sight of students sitting passively does not necessarily imply lack of intellectual engagement with the content of the lesson. Much of the evidence in this book about formalistic teaching happens to come from lesser developed countries not noted for high academic standards. However, the Paradox of the Chinese Learner is based on the apparent contradiction between large formalistic classes and high educational achievement by Confucian-heritage students (Watkins and Biggs 1996; 2001; Chan and Rao 2009, p. 5). Students in many Asian countries, where traditional Confucian-influenced methods have students playing an apparently passive rote learning role, have regularly outperformed Western students in international studies of mathematics, science and language. Essentially, the evidence is that Chinese student performance is not passively due to superior memorisation, but to superior cognitive strategies. Rather than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts, teaching encourages active, ‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. Students in China are not necessarily regarded by formalistic teachers just as passive receptors of information, but are expected to develop their ability through an active process of internal construction. Teachers should guide the students using a variety of teaching strategies, relate teaching to the real world, match students’ ability levels, play a role in promoting students’ attitudes to learning and guide their conduct. Chinese teachers often use

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

formalistic methods in a highly sophisticated fashion that actually encourages student engagement in classroom material, which is the underlying explanation for the high academic performance (see Chapter 9.5 for more detail). In the formalistic classroom, the obvious dominance of teacher behaviour should not be taken necessarily for an absence of mental engagement by the learner. f) Upgrading Teachers. A common assumption is that formalistic teachers often operate in hidebound systems where improvements to teaching are not encouraged. A sixth finding, also from China, is that formalistic systems can institutionalise incentives for teachers to systematically upgrade their performance. Cortazzi and Jin (2001, pp. 121-122) reported that the school system could provide incentives for teachers to learn from each other. Good teachers could be honoured with titles (such as “special” or “model” teacher) and salary incentives that were gained after public and competitive demonstration lessons in front of large groups of peers. Teachers recognised through this process would then act as mentors, including giving further demonstration lessons to younger teachers, with attendance required for promotion. In Wuhan, for example, the recognised criteria for an able teacher included showing effective preparation, delivering effective teaching performance, expressing the rationale underlying teaching, observing other teachers and evaluating others’ teaching. Peer lessons had a modelling effect, spreading through a kind of “cultural epidemiology” in a chain effect because teachers could see specific practices being managed effectively within their own context. 2.5 Political Bias The progressive Western values represented by Beeby have also been heavily criticised for implicit political bias from the perspectives of a number of widespread developing countries. Lee et al. (1988) in Korea, Thaman (1991) in the South Pacific, Crossley (1992) and O’Donoghue (1994) in Papua New Guinea, and Quist (2003) in Ghana all criticised the dependency model implicit in the stages mentality, which assumed that the solution to educational problems in these countries involved the application of Western progressive models and underestimated contextual factors. Others extended the argument to concerns that the progressive values represent Western political interests. Sweeting (1996) sceptically argued that the globalisation of learning is a doubtful concept and advanced claims about the individualisation of understanding. Tikly (1999) argued that consideration of post-colonial issues was necessary for developing a less Eurocentric understanding of the relationship between globalisation and education. Later he claimed that education was a key policy plank for multilateral development agencies, which are instrumental in developing a new regime of international governance that serves Western interests (Tikly 2004).

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Chapter 2 Formalism in Developing Countries

Tabulawa (2003, p. 10) has also heavily criticised international aid agencies for promulgation of learner-centred teaching styles that were political and ideological in nature. The ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a development paradigm in the 1980s and 1990s, he argued, elevated political democratisation as a prerequisite for economic development, in which education assumed a central role. Learnercentred methods were a natural choice for the development of democratic social relations in the schools of aid-receiving countries. These methods bring an ideological outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of society and people, and represent a process of westernisation disguised as quality and effective teaching. Noting that the assumption of equating change in the quality of teaching with change in teaching styles is rarely questioned, Tabulawa drew on my statement (Guthrie 1990, p. 222) that the bases of judgement that change is desirable are the educational norms of a liberal Western academic sub-culture that have a hidden agenda of moral and philosophical values about desirable psychosociological traits for individuals and for society. While I intended this statement to reflect the values of scientific enquiry, Tabulawa took the view further to argue that learner-centred pedagogy is a political artefact that is inherently ideological and that justification of the pedagogy on educational grounds is questionable. Other viewpoints on the Bank’s educational policies are to be found in Klees (2002) and other papers in Issue 22(5) of the International Journal of Educational Development, Heyneman (2003), and Barrett et al. (2006). Despite some radical reactions, Beeby’s emphasis on evolutionary rather than revolutionary change has received little contradiction in recent years. In the 1960s and 1970s, revolutionary change was an ideologically fraught issue in train with radical debate about the decolonisation that was occurring across the Third World. The development literature contained many discussions of evolutionary versus revolutionary change, often referenced to Marxism and dependency theory. Beeby himself became a reluctant gradualist in light of his experiences when responsible for the school system in Western Samoa in the 1940s and 1950s (Beeby 1992, pp. 212-214) and, as a senior educational administrator, was clearly able to speak with authority on the subject. My own analysis of the issue broke change down into speed, magnitude and direction, supporting Beeby’s view that evolutionary change is the most constructive way forward (Guthrie 1980a, pp. 425-429). Indeed, the evolutionary view has become so self-evident that it is difficult to find discussion of the merits of revolutionary change these days. Experience of educational change from all parts of the world continues to support the idea that unless continued support is given to changes, their effect is likely to be short-term; conversely, the greater the magnitude of qualitative change, the greater the discontinuity and the greater the need to work at the change over a long period of time if political or administrative fiat is actually to become effective and meaningful in practice. Es-

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

sentially educational change is generational: children carry the lessons forward when they become adults. 2.6 Conclusion The analytical core of Beeby’s approach to improving the quality of education in developing countries was the model of stages, which, he thought in 1966, had formal measurement properties that could generate rigour and promote research. In the decade after the book appeared, the main focus of attention in the academic literature was this model. The outcome from the analysis in the International Review of Education, which is the starting point of Chapters 3 and 4, was that Beeby’s book became seen more of a professional challenge to educators to adopt his progressive values rather than a rigorous theory. Since then the stages model as such has received limited further attention, notably by some in the World Bank, and the ultimate effect was that Beeby’s book came to be interpreted more as a tonic for educational administrators arguing for inputs to upgrade the quality of education than as a generator of research (Renwick 1998, p. 343). In contrast, the nature of formalism has been elucidated in diverse case studies that show that formalistic teachers may not be as limited in teaching range as is sometimes supposed. The case studies provided findings that are not true of all formalistic teaching, but they demonstrate that formalism is not necessarily a case of teachers giving unyielding lectures to passive students in authoritarian classrooms, or that progressive teaching is an easy alternative. The problem remains, however, that the progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s stages still remain active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to change formalistic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism. References Ackers, J., & Hardman, F. (2001). Classroom interaction in Kenyan primary schools. Compare, 31(2), 245-261. Alcorn, N. (1999). ‘To the fullest extent of his powers’: C.E. Beeby’s life in education. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Arnold, R. (1973). North Island education, 1871-1877: ‘The great leap forward’. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 8(2), 111-131. Barrett, A. (2007). Beyond the polarization of pedagogy: Models of classroom practice in Tanzanian primary schools. Comparative Education, 43(2), 273-294. Barrett, A., Chawla-Duggan, R., Lowe, J., Nikel, J., & Ukpo, E. (2006). The concept of quality in education: Review of the ‘international’ literature on the concept of quality in education. EdQual Working Paper No.2. Bristol: University of Bristol. Beeby, C.E. (1962). Stages in the growth of a primary education system. Comparative Education Review, 6(1), 2-11.

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Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beeby, C.E. (Ed.) (1969). Qualitative aspects of educational planning. Paris: UNESCO Institute of International Educational Planning. Beeby, C.E. (1979). Assessment of Indonesian education: A guide in planning. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Beeby, C.E. (1980a). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439444. Beeby, C.E. (1980b). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Beeby, C.E. (1982). Reflections on the strategy of changing a school system. Directions, 8, 1-16. Beeby, C.E. (1986). The stages of growth in educational systems. In S.P. Heyneman, & D.S. White (Eds.), The quality of education and economic development: A World Bank symposium (pp. 37-44). Washington: World Bank. Beeby, C.E. (1992). The biography of an idea: Beeby on education. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Beevers, R. (1968). Curriculum change in developing countries. Unpublished Master of Education thesis, University of Leicester. Bowles, F. (1969). Two school systems within one society. In C.E. Beeby (Ed.), Qualitative aspects of educational planning (pp. 220-231). Paris: UNESCO Institute of International Educational Planning. Castle, E.B. (1972). Education for self-help. London: Oxford University Press. Chan, C., & Rao, N. (Eds.). (2009). Revisiting the Chinese learner: Changing contexts, changing education. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (2001). Large classes in China: ‘Good’ teachers and interaction. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 115-134). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Coyne, G. (1973). Education in Papua New Guinea schools. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 9(1), 17-21. Crossley, M. (1992). Teacher education in Papua New Guinea: A comment on comparative and international observations. Journal of Education for Teaching, 23(1), 23-28. Dakin, J.C. (1976). The forerunners of the educational development conference. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 11(1), 1-12. De Feiter, L., & Ncube, K. (1999). Towards a comprehensive strategy for science curriculum reform and teacher development in Southern Africa. In S. Ware (Ed.), Science and environment education: Views from developing countries. Secondary Education Series 19659 (pp. 177198). Washington: World Bank. De Feiter, L., Vonk, H., & van den Akker, J. (1995). Towards more effective teacher development in Southern Africa. Amsterdam: Vrije University Press. Donohoe, D.J. (1974). Monitoring educational development in a foreign culture – spotlight the problem areas. In Educational Perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 30-44). Melbourne: Australian College of Education. Dore, R. (1976). The Diploma Disease. London: Allen and Unwin. Griffiths, V.L. (1975). Teacher-centred: Quality in Sudan primary education, 1930 to 1970. London: Longman. Fuller, B., & Snyder, C. (1991). Vocal teachers, silent pupils? Life in Botswana classrooms. Comparative Education Review, 35(2), 274-294.

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Guthrie, G. (1980a). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438. Guthrie, G. (1980b). Response [to C.E. Beeby] from Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 445-449. Guthrie, G. (1981). Teaching styles. In Smith, P., & Weeks, S. (Eds.), Teachers and teaching: Proceedings of the 1980 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 154-168). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1982). Reviews of Teacher Training and Teacher Performance in Developing Countries: Beeby Revisited (2). International Review of Education, 28(3), 291-306. Guthrie, G. (1983). The secondary inspectorate. Report No.45. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V. Rust, & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Hagen, E.E. (1962). On the theory of social change: How economic growth begins. Homewood: Dorsey. Hall, G.E. (1978). Concerns-based in-service teacher training: An overview of the concepts, research and practice. R&D Report No.3057. Bournemouth. Harbison, F., & Myers, C.A. (1964). Education, manpower, and economic growth. New York: McGraw-Hill. Harvey, S. (1999). Phasing science InSET in developing countries: Reflections on the experience of the primary science program in South Africa. International Journal of Science Education, 21(6), 595-609. 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(3), 315-337. Heyneman, S.P., & White, D.S. (Eds.) (1986). The quality of education and economic development: A World Bank symposium. Washington: World Bank. Ho, I. (2001). Are Chinese teachers authoritarian? In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 99-114). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Hughes, P. (1969). Changes in primary school curriculum in Tasmania. Australian Journal of Education, 13(2), 130-146. Johnson, S., Monk, M., & Hodges, M. (2000). Teacher development and change in South Africa: A critique of the appropriateness of transfer of northern/western practice. Compare, 30(2), 179-192. Johnson, S., Monk, M., & Swain, J. (2001). Teacher development and change: An evolutionary perspective. In Y. Cheng, M. Mok, & K. Tsui (Eds.), Teacher effectiveness and teacher development: Towards a new knowledge base (pp. 141-164). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Education. King, E.J. (1968). Comparative studies and educational decision. London: Methuen. Klees, S.J. (2002). World Bank education policy: New rhetoric, old ideology. International Journal of Educational Development, 22(5), 451-474. Kumar, K. (1988). Origins of India’s ‘textbook culture’. Comparative Education Review, 32(4), 452-464. Larking, L.G (1974). Some difficulties in improving the quality of teachers in Papua New Guinea. In Educational perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 130-137). Melbourne: Australian College of Education.

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Lee, J., Adams, D., & Cornbleth, C. (1988). Transnational transfer of curriculum knowledge: A Korean case study. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 20, 233-246. McKinnon, K.R. (1976). Curriculum development in primary education: The Papua New Guinea experience. In E. Barrington-Thomas (Ed.), Papua New Guinea education (pp. 49-56). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Meadmore, P. (1978). The decline of formalism in Queensland primary education, 1950-1970. The Forum of Education, 37(1), 27-34. Medlin, W.K. (1968). ‘The quality of education in developing countries’, by C.E. Beeby. Comparative Education Review, 12(2), 197-198. Musgrave, P.W. (1974). Primary schools, teacher training and change: Beeby reconsidered – Some data for the Pacific. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 10(1), 42-47. Musgrave, P.W. (1976). After freedom, whither teacher education? In S. Murray-Smith (Ed.), Melbourne Studies in Education, 1976 (pp. 188-208). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. O’Donoghue, T. (1994). Transactional knowledge transfer and the need to take cognisance of contextual realities: A Papua New Guinea case study. Educational Review, 46(1), 183-195. Pfau, R. (1980). The comparative study of classroom behaviours. Comparative Education Review, 24(3), 400-414. Quist, H. (2003). Transferred and adapted models of secondary education in Ghana: What implications for national development? International Review of Education, 49(5), 411-431. Renwick, W.L. (1998). Clarence Edward Beeby (1902-98). Prospects, 28(2), 335-348. Rogan, J., & Grayson, D. (2003). Towards a theory of curriculum implementation with particular reference to science education in developing countries. International Journal of Science Education, 25(10), 1171-1204. Rostow, W.W. (Ed.). (1963). The economics of take-off into sustained growth: Proceedings of a conference held by the International Economic Association. London: Macmillan. Rostow, W.W. (1971). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowell, J., & Schultz, R.F. (1977). Attitudes and attitude change of indigenous teacher trainees in Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Psychology, 12(4), 261-275. Sanders, D.P. (1969). Toward a theory of educational development. Comparative Education Review, 13(3), 276-293. Sheffield, J.R. (1974). Educational policies for developing nations. Teachers College Record, 76(1), 89-100. Sweeting, A. (1996). The globalization of learning: Paradigm or paradox? International Journal of Educational Development, 16(4), 379-391. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 24968. Tabulawa, R. (2003). International aid agencies, learner-centred pedagogy and political democratisation: A critique. Comparative Education, 39(1), 7-26. Tabulawa, R. (2004). Geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice: A case study from Botswana. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 53-73. Taylor, L.C. (1975). Foreword. In V.L. Griffiths, Teacher-centred: Quality in Sudan primary education, 1930 to 1970 (pp. iv-vii). London: Longman.

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Thaman, K. (1991). Towards a culture-sensitive model of curriculum development for the Pacific countries. Directions, 13, 1-13. Tikly, L. (1999). Postcolonialism and comparative education. International Review of Education, 45(5-6), 603-621. Tikly, L. (2004). Education and the new imperialism. Comparative Education, 40(2), 173-198. Vaizey, J.E. (1966). ‘Planning for education in Pakistan’, by A. Curle; and ‘The quality of education in developing countries’, by C.E. Beeby. Harvard Educational Review, 36(4), 533-536. Verspoor, A. (1989). Pathways to change: Improving the quality of education in developing countries. Washington: World Bank. Verspoor, A., & Leno, J. (1986). Improving teaching: A key to successful educational change. Educational and Training Department Report EDT50. Washington: World Bank. Verspoor, A., & Wu, K.B. (1990). Textbooks and educational development. PHREE Background Paper PHREE/90/31. Washington: World Bank. Villegas-Reimers, E. (2003). Teacher professional development: An international review of the literature. Paris: UNESCO International Institute of Educational Planning. Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.). (1996). The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.). (2001). Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Weeden, W.J., Beeby, C.E., & Gris, G.B. (1969). Report of the Advisory Committee on Education in Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Department of External Territories.

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CHAPTER 3 STAGES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT?

Analyses of the use of stages in economics have been far more detailed than those of the educational stages. Chapter 3 considers some of the critiques to see how they affected Beeby’s model, finding that his stages model had several serious logical and methodological weaknesses. The key problem in logic was that the progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Additionally, from a measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently distinct, used imprecise labels, and over-generalised from the experience of British-tradition South Pacific school systems. From the Popperian perspective introduced by Beeby in his defence, the stages model failed the key scientific test: the proposed inevitable progression towards the stage of Meaning was unscientific because it could not be falsified. In contrast, recent developments in the literature, especially cultural paradigms, provide a compelling explanation of the cultural depths of the revelatory epistemologies with which progressivism seeks to compete. The concept of stages of development, as Beeby (1966, p. 51) acknowledged, “rouses the suspicion of any social scientist”. This was particularly true in the 1960s because W.W. Rostow’s book, The Stages of Economic Growth: A NonCommunist Manifesto, had been a major focus of debate since its appearance in 1960. Beeby’s favourable citation of Rostow and use of the stages concept made him vulnerable to Vaizey’s (1966, p. 535) charge that the educational stages were “dangerously adapted from a pseudo-theory once adumbrated by W.W. Rostow”. Apart from favourable reference to Rostow’s use of stages, Beeby did not make clear in his 1966 book the extent to which his work was based on Rostow’s conception. Later, he denied the charge and stated that the main influence was Stanley Hall’s earlier educational psychology on stages of growth in early childhood (Beeby 1980a, p. 439). The context in which the book was written, however, is not a central issue in terms of the formal properties of the stages model. The origins of the educational stages in psychology does not exempt them from the methodological criticisms made of Rostow’s economic stages and, in particular, from critiques by two major economists, Gunnar Myrdal and Simon Kuznets. These two critiques continue to

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 43 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_3, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

apply to stage analysis in the abstract as well as to Rostow’s and Beeby’s particular formulations. Beeby’s first theoretical proposition was that there are four stages of primary schooling, being Dame School, Formalism, Transition and Meaning, movement through which was posited in his second proposition as being inevitable, usually sequential, and evolutionary. The proposition about inevitability was the most important theoretical element of his book and the one that this chapter critiques. Three areas of methodological criticism will be examined, especially the charge of teleology. We will then turn to justification of objectives, the principles of refutation and some cultural issues that lead to treatment of formalism and progressivism as educational paradigms, adding many elements to my original analysis in light of new emphases in the literature or issues that remain contentious. 3.1 Stages Methodology In the aftermath of World War II, Rostow’s stages were one of the best known of a new wave of economic development theories that sought to explain national growth. Drawing on a teleological concept of development, Rostow saw all societies progressing through five stages, postulating a strong deterministic link between society and education. The concept of stages was soon shown to be highly vulnerable on methodological grounds, yet the critiques maintain a contemporary relevance because “surprisingly … one can still find advocates of this way of managing social change and growth among policy-makers today, among the most obvious those who insist on the need to pass through democracy as a condition for initiating and sustaining accelerating development” (Hawkins 2007, p. 145). Similarly, Stein (2008) has seen the need to reactivate Myrdal’s case against teleology in arguing that the World Bank’s development strategies downplay social and political contexts: “teleology is based on the principle that the universe has design and purpose … the explanation of a phenomenon has not only immediate purpose but also a final cause. Development is seen as following a singular route to progress” (Stein 2008, p. 115). His argument that the World Bank has a myopic economic mind-set that downplays context could well apply to its sponsorship of some of the school effectiveness research reviewed in Chapter 5. Three areas of criticism of the stages approach will be examined: a) the validity of the concept of stages; b) the formulation of stages; and c) measurement properties of stages.3

3

The rest of Chapter 3.1 draws on my original deconstruction of Beeby’s model: Guthrie (1980a) and (1980b) with permission from Springer Science & Business Media.

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Chapter 3 Stages of Educational Development?

a) Validity of the Concept of Stages. Stage analysis has been severely attacked, Myrdal (1968), in particular, roundly dismissing its logic as teleological. Myrdal’s statements are central to the criticism made in this book of Beeby’s model: By a teleological approach is meant one in which a purpose, which is not explicitly intended by anyone, is fulfilled while the process of fulfilment is presented as an inevitable sequence of events (Myrdal 1968, p. 1851). The logic of stage analysis is thus tautological and prediction is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Teleology is inherent in stage analysis, according to Myrdal, because systematic prior biases are found in selection of criteria of advancement and because of a preconception that different countries in different historical periods will nonetheless follow a similar evolutionary pattern. The role of men as active agents in changing history is de-emphasised and, indeed, policies may be judged as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to whether they meet the assumed evolutionary pattern. Further, Myrdal claimed, the features of stage analyses are typically made to fit transparent political aims rather than to meet empirical criteria, whether the chooser was Marx or Rostow. In the case of Rostow, Myrdal maintained that the purpose was the maintenance of an essentially laissez-faire approach to economic policy that avoided radical or comprehensive change, thus resulting in a de facto westernisation of developing countries. This is a charge Rostow, an economic adviser to President Johnson during the Vietnam War who sub-titled his book “A Non-Communist Manifesto”, had difficulty denying and essentially his reply in the second edition of his book (Rostow 1971) was to ignore the political charge and, like Beeby, to interpret the teleological question as, how automatic are the stages? In Beeby’s case, the charge of teleology could not be avoided either, although the charge was a less obvious one because his model was further removed from economic and political policy than Rostow’s. Beeby had been aware of the vulnerability of stage analysis to attack, presenting the following not very convincing disclaimers: An hypothesis of stages … is little more than a clumsy device to enable us to use descriptive terminology in a situation where we have not yet sufficient exact information to express quantitatively the different positions on a continuous scale of development. It may be less important that the model should be fully substantiated than that it should form a basis for further questions and research. The hypothesis that follows, of stages in the growth of a primary educational system, is offered as nothing more ambitious that this. Its virtues

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

are that it is a strictly educational theory, that conclusions of considerable practical significance can be drawn from it, and that some of these can be tested out in the field (Beeby 1966, p. 50). The very phrase ‘stages of development’ rouses the suspicion of any social scientist, but I have already made it clear that I regard the stages as nothing more than a first rough-and-ready framework on which can later be built a serious study of a complex process of growth. I have also tried to forestall some of the objections to the assumption that there is a single linear process of growth of an educational system which all countries must follow or want to follow. The assumption is not completely true, and I trust it never will be, but ... the resemblances between the demands made on the school by various countries are very much greater than their differences. For immediate purposes it may not be too serious a distortion of the truth to think of primary educational systems in most emergent countries as moving in one general direction, and to refer to stages as being higher or lower on this scale (Beeby 1966, pp. 51-52). Despite all this, clearly contained in his model was the teleological purpose of westernisation disguised as ‘better’ teaching. ‘Our’ schools were ‘Western’ schools, ‘meaning’ was intended in a Western sense, and he was saying that following this Western pattern was desirable. This teleological position was a circular, self-fulfilling prophecy. The rhetorical logic was constructed in such a way that the outcome was guaranteed because the defining terms were synonymous: a high educational stage is one that uses teaching for meaning because teaching for meaning is a high stage. b) Formulation of Stages. Not all critics of Rostow were as tough on the principle of stage analysis as Myrdal, particularly if their interests were methodological. The methodological question is, how sound is any particular formulation? Kuznets (1963, pp. 23-25) listed five minimum requirements for a stage analysis to be taken seriously: i.

the analysis must have empirically testable characteristics common to at least an important group of units undergoing change; ii. the characteristics must, in combination if not singly, be unique to that stage; iii. the analytical boundary relation of each stage to the preceding; and to iv. the succeeding stage must be indicated, showing what processes bring about the completion of each stage; and

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Chapter 3 Stages of Educational Development?

v.

a clear indication of the universe to which generality is claimed.

These requirements are based on the proposition that the characteristics commonly found in one stage are so distinct from those in the next stage that it is methodologically improper to mix the two indiscriminantly. In effect, the methodological position is that stages are a strict formulation of the ordinal measurement scale, which requires data that can be ordered transitively on a ‘greater than > less than’ basis. Stages add temporal progression and distinct boundaries to this ordering. Beeby’s formulation failed to meet some of Kuznets’ criteria: i.

There was little problem with the first criterion of empirically testing the characteristics. Although the formulation was teleological, both teaching style and the underlying variables of teacher confidence and general and professional education can be measured. ii The second criterion, of distinct stages, required more than mere succession in time: “stages are presumably something more than successive ordinates in the steadily climbing curve of growth. They are segments of that curve, with properties so distinct that separate study of each segment seems warranted” (Kuznets 1963, p. 24). By definition, Beeby’s stage of ‘Transition’ did not meet this criterion. iii & iv. The third and fourth criteria, of the boundary relation to the preceding and succeeding stages, also presented problems. The description of characteristics shown in Column 3 of Figure 2.1 did not show boundaries between stages. Rather, it showed the modal characteristics of teachers within stages. The underlying variables of general and professional education were continuous rather than discrete and the extent to which characteristics of one stage might be found in other stages was not made clear. In effect, the stages were not distinct types of teacher behaviour, but convenient labels for ‘typical’ or modal behaviours of teachers at different parts of the general and professional education continuum; a comment that Beeby (1980b, p. 454) later accepted. v. The final criterion of definition of universe was also inadequately met because the claims were over-generalised from experience in New Zealand and Western Samoa (Chapter 2.3). Rather than claiming universal validity, it would have been wiser to restrict the model’s application to the British-tradition metropolitan and colonial countries of the South Pacific, and within that area to claim greater applicability to developed rather than developing countries. From this assessment of Beeby’s stages by Kuznets’ criteria, it is apparent that the model did not represent a methodologically acceptable series of distinct stages.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

The temporal properties were debatable both empirically and on the basis of Myrdal’s critique of teleology, and the boundaries property was not met. Rather, a set of labels applied to some of the more distinctive features resulting from the underlying continuous variables of general and professional education. The arbitrary division into four was not sacrosanct – Beeby’s later use of sub-stages implied this – and relabelling, if desired, could divide the scale differently. In effect, Rostow’s and Beeby’s stages had no fixed boundaries in practice, but the use of the concept of stages implied that in principle temporal boundaries were discernible. In short, the concept of stages – whether in education, psychology or economic history – involved an over-rigid conceptual structure. c) Measurement Properties of Stages. A criticism, not made of Rostow’s model but applicable to Beeby’s, was that the stages did not meet the formal properties of measurement scales, which was important if the model were to provide a basis for research. This failure is revealed through the labelling, which had problems with three of the four stages: the Dame School was a type of school rather than a type of teacher, as in the other stages (as Beeby 1980b, p. 456 later admitted, the Dame School title was “more colourful than logical”); Transition was not a distinct stage; and Meaning covered a wide range of teaching and learning styles. The argument here goes further than Kuznets, who was mainly concerned with the stages as an advanced type of ordinal scale, to scale properties in general. In the widespread terminology of measurement scales, Beeby’s labels were an attempt to create an ordinal scale using multivariate labels that did not meet the properties of a univariate nominal scale, in particular the requirements that they quantify a single variable and classify the variable into different mutually exclusive categories. In a nominal scale, objects should be classified into two or more mutually exclusive but equivalent categories which represent the same variable. An ordinal scale must meet these properties as well as having a ranking system with a logical order. Beeby’s labels failed some of these tests. The labels were neither all mutually exclusive (i.e. Transition) nor equivalent (e.g. Dame School/ Formalism). A further problem with equivalence, recognised by Beeby and examined by Musgrave (1974), was that the stage of Meaning could cover a wide variety of schools and approaches. Musgrave’s distinction between radical or free schools and liberal schools indicated the need for a stage beyond Beeby’s Meaning, which connotated liberal rather than radical. Beeby (1980b) later conceded this criticism in his reformulation of the stage of Meaning (Chapter 2.1). These weaknesses relate to the nominal properties of the scale, but confusion existed at the ordinal level too. Beeby’s labels were based on different stages of educational development as a consequence of the underlying variable of teacher

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confidence, itself a function of levels of general and professional education. All these variables could be measured ordinally, but the logical relationship between the variables was confused. Underlying this issue was the term ‘quality’. Beeby’s emphasis in 1966 was an evaluative, ordinal one, i.e. whether educational changes are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, explicitly based on Western norms. Such an approach was convincingly rejected by Coombs (1969) at the 1966 UNESCO conference chaired by Beeby. Coombs argued that ‘international standards’ were not relevant to all educational systems and maintained that the performance of a system should be assessed with criteria based on its own academic, social and economic objectives. Thus, most educational standards are intrinsically relative, differing from place to place and in the same place from time to time. ‘Quality’ should therefore be used in the sense of ‘qualitative’. This approach was later accepted by Beeby and Lewis (1971, p. 135: their emphasis): “a qualitative change in education is one that alters the manner or the content of learning or of teaching”, and is followed in this book. The term remains preferable because it is descriptive and nominal, meaning simply that there are qualitatively different distinguishing characteristics in education, and is not used to imply standards. With the original ordinal usage of quality – with its unsatisfactory teleological base and unjustified value-judgements – the measurement properties of Beeby’s stages were inadequate. In sum, lack of clarification of the theoretical and methodological bases of stage analysis was reflected in the unsatisfactory measurement properties of the educational stages, thus giving them inbuilt problems of validity and reliability for the research that Beeby intended would occur. My restricted model of teaching styles in Chapter 10.2 takes account of these measurement issues. 3.2 Principles of Refutation Musgrave (1974, p. 42) wrote that despite an implication that the developmental process need not be inevitable or universal, Beeby’s book had a tendency to extrapolate from the historical experience upon which he based his hypothesised stages to all future developing societies. Despite admitting methodological problems, Beeby (1980a, pp. 443-444) did not resile from wider generalisation and, indeed, pointed to the contribution to the model of his experience involving a wide range of developing countries elsewhere. The issue of evidence needs to go further, however, to the principles of refutation or falsification in the seminal work of the philosopher Karl Popper, whose scientific logic Beeby (1980b) followed. Popper (1969; 1979, pp. 1-31; a basic introduction is found in Guthrie 2010, pp. 38-40, 41-45, 151-152) considered that scientific knowledge progresses through a process of proposing tentative solutions to problems (conjectures) and

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exposing them to criticism (refutations). A conjecture is less than a theory, being formulated from the best evidence and logic, but it is an assumption to be developed through trial and error and is accepted only if it survives strong attempts at refutation. This approach was based on a rejection of a long-known fallacy in inductive logic: research cannot prove on the basis of accumulated observations that conjectures or hypotheses derived from them have universal applicability, i.e. are correct beyond all doubt. Because it is not possible to test all future instances, the possibility of disproof remains open. Research can only demonstrate that hypotheses are not correct (i.e. falsify or reject them), based on failure to find predicted observations. In Popper’s terminology, non-testable theories based on metaphysical, tautological propositions are pseudo-scientific or non-scientific in character because they cannot be refuted or falsified (Popper 1969, pp. 33ff). His concern about the logic of science was drawing a line, between the statements … of the empirical sciences, and all other statements – whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply pseudo-scientific. … The criterion of falsifiability … says that statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations (Popper 1969, p. 39). While Popper is identified as a positivist and is therefore highly unfashionable with large parts of the social science research community, this aspect of his logic was not only accepted by Beeby, but also offered in his defence. Beeby (1980b, pp. 468-473) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved relatively easily by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems, either by finding a system that follows quite a different progression from his prediction, or by discovering one that leapfrogged one of the stages. Thus, a further defence in an obituary of Beeby by a successor as Director of Education in New Zealand, W.L. Renwick (1998, p. 344), stated that Beeby adopted Popper’s principle of falsifiability in writing that a single exception of a developing country skipping a stage in bringing its primary teachers to the stage of meaning would disprove his thesis, or at least cause it to be greatly modified. In positing a refutation that would be based on a demonstration that a stage could be skipped, Beeby and Renwick only addressed one aspect of Beeby’s second basic theoretical proposition, which was that movement through the stages is inevitable, usually sequential, and evolutionary. A refutation addressing only the proposition that stages are sequential could not test the teleological conjecture of an inevitable end point because the stage of Meaning could recede infinitely and therefore untestably and irrefutably into the future. A skipped stage could disprove

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the proposition that the stages are sequential. However, a failure to change from one stage to the next ‘higher’ one would merely be lack of time, which Renwick’s further statement of Beeby’s position reflected: “until there is a paradigm shift from teachers teaching to students learning, and until governments are able and prepared to invest a much larger percentage of national research and development budgets on students’ learning, and how to improve and how to facilitate it for all students, Beeby’s hypothesis will remain untested” (Renwick 1998, p. 345). All this is unacceptable methodologically because it made testing of the stages slide irrefutably into the future, and Beeby’s model thus relied on the inductive fallacy that Popper had been at pains to reject. By not facing up to the teleological issue of inevitability, the end stage of Meaning did not meet the principles of falsification, which makes the model pseudo-scientific. 3.3 Justification of Objectives In addition to circular logic, teleology can also have a narrower meaning of setting of objectives that are not explicit. The point was illustrated by Myrdal’s (1969) own pursuit of a more powerful social science which, one could argue, was culture-bound like the other manifestations of westernisation sought by Rostow and Beeby. However, a major interest of Myrdal’s was creating greater objectivity in research through clarification of explicit values. The problem he saw was not that theories should be without objectives, but that the value judgements incorporated in objectives should be carefully presented and thoroughly analysed, and he was at pains to make explicit his own. Beeby largely admitted the methodological criticisms of stage analysis and conceded that the stage of Meaning “smacks of the language and methods of thinking of educators in developed countries” (Beeby 1980b, p. 458). However, he attempted to downplay Myrdal’s criticism of their logic: “What you call ‘the charge of teleology’ against my stages causes me no concern on Myrdal’s theoretical grounds. There are few significant things anyone can say about educational theory without at least implying a teleological base, and educational planning is, by definition, concerned with objectives” (Beeby 1980a, p. 442). Primarily, the issue of objectives revolved around the meaning of the term ‘Meaning’ in Stage IV. For Beeby, meaning and quality were synonymous and he was explicit that he regarded teaching for meaning as desirable: There are, of course, certain personal value judgements that I would not wish to avoid. In the classification of stages ... I have assumed that teaching with an emphasis on meaning is better than teaching that concentrates on form to the relative neglect of meaning; because of its greater emphasis on meaning, I be-

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lieve that, by and large and with many individual exceptions, teaching in our own schools in 1966 is better than the teaching was in 1880 or even in 1920. Without this assumption, my conception of stages of development of an educational system makes little sense (Beeby 1966, p. 52). Later, he wrote that the most serious criticism of his book in my own critique centred on the assumption of desirable objectives in the model of stages: Your real criticism … is that the criteria for my stages, and particularly for the stage of Meaning, are essentially those of developed Western countries. This is quite true. I defined them, at the time, as “stages through which all systems, at least of a certain kind, must pass” (Beeby 1980a, pp. 442-443). This was essentially a position of faith. In the conclusion to her biography, Alcorn (1999, p. 371) quoted Beeby as having written, “The ultimate aims in education are not given by reason but by a feeling in the pit of one’s stomach. Sooner or later in life, one must say, for no very obvious reason, ‘I believe in X,’ and never challenge it again.” A possible influence on this approach was Beeby’s religious values as a former lay Methodist preacher (Alcorn 1999, pp. 22-25), and a revealing analogy in the opening pages of his book was that educational administrators concerned about developing countries had become too absorbed by practical problems and had forgotten their objectives: “we were too busy saving souls that we neglected our theology” (Beeby 1966, p. 2; see also 1980b, pp. 452-453). Alcorn (1999, pp. 277-279) implied that Beeby’s admission that his views on teaching were a form of personal value judgement was sufficient recognition of values. She also implied that his amendment of the stage of meaning in 1980 to exclude some of his more personal value judgements was a sufficient response to the criticism of teleology. I contest both positions. In Clayton’s still very relevant usage, Beeby’s faith in progressive education only represented a “characterizing value” that related to norms assumed to be self-explanatory rather than proper ethical judgements with “fully appraisive valuations in which something is found to be desirable with reference to justified norms” (Clayton 1972, p. 423). It was this later type of fundamental valuations, appraisive valuations, which were sought by Myrdal but which were absent in Beeby’s evaluation of quality. Also absent was some independent referent that could be tested to justify the proposition, student achievement or transmission of cultural values, for example. In a related argument, Renwick (1998, p. 342) also took up the role of objectives: “Guthrie argued that the thesis did not offer a sound model for research because it rested on an unspoken set of values … Beeby countered, rightly in my view, that all educational development, being directed to objectives, is inescapably

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and properly normative.” Renwick’s statement only has substance if it articulates the cases for particular sets of norms, but it is platitudinous because it applies to all education and all norms. The issue is not the existence of objectives, or that educational objectives may be normative, but that they should be carefully justified and refutable. Neither Beeby nor Renwick adequately examined the implications of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages, nor did they delve into any of the cross-cultural issues that might have indicated the depth of other norms. They did not fully recognise, for example, the depth of culturally-derived epistemologies (such as those at the heart of the Papua New Guinean and Chinese examples that refute the universal inevitability of stages in Chapters 8 and 9), or demonstrate any awareness of the then available anthropological literature. Beeby’s book thus had its objectives insufficiently explicated. In oversimplifying the issue of justification of educational objectives, the disclaimers of Beeby and Renwick neither disarm nor persuade. Beeby clearly showed an awareness of the vulnerability of the model, but there was not much analysis of why, and only minor modification of the model to meet such criticism. Otherwise, Beeby centred further response on values by writing that decisions on objectives were the domain of educational decision-makers in developing countries. His explanation was that in the early 1960s, poor countries struggling for development wanted schools to provide the kind of education that had seemingly made Western countries rich. “Their five-year plans called for education in ‘problem-solving’, ‘entrepreneurial skills’, ‘imagination’, ‘creativity and responsibility’ – very much the qualities of my stage of Meaning. They usually demanded also ‘respect for traditions and historical and cultural heritage’, but they didn’t stop to ask if there was any conflict between the two sets of virtues – between, for instance, my idea of creative, independent thinking and yours of ‘ritual as meaningful’ in the classroom” (Beeby 1980a, pp. 442-443). Beeby (1980b, pp. 458-460) now admitted that the government of a developing country could reject Stage IV as either the immediate or the ultimate goal of its school system for political, social and cultural, or financial reasons. Writing as an educational administrator, he indicated that contradictions between modernisation and tradition were problems to be resolved by politicians: if they decided not to disturb traditional ways of life in any region, the educator had no right to introduce new goals that would threaten the social structure; should a government opt for rapid economic growth instead, the educator had a cautionary role to warn that changes cannot be rapidly induced; or more likely, if governments failed to clarify the issue, the ambivalence meant that educators would have to be cautious about promoting teaching for meaning. Beeby thus came to recognise that deeply rooted traditional ways of life might be a factor limiting passage through the stages, but repeated the un-

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

sympathetic view of Hagen (1962, p. 56) that traditional societies tend to be “custom-bound, hierarchical, prescriptive and unproductive”. 3.4 Cultural Paradigms In the 1960s, attention to cultural issues was more apparent among economic anthropologists (such as Karl Polanyi, George Dalton and Paul Bohannan) debating cultural relativism than in education, but in recent decades comparative education has become increasingly concerned with cultural context. This section begins to explain the depth of cultural issues not just as obstacles to progressive change but as deep-rooted values of importance in and of themselves to teachers, students and parents alike. This brings us to the cultural matters at the core of Beeby’s teleology, his failure to explore the issues in any depth other than asserting his own values, and the issues that arise when they are explored. Essentially, Beeby focussed on the cognitive domain; however, schools at all levels have an important role in socialising pupils. But socialising into what roles and using what values as reference points? Both within and beyond the classroom one important question about the affective domain is, what effects do the types of progressive enquiry methods involved in the teaching and learning of ‘meaning’ have upon traditional cultures valuing obedience and respect for elders’ authority? While traditional cultural values may be dismissed as an obstacle to change, the issue goes deeper than this. Beeby ignored the possibility that both teacher and pupils perceive ritual as meaningful in itself and in accordance with traditional values that emphasise the authority of elders. Relevant to Beeby’s Eurocentric progressive views are Alexander’s (2001, pp. 508-509) comments on neglect of pedagogy in comparative education and his use of a comprehensive conceptual framework for systematic educational analysis located historically and culturally. Alexander’s (2000) five nation study of England, France, India, Russia and the USA in the 1990s identified six versions of teaching: i.

Transmission (the passing on of information and skill), which was common to all five countries but particularly apparent in mainstream formalistic Indian tradition. ii. Disciplinary induction (providing access to a culture’s established ways of enquiry and making sense), which was a feature particularly in France. iii. Democracy in action (in which knowledge is reflexive rather than received, and teachers and students are joint enquirers). iv. Facilitation (respecting individual differences and responding to developmental readiness and need), which was particularly found in the USA. v. Acceleration (outpacing ‘natural’ development rather than following it), which was a feature of Russian education.

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vi. Technique (emphasising structure, graduation, economy, conciseness and rapidity). Alexander noted the commonality of teaching as technique across a wide swathe of continental Europe, drawing on older formalistic traditions involving highly structured lessons, whole-class teaching, the breaking down of learning tasks into small graduated steps, and the maintenance of economy in organisation, action, and the use of time and space. Russia was at one highly formalised extreme and France was at the other, more eclectic and less ritualised but still firmly grounded in structure. The cases of England and the USA, in contrast to France and Russia, very usefully showed, Alexander commented, that the great cultural divide among these countries was the English Channel, not the Atlantic Ocean. There was a discernible Anglo-American nexus of educational values and practices, just as there was a discernible continental European one. In effect, the divide was not between European and American values, but between Anglophone and non-Anglophone values (see Chapter 12.4). Alexander pointed to widespread international traffic in educational ideas, but his claim that progressivism is “a genuinely international commodity” (Alexander 2000, p. 171) was illustrated by examples of progressive educational thought (Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Tagore, the Elmhirsts, Dewey, the French école normale and the German Normalschule) that actually demonstrated a predominantly Eurocentric tradition. With a less limited horizon, Regan (1996) has described seven major alternative traditions in Africa, Asia and the Americas. A compelling explanation of the depth of cultural traditions in education comes from a particularly useful contribution by Tabulawa (1997, pp. 191-192), who introduced the Kuhnian concept of paradigms to help explain the educational mindsets found in his Botswana case study of high school teaching described in Chapter 2.4. Tabulawa noted that the concept has been applied in education as a worldview, mind-set, frame of reference or conceptual framework that views phenomena differently from other paradigms and claims in competition with the others to produce more reliable and dependable knowledge. A paradigm contains four elements: prior knowledge, legitimate problems to be addressed, the methodological rules that can be employed to solve these problems, and criteria for validating knowledge. Failure of a paradigm to solve problems may result in a difficult transition to a new paradigm, but the tendency is for the advocates of old paradigms to resist the new one because it represents a disintegration of the practitioners’ takenfor-granted world and a loss of psychological support. Tabulawa contrasted the “banking of knowledge” paradigm (which is central to formalism) with the learner-centred view on which progressivism is based. These two paradigms compete for recognition and supremacy in educational practice. Their assumptions

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

about the social world, the nature of reality and the learner are diametrically opposed, with incompatible positions about the constitution, transmission and evaluation of legitimate knowledge based on incompatible epistemological assumptions and values. One of the weaknesses of educational debate, Tabulawa noted, is the failure to recognise that teacher- and learner-centred teaching methods are informed by distinctive and particular epistemologies, a failure that has promoted a technicist approach to problems of classroom change. However, to propose that teachers and students shift from a banking paradigm to a learnercentred one “is necessarily a proposal that they fundamentally change their views of the nature of knowledge, of the learner and his/her role, and of classroom organisation in general” (Tabulawa 1997, p. 191). Botswana’s prevalent didactic, teacher-centred method of teaching was underpinned by a philosophy of knowledge embedded in the wider culture that provided value systems for both teachers and students, contributing to the failure of attempts to change didactic classroom practices. Formalism was deeply anchored in traditional Tswana cosmology in a society that emphasised domination and subordination of children to their elders. Children were exposed to this from earliest childhood and it was part of the culture they brought to the classroom so that teachers and students shared the same educational philosophy. The resulting deductive, product-oriented classroom approach, Tabulawa (1998, pp. 264-267) found, was antithetical to official attempts to generate a more inductive, learnercentred approach where teachers would be facilitators of students’ learning processes. Learning-centred teaching was incongruent with teachers’ and students’ deep-seated assumptions about the goal of schooling as imparting knowledge as a vocational commodity. The failure of the learner-centred reforms was not a result of lack of resources and training but came from ignoring the cultural contexts within which schools operated. Teachers’ classroom practices were influenced by many factors other than technical ones, including their assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the ways it ought to be transmitted, their perceptions of students, and the goal of schooling. These contextual cultural issues were at the root of the failure of the misplaced technicist approach to classroom change, which focussed on resource inputs and delivery of innovation. Paradigms have since been referred to quite frequently in comparative education. Botswana is just one example of many similar traditional African educational approaches (Omolewa 2007). In South Africa after 1995, for example, Nakabugo and Sieborger (2001) pointed to the failure of curriculum reform on teaching, finding that seven 4th grade teachers of English had not made changes in assessment from old formalistic teaching practices to the new student-centred ones required for an outcomes-based education. The official approach of a rapid paradigm shift was, they found, very dubious and in need of much closer attention to what actu-

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ally happened in classrooms and ways to facilitate meaningful change. In Asia, Nguyen et al. (2009) strongly criticised the borrowing of policies and practices that were originally developed in very different cultural contexts to their own societies. The authors reviewed literature relevant to the application within an Asian context of Cooperative Learning, an educational method developed in the West, revealing a complex web of cultural conflicts and mismatches with traditional formalistic teaching styles. The authors also took up the neo-colonialism theme, writing that Western paradigms tend to shape and influence educational systems and thinking elsewhere through the process of globalisation, given the perceived pressure to modernise and reform in order to attain high international standards. Educational policy-makers in non-Western countries, they said, often “cherrypick” Western practices, neglecting detailed consideration of the differences in the culture and heritage of their own countries compared to the originating country. Their article concluded by suggesting that non-Western cultures should seek to reconstruct imported pedagogic practices in accordance with their own world views and in line with their own norms and values. Hawkins (2007) has also written of a globally dominant educational paradigm stressing the relationship between investment in education and economic development. Without necessarily using the terminology, other authors, such as Clarke (2001; 2003) on India, have in effect written about educational paradigms in analysing teachers’ cultural constructs and their pre-colonial roots. While not referenced to Beeby’s model or to post-colonialism, cross-cultural analysis from other subject areas can also be highly germane when it goes to the underlying cultural issues that Beeby did not address. One example is a social work text drawing on biology that went directly to different notions of intelligence and their paradigmic cultural implications for schooling (Ginsberg et al. 2004). The book noted that the Western cultural emphasis on speed of mental processing is not shared by many cultures, which may even be suspicious of the quality of work done very quickly and emphasise depth rather than speed of processing. For example, the Chinese Confucian perspective emphasises benevolence and doing what is right, so that the intelligent person spends much effort in learning, enjoys learning and persists in lifelong learning with enthusiasm, while the Taoist tradition emphasises the importance of humility, freedom from conventional standards of judgement, and full knowledge of oneself and external conditions. The authors noted that, “the importance of culture in the social construction of a theory of intelligence cannot be overestimated. Reasoning skills, both verbal and nonverbal, … social skills, oratory ability, numerical skills, and memory are just examples of the exhaustive list of cognitive skills that can go on any list of what it takes to be intelligent in any particular culture” (Ginsberg et al. 2004, p. 100). In

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this, it is clear that the meanings of intelligence, learning and teaching can vary greatly from one culture to another. 3.5 Conclusion Stages in economics and education belong in the methodological dustbin: dead ends that apparently give form and structure but which have so many loose elements that they generate few hypotheses of lasting value for serious research. Although Beeby’s book was valuable for a large number of experiential insights, his stages model was invalidated by several serious logical and methodological weaknesses. The analysis in this chapter found the key problem in logic was that the progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Additionally, from a measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently distinct, used imprecise labels, and over-generalised from the experience of British-tradition South Pacific school systems. From the Popperian perspective introduced by Beeby in his defence, the stages model failed the key scientific test: the proposed inevitable progression towards the stage of Meaning was unscientific because it could not be falsified. A fundamental problem was lack of clear distinction between the ethical judgements implicit in the formulation and empirical issues. It is difficult to assert that Beeby’s progressivism was anything other than a predominantly Eurocentric, especially Anglophone, view of educational values that underestimated the power of other culturally based educational paradigms. The concept of paradigms introduced to this debate by Tabulawa explains the depths of the formalistic epistemologies with which progressivism seeks to compete. While there is discussion about the nature of formalism and the extent to which formalistic teachers might use some variety in their methods, and while there are examples of short-term modifications to formalism, there is nothing in any of the literature reviewed in this book to suggest that progressive reforms have been successful in replacing formalism in the long-term in Asia, Africa or the Pacific. Culture-bound progressive reformers who do not understand the depth of the cultural issues are in for a very difficult time. References Alcorn, N. (1999). ‘To the fullest extent of his powers’: C.E. Beeby’s life in education. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Alexander: R. (2000). Culture and pedagogy: International comparisons in primary education. Oxford: Blackwell. Alexander, R. (2001). Border crossings: Towards a comparative pedagogy. Comparative Education, 37(4), 507-523.

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Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Beeby, C.E. (1980a). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439444. Beeby, C.E. (1980b). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Beeby, C.E., & Lewis, L.J. (1971). Introduction [to Special Number on educational trends in some developing countries]. International Review of Education, 17(2), 131-137. Clarke, P. (2001). Teaching and learning: The culture of pedagogy. New Delhi: Sage. Clarke, P. (2003). Culture and classroom reform: The case of the District Primary Education Project, India. Comparative Education, 39(1), 27-44. Clayton, A.S. (1972). Valuation in comparative education. Comparative Education Review, 16(3), 412-423. Coombs, H. (1969). Time for a change of strategy. In C.E. Beeby (Ed.), Qualitative aspects of educational planning (pp. 15-35). Paris: UNESCO Institute of International Educational Planning. Ginsberg, L., Nackerud, L., & Larrison, C. (2004). Human biology for social workers: Development, ecology, genetics, and health. Boston: Pearson. Guthrie, G. (1980a). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of Education, 26(4), 411-438. Guthrie, G. (1980b). Response [to C.E. Beeby] from Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 445-449. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. Hagen, E.E. (1962). On the theory of social change: How economic growth begins. Homewood: Dorsey. Hawkins, J. (2007). The intractable dominant educational paradigm. In P. Hershock, M. Mason, & J. Hawkins (Eds.), Changing education: Leadership, innovation and development in a globalizing Asia-Pacific (pp. 137-162). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Kuznets, S. (1963). Notes on the take-off. In W.W. Rostow (Ed.), The economics of take-off into sustained growth (pp. 22-43). London: Macmillan. Musgrave, P.W. (1974). Primary schools, teacher training and change: Beeby reconsidered – Some data for the Pacific. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 10(1), 42-47. Myrdal, G. (1968). Asian drama: An enquiry into the poverty of nations. New York: Twentieth Century Fund (3 Vols.). Myrdal, G. (1969). Objectivity in social research. New York: Pantheon. Nakabugo, M., & Sieborger, R. (2001). Curriculum reform and teaching in South Africa: Making a ‘paradigm shift’? International Journal of Educational Development, 21(1), 53-60. Nguyen, P-M., Elliott, J., Terlouw, C., & Pilot, A. (2009). Neocolonialism in education: Cooperative learning in an Asian context. Comparative Education, 45(1), 109-130. Omolewa, M. (2007). Traditional African modes of education: Their relevance in the modern world. International Review of Education, 53(5-6), 593-612. Popper, K. (1969). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge (3rd Ed.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Popper, K. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Rev. Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Regan, T. (1996). Non-western educational traditions: Alternative approaches to educational thought and practice. Narwah: Erlbaum. Renwick, W.L. (1998). Clarence Edward Beeby (1902-98). Prospects, 28(2), 335-348. Rostow, W.W. (1971). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stein, H. (2008). Beyond the World Bank agenda: An institutional approach to development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 249268. Vaizey, J.E. (1966). ‘Planning for education in Pakistan’, by A. Curle; and ‘The quality of education in developing countries’, by C.E. Beeby. Harvard Educational Review, 36(4), 533-536.

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CHAPTER 4 TEACHER RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Beeby’s conjectures included that the key to a school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change, but he saw formalistic teachers, in particular, as obstructive. Chapter 4 considers teachers’ perceptual constructs, systemic barriers to change and the roles of different types of teacher in change. Failure of teachers to innovate may be rational, reasoned responses to complex progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom, are not compatible with existing methods and offer no observable outcomes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will diffuse through classrooms depends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs (which may vary among different types of teacher), practical barriers to change including countervailing work and social pressures, schools’ professional climates and structural inducements. The influence of contextspecific cultural paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive reform. The ultimate goal of Beeby’s progressivism was teachers with a style appropriate to his fourth stage of Meaning, and he unsympathetically viewed the ritualistic Dame School or Formalism teacher as “an unskilled and ignorant one who teaches mere symbols with only the vaguest reference to their meaning” (Beeby 1966, p. 52). In his view, five factors affected professional conservatism in both developed and developing countries: lack of clear goals in the system affecting teachers’ thinking, lack of understanding and acceptance by teachers of reforms, teachers as products of a system not being prone to innovate, isolation of teachers in their classroom slowing down diffusion of innovations, and a wide range of ability of teachers making diffusion rates uneven (Beeby 1966, pp. 35-47). This carried a pejorative implication for his third theoretical proposition that the key to a school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change. Teacher inability to bring about the progressive changes necessary to raise a school system to the highest stage was the reason that gradualism was necessary.

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 61 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_4, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

Two types of thinking have been read into this aspect of Beeby’s writing. One infers from stage analysis the use of curriculum reform to accelerate teachers through the stages, about which Beeby was cautious. The other attributes curriculum failures to the teachers rather than the innovators who failed to understand school situations adequately, to which Beeby contributed with his emphasis on teachers as an obstacle to change. This chapter turns particularly to the latter issue in considering teachers’ perceptual constructs, the roles of different types of innovator, and systemic barriers to change.4 4.1 Teachers’ Constructs The modern curriculum movement that began in the United States in the 1950s was based initially on the centre-periphery model (Crossley 1984a, pp. 77-80; 1984b; Guthrie 1986). The model was successful at disseminating innovations to the classroom, but problems of teacher change within the classroom soon appeared. By the end of the 1960s, attention had turned to problems of diffusion and to persuasion of resistant teachers, which led in the 1970s to the popularity of school-based curriculum strategies that attempted to incorporate teachers into the change process. Quite frequently, curriculum reform in developing countries followed these patterns soon after they became apparent in the developed world, in part because of a predominance of expatriate contract curriculum workers, and similar difficulties arose. Despite the apparent congruity of centre-periphery models with formalistic school systems, problems of in-service training remained when teachers found difficulty adapting to new syllabuses. Later, school-based curriculum development was found to be even less appropriate because of the much greater demands it made on teachers’ skills and time. A more realistic stepwise change model combining the strengths of the centreperiphery and school-based models has been more widely followed since the 1980s. This is especially the case in well-funded and well-staffed aid projects, where educational change is often piloted systematically using project design and management principles such as are embodied in the logical framework. Projectisation can result in systematic and well-organised change management, but has its own limitations, especially with the sustainability of pilot activities once external funding ceases. Under trial conditions, it is possible to obtain considerable Hawthorne effects with commitments of time from those singled out for special attention through, for example, in-service. However, project extension phases requiring the same high levels of commitment, often without relief from normal duties and usually with less in-service support, are often unsustainable. 4

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Chapters 4 .1 and 4.2 draw on aspects of Guthrie (1986) with permission from Elsevier.

Chapter 4 Teacher Resistance to Change

Any assumption that the various difficulties faced by the three curriculum change models are due primarily to teacher conservatism is simplistic. More sensible is the perceptual view that decision-making processes are based on learned mental constructs derived from social and cultural environments, and that such constructs provide teachers with a basis for purposeful assessment of classroom options. A conceptual starting point comes from H.A. Simon’s (1947) view of people as intendedly rational decision-makers who satisfice on the basis of imperfect knowledge bounded by a simplified model of the real world. In effect, individuals evaluate their environments in terms of subjectively based aspiration levels that adjust on the basis of experience. Construct theory, deriving from the psychologist G.A. Kelly (1955), provides further understanding of how sense is made of the world. This approach postulates that individuals’ perceptions are based in their constructs, which are ways of making sense of past experiences to give meaning to present and future ones by providing a world view that can itself change through experience. Where some agreement arises with Beeby’s pessimism about teachers is in Ryle’s (1975) view that constructs can act not only as frames, but also as cages. The perceptual approach has resulted in several different themes in educational research, such as teachers’ practical knowledge, classroom ecology, knowledgein-action, images and frames (Tabulawa 1998, pp. 251-253) (the student-centred ‘constructivist’ view of knowledge has also arisen, but is quite different from the concern in this section with teachers’ formalism as a construct). The themes identified by Tabulawa have not been applied frequently in developing country research, as can be inferred from extensive literature reviews on teacher professional development (Villegas-Reimers 2003, pp. 145-195), quality in education (Barrett et al. 2006, pp. 18-21) and school effectiveness (Yu 2007, pp. 58-61). In part, this seems to be because anthropological and sociological research has reached a similar end point from other theoretical bases, adding emphasis to constructs not just as individual perceptions, but as culturally framed and derived from the social environment (e.g. Clarke 2003, in India), to which Tabulawa (1997) applied the concept of paradigms. In turn, one implication of the perceptual approach to decisionmaking is that we should not just regard formalistic teachers as passively and reflexively applying cultural tradition – after all, they are among the most educated members of their communities – but that their responses can represent purposeful, rational, thoughtful behaviour. Another implication of constructs is that different people can ascribe different meanings to the same phenomenon: thus a curriculum innovator’s progressive enlightenment can be a classroom teacher’s professional nightmare. One relevant example of research based in constructs is Morris’s (1985) study of the effects of the Hong Kong examination system on a progressive curriculum

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reform. The school system there has long placed great importance on public examinations and a didactic teaching style promoting rote learning (Choi 1999). Morris reported that in the early 1980s curriculum planners had attempted to counter these emphases by introducing innovations involving progressive approaches to teaching and learning requiring pupil participation and a heuristic teaching style. Despite teachers expressing favourable attitudes to progressive approaches, classroom observation indicated they were not being implemented. The study attempted to assess why economics teachers did not actually implement them in forms 4 and 5 of secondary schools. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 teachers, each from a different school. After a lesson had been observed, teachers were asked what factors had influenced their approach to the lesson, which was followed up with supplementary interviews. The results showed the formalistic context in which teachers operated: 29% gave as the sole influence for a lesson pattern the need to cover the syllabus in the available time, 16% gave pupils’ expectations. A majority of teachers cited aspects of the public exams as the main influence on their teaching. Teachers repeatedly viewed knowledge as information requiring them to lecture rather than to adopt the new heuristic learning process view of the syllabus. Morris viewed these teachers not as resistors of change but as rational decisionmakers concerned with factors that could limit successful implementation, weighing the practicality of innovations in the classroom, their congruence with prevailing conditions, and professional costs. The decision of teachers not to use the progressive new approach was a rational choice between alternatives. Teachers said they used the traditional didactic approach because it was more efficient than the new progressive approach for transmitting the information specified by the examination syllabus. The examinations and their selection functions were regarded as normal, giving a purpose and a framework for teaching in a social and economic context of very unequal distribution of income where examination success was crucial to pupils’ life chances. Teachers perceived the progressive approach as inefficient for achieving such important ends and as having undesirable consequences, especially if it resulted in the syllabus not being covered and teachers being blamed for pupil failure. They also considered it as incongruent with existing teaching and learning styles and inconsistent with the way in which colleagues and principals assessed the teachers’ task. Thus, their perception was that any intrinsic merit of the progressive approach did not outweigh its lack of extrinsic worth in promoting examination success. Change would not occur unless perceived as necessary for pupils to pass the examination. However, this was not a simple case of an errant examination system or caged teachers. Teachers’ constructs were found within a classical Chinese culture that has deep rooted epistemology about the na-

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ture of knowledge and its purposes, and associated views on the merits of pedagogy and memorisation of knowledge, as Chapter 9 will show. 4.2 Types of Innovator The Hong Kong study demonstrates that teachers bring their existing knowledge and prior experiences to school and that these interact with their current observations and interpretations to give shape to their classroom practice. The mental constructs used by teachers to classify their reality are influenced by the cultural, social and educational environments in which they operate, providing stability in educational systems marked by change. Their perceptions have major influence on attempts to change the quality of teaching, and can subvert the intentions of administrators and change agents who assume falsely that teachers will passively implement change directives. What this adds up to is a need to understand how teachers perceive curriculum innovation and the extent to which innovations are consistent with their beliefs about schooling. Relevant here is E.M. Rogers’ (2003) sociological perspective on five distinct attributes of innovations that are weighed up by individuals in an organisation. The attributes that he defined are: i.

Relative advantage (the degree to which innovations offer advantages over other innovations or over present circumstance). ii. Compatibility (the extent to which innovations align with prevalent values, previous experiences or ideas, and the needs of clients in the social system). iii. Complexity (the extent to which innovations are considered difficult to learn and apply). iv. Trialability (the degree to which innovations can be tried on a small scale). v. Observability (the degree to which outcomes from use of a new idea are visible to clients). Innovations perceived as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability and observability, and as having less complexity, are adopted more rapidly than innovations that do not have these attributes. Failure of formalistic teachers to innovate is thus understandable as reasoned responses to the complexity of progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom, are not compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable outcomes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results. However, not all teachers are equally open to or resistant to change. Perceptual and systemic issues show that teachers in general can weigh possible changes ra-

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tionally, but not all potential adopters or rejecters of change are alike. Rogers (2003, p. 281) further presented a highly relevant schema of adopters of innovation with five categories diagrammed along a normal distribution: i.

Innovators are the first 2.5% of a normal distribution. These risk takers are venturesome, have great interest in innovations and actively seek information. They can understand complex technical knowledge and cope with high levels of uncertainty associated with innovation. Innovators play a critical role in the adoption and diffusion of innovations as the first members to bring new ideas into their social system. ii. Early adopters are the next 13.5% of potential users. They are more integrated into the social system than innovators and are role models and opinion leaders from whom potential adopters seek information and advice. Early adopters tend to make cautious innovation decisions to maintain the respect of other members. Peers perceive their adoption of an innovation as a rubber stamp of approval. Once they adopt a new idea, a critical mass triggers so that the innovation’s adoption becomes selfsustaining. iii. The Early majority form the next 34% of potential adopters. Others rarely perceive them as opinion leaders; nonetheless, they interact frequently with their peers and are willing to be adopters. They will deliberate for some time before adopting an innovation fully. iv. The Late majority are the next 34% of potential adopters. They are sceptical and cautious in their approach and will wait until most of their colleagues have adopted so that uncertainty levels reduce. Growing peer pressure and, in some cases, economic gain drive their adoption of an innovation. v. Laggards are the last 16% to adopt a new idea. They show virtually no leadership in opinion making and interact primarily with others whom they perceive are adhering to traditional ways. Laggards tend to be suspicious of innovations and change agents, their decisions being influenced by what has been done in the past. Perhaps with the laggards at least, Beeby’s attitude to teachers as caged resistors of change had a target, but there is no reason to assume that formalistic teachers are the only ones who behave this way or that people remain fixed in their category over time. Another issue here is the relevance of Rogers’ allocation of innovators along a normal curve. Although a normal distribution is convenient for heuristic purposes, the discussions of context throughout this book indicate that it may lack cross-cultural validity. Application of Rogers’ model in specific educational contexts might find different proportions in his categories. The model could be

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adapted also to distribute teachers along a continuum based on different variables to help understanding of change and how it is affected by the structural position of various groups within schools (Chapter 11.3). 4.3 Systemic Barriers to Change Teachers’ perceptions of the relative advantages of teaching styles may also have a strong foundation in realism. The systems-based issues discussed in the literature as part of barriers to change indicate that teachers’ negative assessments of innovations may be rational responses to actual systemic problems (MacDonald & Ruddock 1971; Crossley 1984a, p. 85). Objective conditions are usually beyond a teacher’s control, and indeed Beeby did become more understanding about the effect of systemic constraints on teachers, as shown in a later insightful commentary on administrative difficulties in promoting change (Beeby 1986, pp. 39-41). Even if progressive methods are culturally appropriate and even if teachers do support change, many practical barriers remain to progressive change. Project extension phases, in particular, have to face several systemic barriers to sustainability, including six main practical problems: a) classroom facilities may not be appropriate for some teaching styles; b) teachers may have insufficient time to innovate; c) examinations may emphasise learning inconsistent with the innovations; d) educational administrators may be unable to provide appropriate organisational support, particularly during extension phases; e) the costs of reform may be prohibitive; and f) the difficulties in introducing progressive reforms can be underestimated. a) Classroom Conditions. Attempts to upgrade teacher levels by requiring changes in teaching style may find the situation in the classroom overwhelms the desired behaviours. At a practical level, working conditions, especially in remote schools, usually do not favour innovation. Where teachers have to cope with large classes, changes in teaching style that require small group work, experiential enquiry or laboratory activities may not be practicable because of lack of space, fixed classroom furniture, absence of equipment, and lack of classroom insulation making even moderate noise levels a disturbance in other classrooms. A litany of findings can be found about the poverty of developing country school facilities. Postlethwaite (1998), for example, reported on a 1995 UNESCO and UNICEF sample survey of 857 primary schools in 14 least developed countries in Africa and Asia. The survey included the standard of classroom equipment and the quality of school buildings, finding that many school buildings were in need of repair, toilets were often unusable and many classes took place in temporary facilities, including the open air. Only three countries were relatively well off

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

for such basics as chalkboards and wall charts, while very few classrooms had wall maps, cupboards, bookshelves or a library corner. About half the students were in classrooms that did not have a teacher’s table or chair. Class sizes of 4070 were common. In many countries, children had to sit on dirt floors that turned to mud when the rain entered. Only in one country did all students have a seat at a bench or desk: the writing place was often the shoulder of the next student. Except in two countries, virtually none of the students had supplementary reading books. The dismal conclusion was that conditions in many if not most of the schools surveyed were not conducive to teaching or learning (Postlethwaite 1998, pp. 307316). An example from Papua New Guinea gives a particular illustration. A study of 20 primary schools in Central Province found that primary school classroom facilities were invariably poor and not suited to student-centred learning practices (Pearse et al. 1990, pp. 72-74). Like most primary schools in that country, these were generally small (2-10 classes and teachers) and remote. They were sometimes accessible by road, but otherwise only by boat, plane or foot. Varying levels of community support meant great variation in housing, classrooms and equipment. Many classrooms did not have weatherproof shelter, level and dry floors, light, quietness, seats, tables or storage; all of which varied considerably from school to school. There was also great variation in the provision of sources of lesson content for both teachers and students. In some classrooms, teachers did not have a syllabus, teacher’s guide or student textbook. All classrooms did at least have a blackboard, as well as a minimum of a student exercise book and a pen or pencil for each student, but “typically the classroom provided at least one impediment to the efficient use of learning materials or to communication” (Pearse et al. 1990, p. 73). In effect, everyday working conditions were a major barrier to innovation and limited the potential to vary teaching styles away from didactic teacher-centred methods. Progressive innovations can be naïve if they rely implicitly on uncrowded classroom conditions (for example, to permit students to move around readily or furniture to allow group work) or if they assume that conditions are improving. In the UNESCO study, head teachers reported more decreases than increases in school facilities in the preceding five years, despite increases in school enrolments being the norm (Postlethwaite 1998). But any assumption that scarce financial resources should be used to reduce class size has been rejected widely from school effectiveness research. Lockheed and Verspoor (1991) dismissed large class size as a factor in educational quality in developing country primary schools, a view still supported in a thorough recent review of the international evidence about the impact of large classes on teaching and learning by O’Sullivan (2006). She noted that in the absence of research on class size in developing countries, most of the evidence comes from developed countries. Studies have not demonstrated that

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teachers with small classes actually bring about improved performance, the evidence mainly being that classes smaller than 20 in the early years of primary school lead to improved performance, but class sizes above 20 are not associated with improved student performance. However, 20 is not a realistic number in developing countries and is beyond the resources of some industrialised ones. O’Sullivan found that the critical issue was not reducing class size but making teaching in large classes more effective, which has implications for teacher training and for government and school policies. My interpretation is that, once a class is under 20, teachers do have a realistic chance of providing meaningful individual attention in a typical 40-minute lesson. Above that size, it does not much matter whether there are 30 students or 50 receiving teacher talk because very few if any can receive separate attention. Once classes average 20, costeffectiveness implies they may as well increase in size, although how large they can become is dependent on contextual factors and no hard or fast rules exist. The issue of class size also goes to cultural perceptions. Cortazzi and Jin (2001) reported that class sizes in China in the 1990s commonly ranged from 30 to 70 or more. While school resources were often available to reduce class sizes, frequently this was not done. The reasons given by teachers included that large classes permitted fewer lessons per week for each teacher and therefore more time for preparation, supervision of study and the expected individual attention to students outside the class. In other words, the progressive mantra that class sizes should be smaller is caged by the view that teachers’ responsibilities are mainly limited to inside the classroom. Where teachers have outside responsibilities to pupils, less classroom time can be a rational tradeoff for more time in which to carry out these responsibilities. Paradoxically, large class sizes can permit more teacher attention to students. b) Time. The sheer mechanics of daily life, especially in rural areas with poor infrastructure, can be very time-consuming and teachers simply may not have enough spare hours to innovate on a long-term basis. This remains particularly so for teachers in communities with few modern facilities, where fetching water and firewood can occupy greater time than for the more comfortably located innovator at headquarters. Thaman (1987) illustrated this point with the story of a Tongan primary teacher with multiple roles as teacher, income source for her extended family, secretary of the village women’s group, informal educator of her own children into traditional customs, and church member. These roles absorbed considerable time, each one carrying traditional cultural values that generated particular expectations of behaviour, on top of which was a professional expectation that she would prepare her class 6 for success in the high school selection examination. The effect is that the normal work of preparation, teaching, marking and supervis-

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ing, as well as time for spouse, children, relatives and community groups, means that teachers like this simply might not have hours in the day to undertake major curriculum innovations. c) Examination Pressures. Where syllabus reforms promote open-ended activities or heuristic teaching styles to develop enquiry skills and attitudinal change, but examinations emphasise recall of lower level cognitive knowledge, teachers face a dilemma. They will often be led by their own and their students’ formalistic expectations of exam-oriented teaching, as Morris’s study in Hong Kong showed. The implication is that, “it is a necessary but not sufficient condition that attempts to change classroom practice should not be incongruent with teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions of the requirements of any public examination system” (Crossley & Guthrie 1987, p. 65). If curricular innovations are unlikely to succeed because they are incompatible with the requirements of the examination system, one solution within the power of educational authorities is to change the examinations, as has frequently been pointed out (e.g. Kellaghan & Greaney 2001). The dominant function of examinations is selection for higher levels of education and for employment. Traditional practice was usually norm-referenced when public examination systems merely had a selection function based on students’ relative performance. The alternative of criterion- or domain-referenced testing, which concentrates on assessing students’ ability to achieve defined educational objectives, has become more common during the last two or three decades, in part because the same information can be used to rank students and can therefore meet the selection function as well. Indeed, under criticism from proponents of criterion-referenced testing, normreferenced examinations are now much more likely to be tied to explicit learning objectives than formerly so that the objectives can promote the desired types of learning. Earlier I pointed out that this is simple in principle, but that the practice is time-consuming, highly technical, expensive of time, skills and money, requires the will and finance to systematically rewrite syllabuses in performance terms and to provide continuously appropriate materials, and should not be undertaken lightly (Guthrie 1990, p. 230). Even this assessment was optimistic, at least in the case of Hong Kong, where criterion-referenced examination reforms in the 2000s met further difficulties because teachers could simply not see what the problem was with the existing norm-referenced system and the changes were prescribed in a top-down approach that made little attempt to take into account parents’ or teachers’ constructs (Watkins & Biggs 2001, p. 16). d) Administrative Support. Insufficient support from departments of education may inhibit a desired change. This may be simply a problem of shortage of

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funds, but it may be embedded much more deeply in the formal bureaucracies that surround so much formalistic teaching. Stephens (1991, p. 225) has described very clearly the hierarchical system impinging upon a primary classroom in Nepal, but which could apply in any number of settings. At the bottom of the hierarchy was the student, receiving knowledge passively and with little control of what he learned and when. The teacher, passing on the knowledge she learnt in her day, was more a transmitter than a decider, constrained by her limited knowledge of choices and lack of resources. The head teacher, even with a degree in education, decided little that was new or innovatory. His role was to manage rules and procedures that left little time or energy for INSET, curriculum development or schoolcommunity relations. His immediate superior, the inspector of schools, was unsure of her exact duties because she had recently been promoted from head teacher and had received little briefing and no training. She concerned herself with administrative matters, leaving curriculum development and materials writing to specialist educationists working in the capital city. At the top of the hierarchy was the government department, heavily constrained by aid conditions imposed, albeit benevolently (and with efficiency and relevance in mind), by donor agencies. This description showed formalistic teachers at work in a formalistic system. The system was designed to keep defined operations on track, but quite possibly was one that had a long history of cultural preference for revelatory rather than scientific knowledge, and therefore had more meaning for the participants than Stephens admitted. In situations like this, and without adequate travel budgets, headquarters support for school-based curriculum development and in-service may not be possible. Lack of funding can also severely limit continued provision of support materials or equipment too. During trial or pilot phases, additional funding from aid projects may temporarily overcome such barriers. However, the example of SSCEP (the Secondary Schools Community Extension Project) in Papua New Guinea (as shown in Chapter 7.2) demonstrates that such trials are highly vulnerable to sustainability problems. With the end of World Bank loan funding, the project was to be disseminated from 10 trial schools to all provincial high schools, however Government funding could not be found to extend it in a difficult economic period, and SSCEP faded away within five years. If there is insufficient financial and administrative capacity, innovation is vulnerable even if it is appropriate. e) Costs. Even if the arguments about principle and logic did not apply, economics is a contributing barrier to funding of progressive reforms. In Western countries, education is often seen as a form of consumption, a human right that society should provide to meet popular demand. Although it is not always possible to provide what is wanted, and although this view has been increasingly ques-

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tionned, it is still the ideal around which much educational provision revolves, especially at the lower levels of schooling. In developing countries, shortages of funding mean that planners are compelled to see education as provision of human resources for national development, with decisions to implement new curriculum being very clearly restricted by costs. Efforts to teach meaning, in the sense posited by Beeby, demand more individualised attention to pupils, smaller classes, and greater quantities and varieties of books and other supporting materials: in other words, almost invariably they add to costs, which is an additional reason why their implementation is problematic. The example of Papua New Guinea again suffices. While asset rich it has been income poor. In the recent past, revenue in the 2003 budget equalled A$1.33 billion, including A$0.31 billion in foreign aid. In comparison, the small Australian state of Tasmania had over twice the annual budget, at A$3 billion in 2003-04. But Tasmania, with over twice Papua New Guinea’s governmental revenue, was only 15% of its size, had only 11% of the population, received far greater funding from the Australian Commonwealth Government than did Papua New Guinea through the aid programme, and had to provide a lesser range of services that did not include foreign relations (Guthrie & Kawi 2004, p. 18). Gas and mineral projects will increase Papua New Guinea’s national income during the 2010s, but the ability of the state to deliver services will remain hampered by endemic financial management issues, including planning and budgetary processes, cash flow management, service delivery capability and accountability, as well as corruption. Even were these inefficiencies resolved, government revenue will simply remain insufficient for a modern state with a young, fast growing population. Other lesser developed countries almost invariably have similar stories. f) Underestimation of Progressive Requirements. Another common failing in the introduction of progressive reforms is underestimation of the sheer practicalities that make implementation difficult. Progressive reforms generate considerable logistical problems because they usually require smaller classes and more inputs such as books, equipment and materials; all of which overlap with the more fundamental cultural issues associated with retraining of teachers. An example is provided by Namibia, where educational reform in the 1990s reacted to the formalistic teaching found under the previous apartheid system. The reforms focussed strongly on introducing progressive elements, including through extensive teacher development programmes (Dembele & Lefoka 2007, pp. 536538). O’Sullivan (2004) found that the implementation of learner-centred approaches among 145 unqualified teachers in 31 predominantly rural primary schools had been unsuccessful. Her mixed methods action research from 1995-97 was a case study of an INSET programme that included 450 hours of lesson observation. Teachers were familiar with the reform policy and claimed to be using

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the learner-centred methods, but in practice they still predominantly used rote teaching. Four reasons explained the lack of implementation of new teaching skills. The first two were school-based: limited resources in the schools (including inability to provide small classes), and teacher professional capacity to understand the language of the policy documents and to recognise the learner as a cognate individual (which was a central requirement of the learner-centred approach). The other two reasons were contextual: cultural factors from a background as seminomadic rural herders in which the interests of the individual tend to be subsumed under the group, and learner expectations of traditional formalistic approaches where children are expected to be respectful of authority. O’Sullivan (2004, pp. 594-595) noted some basic elements of epistemology that the progressive reforms had overlooked, providing a huge underestimation of what was involved in learner-centred, constructivist education. Such an approach, she found, required highly qualified and experienced staff, specific assumptions, and great skill, which were absent among the teachers in the case study schools. For example, learner-centred approaches could only be successfully applied if the contribution of the learner to the development of knowledge was acknowledged and if the teacher accommodated the learner as a social being reliant on interaction with others to generate meaning. Teachers therefore had to be aware of the types of idea brought to school subjects by learners and to be knowledgeable about strategies to facilitate restructuring and extending these conceptions; which they were not. Even degree-level workshop participants had significant difficulties in attempting to adopt a constructivist view of knowledge, which was one of the underlying assumptions in the learner-centred reforms. Teachers tended to view knowledge as fixed, objective and detached from the learner, and believed that their function was to transmit this knowledge to the children, usually through rote learning. Effectively, O’Sullivan found, the requirements of learner-centred schools were in direct contrast to the local cultural context and to teachers’ expectation that their role was to teach and the student’s role was to learn alone. Teachers would need not just new teaching skills; they would have to change completely their cultural framework about teaching and learning. This finding was a very useful antidote to the naïve exhortation on behalf of the reforms by Rowell (1995). The indication in all this is that increased funds would not provide a solution that overrides the cultural issues associated with the prevalence of formalism. Amid many practical barriers to change, deeply held, culturally-based perceptions of education provide a rational basis for rejecting progressive innovations that offer little comparative advantage over formalistic styles for teachers targeted for change in schools.

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4.4 Conclusion Although Beeby’s formulation of stages lacked rigour, the positive features included a focus on the qualitative aspects of teaching and on qualitative change, the realistic emphasis on the gradualism of such change in practice, and the identification of the teacher as the key change agent in the classroom – a fundamental point then often overlooked by innovators. Stripped of its evaluative connotations, Beeby’s interest in qualitative change was a valuable early attempt to move attention in developing countries from linear, quantitative expansion of existing systems to a consideration of educational quality. Nonetheless, Beeby’s propensity to blame the teacher for the failure of inappropriate reforms was a very limited view of their role, their cultural contexts, their decision-making processes, and working conditions in developing countries; albeit a propensity shared by many others critical of teachers. Much deeper understanding of these issues is required for effective educational change. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will diffuse through classrooms essentially depends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs, practical barriers to change including countervailing work and social pressures, schools’ professional climates, and structural inducements. Even if many of these factors are positive, the influence of context-specific cultural paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive reform. In analysing failures to shift from formalistic to meaning style teaching, to use Beeby’s terminology, we should not necessarily look to conservative teacher resistance as a rationale. Blanket categorisation of teachers as obstructionist does not take us far and may indeed reveal as much about the prejudices of the critics as the attitudes of the teachers. References Barrett, A., Chawla-Duggan, R., Lowe, J., Nikel, J., & Ukpo, E. (2006). The concept of quality in education: Review of the ‘international’ literature on the concept of quality in education. EdQual Working Paper No.2. Bristol: University of Bristol. Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Choi, C.C. (1999). Public examinations in Hong Kong. Assessment in Education, 6(3), 405-417. Clarke, P. (2003). Culture and classroom reform: The case of the District Primary Education Project, India. Comparative Education, 39(1), 27-44. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (2001). Large classes in China: ‘Good’ teachers and interaction. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 115-134). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong.

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Crossley, M. (1984a). Strategies for curriculum change and the question of international transfer. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16(1), 75-88. Crossley, M. (1984b). Relevance education, strategies for curriculum change and pilot projects: A cautionary note. International Journal of Educational Development, 4(3), 245-250. Crossley, M., & Guthrie, G. (1987). Current research in developing countries: INSET and the impact of examinations on classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 3(1), 65-76. Dembele, M., & Lefoka, P. (2007). Pedagogical renewal for quality universal primary education: Overview of trends in sub-Saharan Africa. International Review of Education, 53(5-6), 531553. Guthrie, G. (1986). Current research in developing countries: The impact of curriculum reform on teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 2(1), 81-89. Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V. Rust, & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Guthrie, G., & Kawi, J. (2004). PNG border management/security: Situation analysis. Canberra: Educo. Kellaghan, T., & Greaney, V. (2001). Using assessment to improve the quality of education. Paris: UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning. Kelly, G.A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton. Lockheed, M., & Verspoor, A. (1991). Improving primary education in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacDonald, B., & Ruddock, J. (1971). Curriculum Research and Development Projects: Barriers to Success. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 41(2), pp. 148-154. Morris, P. (1985). Teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to the implementation of a pedagogic innovation: A South East Asian case study. International Review of Education, 31(1), 3-18. O’Sullivan, M. (2004). The reconceptualisation of learner-centred approaches: A Namibia case study. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(6), 585-602. O’Sullivan, M. (2006). Teaching large classes: The international evidence and a discussion of some good practice in Ugandan primary schools. International Journal of Educational Development, 26(1), 24-37. Pearse, R., Sengi, S., & Kiruhia, J. (1990). Community school teaching in the Central Province: An observational study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(1), 69-84. Postlethwaite, N. (1998). The conditions of primary school classrooms in least-developed countries. International Review of Education, 44(4), 289-317. Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovation (5th Ed.). New York: Free Press. Rowell, P. (1995). Perspectives on pedagogy in teacher education: The case of Namibia. International Journal of Educational Development, 15(1), pp. 3-13. Ryle, A. (1975). Frames and cages. London: Chatto & Windus. Simon, H.A. (1947). Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organizations. New York: Free Press. Stephens, D. (1991). The quality of primary education in developing countries: Who defines and who decides? Comparative Education, 27(2), 223-233. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 249268. Thaman, K. (1987). A teacher’s story. International Review of Education, 33, 276-282.

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Villegas-Reimers, E. (2003). Teacher professional development: An international review of the literature. Paris: UNESCO International Institute of Educational Planning. Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.). (2001). Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Yu, G. (2007). Research evidence of school effectiveness in sub-Saharan Africa. EdQual Working Paper No.12. Bristol: University of Bristol.

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CHAPTER 5 CLASSROOM TEACHING AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS

The last of Beeby’s main conjectures was a hypothesised relationship between levels of professional training and general education of teachers and their ability to progress through the stages. Chapter 5 considers this through the medium of a review of school effectiveness research and its methodological limitations in developing countries, this research having come to dominate international measurement of education. The outcome, that the effectiveness of teacher education and of teaching styles are context-based, appears to have stood the test of time. The chapter then analyses lack of attention to teaching styles, the classroom and cultural context, progressively focussing on methodological limitations in school effectiveness research. In focussing on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations, school effectiveness research has lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological validity or context and by not taking culture and classroom processes seriously. In the failure to break free of the reliability shackles, the field has churned repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground. Few colonisers introduced anything approximating teacher training on a large scale in their colonies. Typically, indigenous teachers came from the families of people employed in minor colonial positions, such as police, army or clerical services, or from the ranks of religious converts. Most often, these teachers had very basic levels of education and little or no professional training. Many of the teacher training programmes that did exist focussed on content and put little emphasis on professional skills. In this context, Beeby’s fourth theoretical proposition was a hypothesised relationship between levels of professional training and general education of teachers and their ability to progress through the stages in the classroom. This proposition was a forerunner to a controversy in the 1970s, when the effects of teacher training and qualifications on teacher and student performance in developing countries were matters of considerable debate. My 1980 critique gave relatively cursory at-

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 77 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_5, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

tention to this issue, so a 1982 follow-up article in the International Review of Education overviewed four key school effectiveness reviews in the contention over teacher training. Their main outcome, that teacher education does have an effect but that it is context-based, appears to have stood the test of time, yet still receives only token recognition in the mainstream school effectiveness literature, so that little progress has been made since in contextualising this research. The following section examines empirical evidence relevant to Beeby’s hypothesised relationship in developing countries, first revisiting the earlier reviews. Then, the chapter analyses school effectiveness research on teaching styles, the classroom and cultural context, focussing successively on methodological limitations in the research as an underlying explanation for the lack of contextual progress. 5.1

First Generation Literature Reviews

The 1966 Coleman Report in the United States, the 1967 Plowden Commission in the UK and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) all raised doubts about the value of teacher training in developed countries.5 A first generation of school effectiveness studies in the 1960s and early 1970s modelled the methodologies of the Coleman Report, which were informed by the production function from econometrics. A second generation in the 1980s used more sophisticated statistical techniques and incorporated checklists and case studies, while a third generation that applied multilevel analysis was underway in the 1990s (Jansen 1995, pp. 182-188; Riddell 1989; 1997, pp. 178-180; Yu 2007, p. 29). The emphasis in all three generations of statistics has been on large samples and quantitative analysis, relying primarily on the numerous IEA surveys and student achievement tests that have taken place in over 40 countries since the early 1960s, especially in science, mathematics and language (Johnson 1999). Despite enormous contextual differences, studies in developing countries closely followed these trends through three main paths: research and reviews by international aid agencies, IEA studies, and Western-educated researchers (Jansen 1995, pp. 190-194). They have also used official statistics from national departments of education, questionnaires and ad hoc research, but have made relatively little use of classroom observation studies, either structured or ethnographic. The first reviews in developing countries began in 1974 with questions in the World Bank about the value of teacher training. The doubts were seemingly confirmed the following year when the Bank published a report by Alexander and 5

Chapters 5.1 and 5.2 contain abbreviations of parts of Guthrie (1982) with permission from Springer Science & Business Media.

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Simmons (1975) that was very dubious about the possibility of promoting educational innovation in developing countries through traditional types of policy change. Two updates later, the conclusion remained that, “increasing the quality or quantity of most of the traditional inputs, such as teacher training or expenditures per student, is not likely to improve student achievement” (Simmons & Alexander 1980, pp. 77-78). This controversial finding generated a flurry of international research. An extension followed (Schiefelbein & Simmons 1981) and, after the first 1975 study, the World Bank also commissioned an analysis of the literature in Europe (Husen, Saha, & Noonan 1978) and an independent Canadian review (Avalos & Haddad 1981). Of these, the work of Husen and colleagues was the most useful because it provided more detail, used the most sophisticated methodological perspectives, covered a greater number of teacher variables, and was concerned with the most appropriate dependent variable in its focus on associations between teacher training and student cognitive achievement. One reason for differences in interpretation of teacher training findings between the reviews came from the number of studies found by them and the need to take into account the distribution of sample findings. Simmons and Alexander used only nine studies, but Husen and colleagues identified 32 separate reports containing 64 independent studies on student achievement with specific measure of direct and proxy teacher related variables (Husen et al. 1978, pp. 9-10). These studies covered five developing countries in Latin America, seven in Africa and seven in Asia, classified by survey or experimental design and bivariate or multivariate analysis. Four groups of variables were identified: pupil demographic and background variables, teacher qualifications and training, teacher behaviour and attitudes, and school-teacher variables. Table 5.1 Summary of Results in Literature Survey Positive

Null

Negative

Total

Total

%

%

%

%

No.

All samples, all variables

57

34

10

100

194

Teacher qualification variables

56

35

10

100

63

27

18

100

11

Findings

Teacher training 55 studies Source: Husen at al. (1978, pp. 39-40).

Particularly useful was the summary of results in Table 5.1, which shows percentages of statistically significant positive, null, and negative effects. Row 1 has

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all results from all studies, Row 2 has studies most directly concerned with teacher training, and Row 3 has the teacher training studies considered most rigorous. Over a half of the results showed positive effects, the authors pointing out that the positively skewed sampling distribution was consistent with the research hypothesis that teacher training does raise student achievement. However, the positive effects were only in a small majority: some one-third of results were null and onetenth to one-fifth were negative. The sheer complexity of the findings was inherently confusing when summarised according to 16 key variables (Husen et al. 1978, pp. 38-39), but teacher educational attainment, credentials and certification, ability and achievement, and experience generally had positive effects on student outcomes. More interesting in many ways was a nearly equal division between seven findings with generally clear patterns (albeit some evidently dependent on context), six without clear patterns, plus three others with too few numbers to draw conclusions. This was consistent with the small positive majority in the distributions in Table 5.1, and the overall conclusion was that at least some teacher variables were very important in explaining variations in student achievement in developing countries. The strongest evidence was that trained teachers did make a difference. Teacher experience, ability and knowledge added to student success. However, the maze of complex findings and lack of stronger patterns demonstrated in the main that the findings were highly oriented to context: “these consequences of competence do not operate out of specific social and cultural contexts” (Husen et al. 1978, p. 42). A major outcome was a clear indication for research directions: The question which remains unanswered is how, and because of what qualities and in what contexts do teachers make a difference. Answers to these questions will make significant contributions to our understanding of the teacherlearner process generally, and, in LDCs ... will help improve schooling outcomes in a manner most congruent with LDC needs (Husen et al. 1978, p. 47: their emphases). In the 1980s, landmark World Bank research put the educational findings into wider developmental perspective, in part by showing that the search for worldwide trends had confused the search for contextual relevance, and in part by introducing economic variables into the analysis. The previous reviews had generally classified studies geographically and methodologically. Subsequently, Heyneman and Loxley (1983a) went beyond the IEA data to add an economic dimension, reanalysing major international and national databanks with a more representative coverage than previously. Ordering the data according to national per capita income considerably lessened the confusion surrounding apparently contradictory

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results in different countries: they found that the lower a country’s per capita income, the greater the effects of school and teacher quality. Another study by Heyneman and Loxley (1983b) used the same databanks to examine regularities within countries. This paper, located within development economics, asked whether low income countries tend to have less equal distribution of primary school quality than high income countries. The data revealed that instances of equality and inequality occurred among both high and low income countries. This finding implied among other things that, depending on context, individual low income countries might not necessarily have to choose strategies of educational development that distribute educational resources inequitably. Thus, with systematic comparative data on a larger number of countries than were involved in earlier international studies, Heyneman and Loxley were able much more clearly to establish generalisations – particularly the macroeconomic ones based on national per capita income – that had eluded earlier more restricted reviews. However, the studies did not separate teacher effects from school effects and, it should be noted, their findings have subsequently been challenged as underplaying family background, which is an important aspect of cultural context (Riddell 1997, p. 181; Daley et al. 2005; Yu 2007, p. 8; Chudgar & Luschei 2009). One reason for differences in the importance attributed to teacher training findings has been interpretation of the social significance of statistically significant outcomes. The second part of the 1978 review by Husen, Saha and Noonan highlighted this issue clearly. Because of previous problems with multiple regression techniques, Noonan re-analysed 1970 IEA science data for Chile and India using improved methods. The strongest aggregate effect on students’ science achievement was the residuals, at a range from .77 to .80 in four analyses. Student background variables ranged from .50 to .56. Teacher background, training and methods were in the range .20 to .26, while other school variables ranged from .21 to .24. Teachers were thus important but not as important as other variables, and this conclusion seemed to justify some of Simmons and Alexander’s scepticism. However, in a decision-making context, the value of the data changed dramatically. As Husen et al. (1978, p. 91) insightfully pointed out, the statistical significance of the findings underestimated their operational significance. They observed that the residual statistical effect was stronger than the combined effects of all student, teacher and school variables measured, thus improvement in the residuals could lead to far larger improvements in achievement levels than the other factors. However, by definition, the residual factors were unknown and therefore outside administrative control. Student background variables were known, but were also outside the control of educational authorities. Only the school and teacher variables were both known and within administrative control: the least significant statistically, but the only variables of operational use.

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This analysis added weight to the conclusion from the first generation reviews that teacher training programmes do in general make a difference, but that teacher education effects are complex and vary considerably between different educational, social and cultural contexts and how they are measured. The reviews that covered only small numbers of studies found it difficult to distinguish trends because the samples were too small to cover the varying findings dictated by context. When the researchers looked further, identification of widespread, consistent overall patterns remained difficult. There were some broad generalisations, but essentially the key conclusion remained that teacher education effects are highly context-driven. 5.2 Teaching Styles and Student Achievement Within the first reviews of teacher education, mixed findings about teaching style were found by Avalos and Haddad (1981, pp. 22-26), mainly outside the international mainstream. A regionally-based search process found 589 widely differing studies in Africa, Latin America and much of Asia, over 30 of them with findings on teaching style. The general conclusion was that there were no significant differences between discovery/enquiry methods and the expository method on student achievement at the knowledge level, but discovery/enquiry methods appeared superior at higher cognitive levels (presumably at the higher levels of schooling). Operational definitions and methodology varied widely, but ‘meaningful’, ‘project’, ‘activity’, ‘open laboratory’, ‘creativity based’ methods were frequently superior to their more conventional counterparts. Context was important: differences varied with country, level and subject. In some countries, ‘democratic’, ‘permissive’ and ‘indirect’ methods were also found to have advantages. In some studies, variety in methods also appeared positively. However, the review left selection of methodologies and teacher variables up to regional reviewers in developing countries, which meant that no assessments were given about the quality of the research and the basis from which the conclusions were drawn. Soon after, a matched experimental design in Zambia gave methodologically tight data on teaching styles. The study sought to determine the effectiveness of traditional and discovery approaches for teaching scientific facts, understandings about science and scientific attitudes to concrete and formal operational students (Mulopo & Fowler 1987). The subjects were 120 grade 11 male chemistry students with a mean age of 18 years. Sixty of the boys were concrete reasoners selected randomly from one school, the other 60 were formal reasoners selected randomly from another school. Each group was randomly split into two. Traditional and discovery approaches were assigned randomly to the two sub-groups of concrete reasoners and to the two sub-groups of formal reasoners. All subjects were

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pre-tested with separate standard tests for science achievement, understanding and attitude. Instruction occurred over a period of about 10 weeks, after which subjects were post-tested with the same tests. The main test of significance was a two-way test of covariance, finding that: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Overall, the traditional group outperformed the discovery group on achievement. Formal reasoners earned significantly higher achievement scores than concrete reasoners. Among formal reasoners, the discovery group earned significantly higher scores on understanding science. For concrete reasoners, the mode of teaching did not make a difference. Overall, students taught by the discovery approach had significantly higher scientific attitude scores than those taught by the traditional approach.

The conclusion was that the traditional, formalistic approach was efficient for teaching scientific facts and principles, while the progressive discovery approach tended to be more effective among formal reasoners in promoting scientific attitudes and understandings. Consistent with the Zambian study, Fuller and Clarke (1994, p. 139) noted that when developing country teachers displayed more participatory forms of pedagogy, achievement gains were not always observed. For example, using IEA data, Lockheed and Komenan (1989, p. 110) had found in Nigerian schools that time spent by pupils listening to lecturing (self-reported by teachers) was positively associated with 8th grade mathematics achievement (although the reverse was found in Swaziland). In the Philippines, achievement was higher in 9th grade science and mathematics classrooms with teachers who students reported using more ordered lessons (Lockheed & Zhao 1993, pp. 58-59). Indeed, in grade 8 and 9 mathematics in Botswana, more open-ended questions by teachers suppressed achievement (Fuller et al. 1994, pp. 368-373). More recent research has also found that progressive methods focussing on changing teaching styles may not achieve the expected gains in student achievement. One widely trialled method is Cooperative Learning, which is a constructivist approach based on small group learning decidedly different from whole-class instruction (see Shachar et al. 2002). However, an experimental Singapore study did not support research hypotheses predicting the success of the progressive Group Investigation method compared with formalistic Whole Class instruction (Tan et al. 2007). A control group of 103 coeducational grade 8 students in two schools was taught two 6-week geography units using the Whole

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Class method. The experimental group was 138 students taught the same units using Group Investigation. Analysis of covariance found: 1. Both instructional methods produced student achievement results at almost the same level. 2. There were no significant differences in intrinsic motivation scores between students in the two types of class, although there were some differences between high and low achieving students. While the authors suggested that more time might have allowed the new method to become effective, their other suggestion about the prevalence of traditional educational norms is a more fundamental contextual explanation. Sachs et al. (2003) reached a similar end point in Hong Kong, finding difficulties in transferring laboratory-based studies of cooperative learning task performance to the realities of the curriculum-in-action in normal classroom conditions. The findings from both studies were consistent with a body of literature on the Chinese learner (reviewed in Chapter 9.5), which finds that students from formalistic Confucian-influenced countries have consistently outperformed students from other cultural backgrounds in international IEA studies. Nguyen et al. (2009), indeed, have argued that Western forms of cooperative learning contain a complex web of cultural conflicts and mismatches, and are culturally inappropriate within an Asian context. Otherwise, where aspects of teaching style have surfaced within the school effectiveness mainstream, they have often been examples of the Progressive Education Fallacy confused by progressive teleology. Studies presented in a review by Yu (2007) demonstrate this. Lockheed and Levin (1993) argued that effective schools in developing countries require, among other things, teaching promoting student active learning and pedagogical flexibility. Heneveld’s (1994) conceptual framework for school effectiveness had 16 factors organised into four groups, including variety in teaching strategies as a component of the teaching/learning process. Urwick and Junaidu’s (1991) study of Nigerian primary schools went further and judged teaching processes largely on the extent to which teacher methods were pupil-centred and on the variety of methods of communication used in lessons, as well as the variety of activities organised during lessons. Seemingly more neutral in appearance, Boissiere’s (2004, p. 23) review relied on a 1990 World Bank Primary Education Policy Paper based on an extensive review of the literature by Lockheed and Verspoor (1991). Their review identified three key issues for teacher effectiveness, namely knowledge of subject matter, pedagogical skills and teacher motivation, but contained Beeby’s progressive assumption that students need to participate actively in classrooms. Four progressively more funda-

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mental caveats exist about interpretation of such studies, especially insofar as they might be taken as supportive of the stages concept: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Empirical research is necessary in individual contexts to see what might be the particular relationships between teacher training, teaching style and student achievement. Instrumentation of such research can be major problem if it is based on progressive norms such as student interaction. Ethical analysis of the desirability of teaching styles is also necessary, particularly in relation to their broader cultural impact. The theoretical and methodological objections to stage analysis still exist.

A successful response to criticism of lack of attention to classroom process within the school effectiveness field came from a study in Kenya. Daley et al. (2005, p. 400) considered that, “incorporating national and local beliefs, values, and norms about education and achievement is a critical step at both the level of measurement and interpretation.” They included classroom observation of teacher and student behaviours in a study involving 531 grade 1 students in 15 classes in 12 primary schools with an average attendance of 37 students in each lesson observed. The researchers collected a conventional range of school effectiveness measures, but found added depth from, among other variables, child behaviour and efforts to make classroom quality ratings reflect local beliefs. The study included culturally grounded ratings from observation of teacher tone and behaviour, classroom organisation and interest in student learning. Also used were multiple outcome variables: student off-task behaviour (from observation of behaviour such as talking to other students about non-school topics and playing with an object) and teacher end-of-term ratings of students (including attention, task persistence, participation and learning difficulties). The authors recognised limitations in their techniques, but linear regression analysis did show some interesting results. Addition of classroom variables to student background variables provided a significant increase in the variance that was explained. The main finding relevant to this book was a rejection of the research hypothesis: 1. More open, encouraging, patient and interested behaviour by teachers actually correlated positively with more off-task behaviour by students, i.e. less student attention was associated with less strict teaching. 2. Similarly, greater teacher interest in student learning was a negative predictor of examination scores.

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3. Clear discipline (which did include physical punishment) provided greater control and more student attention, the likelihood of more rote learning and higher examination scores. The authors, grappling with some of their more progressive assumptions, found this counter-intuitive but recognised that, “These findings reflect …[the] assertion that ‘Western’ styles of teaching may not be appropriate markers of quality in developing countries” (Daley et al. 2005, p. 407). In sum, the evidence about the effects of teaching style on student achievement reflects the findings on teacher education effects: there are effects in general, but they vary from one context to another. Several methodologically strong research studies in primary and lower secondary schools in developing countries have found equal or superior performance from formalistic teaching. Such evidence comes from a wide range of countries in Africa and Asia: Botswana, Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore and Zambia. Support exists for the hypothesis that formalism is more effective with lower cognitive levels and, conversely, there is some evidence that progressive teaching styles are more effective with higher cognitive levels and some affective learning. The implication is that formalism may be appropriate throughout most of primary and secondary schooling, while progressive teaching could become appropriate towards the end of secondary schooling and at tertiary level. However, if and where this might apply is highly dependent on context. The hypothesis requires experimental field research to investigate whether higher cognitive skills among students do require progressive teaching styles in particular contexts. We know that formalistic teaching persists and can be culturally valued, and that it frequently appears to be effective with lower levels of cognitive learning, but particular evidence is nonetheless required about its effects on student learning in each context. 5.3 Classroom Processes and Cultural Context School effectiveness research has contained two competing intellectual groups, which Fuller and Clarke (1994, pp. 119-120) characterised as “policy mechanics” and “classroom culturalists”. The camps remain loosely divided between educational economists aiming for international policy generalisations about school effectiveness, and somewhat fewer educational sociologists and cross-cultural psychologists primarily concerned with cultural context and the hidden curriculum of meanings attached to instructional tools and pedagogy, with a view to school improvement (Chimombo 2005, pp. 139-140). Policy focus is found in several major school effectiveness reviews by donor agencies. These reviews have aimed to identify which school factors are stronger determinants of academic achievement

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and therefore more cost-effective targets for inputs through educational investment (Yu 2007, pp. 5-14; Tatto 2008; see Boissiere 2004, pp. 7-11 for an example). Clearly, this book holds to the classroom culture approach, with Chapter 2.4 and Section 2 showing some examples of school improvement observational work in classrooms and their broader cultural environments. For contextual depth and for studies that do look in detail at teaching styles it is necessary to go to case studies within countries, commonly located theoretically outside the school effectiveness literature by classroom culturalists rather than policy-oriented statisticians and economists. Classroom culture studies usually use observation to reveal classroom norms about teachers’ authority, implicit rules about pupil participation, and the structure of classroom work and tasks (including the instructional tools employed, task demands placed on students, and whether work is individual or cooperative) (Fuller & Clarke 1994, p. 139). A common weakness is that such studies often consider the effect of curriculum change on teaching styles rather than on student achievement as dependent variable (see Chapter 11.1), which was true of the otherwise very valuable research by Tabulawa (1998), O’Sullivan (2004) and Barrett (2007) in Chapter 2.4. In contrast, school effectiveness studies have two counteracting elements of validity. On the one hand, the dependent variable of student achievement gives in principle a highly valid measure of schooling outcomes. On the other hand, there is a lack of ecological validity, which is manifested in two seriously neglected areas: a) classroom processes; and b) cultural context. a) Classroom Processes. Classroom process studies are scarce in the school effectiveness mainstream (Scheerens 2001, p. 380). In essence, school effectiveness research often collects wide-ranging data on easy to measure classroom variables, but does not often usefully measure teaching and learning processes. Among such studies, only a few independent classroom variables have consistently correlated with student achievement as the dependent variable. Drawing again from Yu’s review, the main ones have included availability of textbooks, instructional materials, instructional time and frequency of homework (Fuller & Clarke 1994, pp. 124-132). They have also included teachers’ education, at 56% of 63 studies virtually identical to Table 5.1 (Hanushek 1995, p. 230). The problem underlying such findings is that the continual use of disaggregated data to measure individual variables loses the bigger classroom picture. A literature review by Velez et al. (1993) illustrated this. The authors reviewed 18 quantitative Latin American and the Caribbean studies, classifying pedagogical practices by homework, evaluation and follow-up, hours of curriculum, teacher absenteeism, and emphasis on mathematics and language. They also found results about teacher characteristics, such as years of schooling, years of teaching experience,

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in-service teacher training, economic incentives, socio-economic status, distance of living place to school, subject knowledge, expectation of pupil performance, time spent for class preparation, sex, job satisfaction, part/full time employment status, and additional job. None of this usefully measured teaching or learning processes. More recently, a presentation of 11 empirical studies undertaken across Africa during the 1990s and 2000s revealed similar design issues (Yu 2007, pp. 14-26). A typical example, by Riddell and Nyagura (1991) in 48 Zimbabwean secondary schools, used class level variables including English and mathematics teachers’ gender, age, qualifications, years of experience, use of time for academic activities and games and sports, class size, class textbook availability and teaching load. School variables included day or boarding school, size of school and teacher-pupil ratio. A further example is a study of mathematics computation and reading comprehension among 355 primary students in Jamaica. This study did usefully include time in whole class and small group instruction among 10 pedagogical process variables, but another 42 independent variables were grouped as student, home background, school level physical input, instructional material, health, school level pedagogical input (textbooks and teacher training), school level management, work-centred environment, community involvement, and school type (Glewwe et al. 1995, Table 4). Only 9.6% (5 of 52) of F test mathematics results and only 13.4% (7 of 52) reading results were significant at the .05 level, a total of 11.5%. In other words, the statistical trawling found only some 10-13% of variables had significant correlations, and nearly half the significant results could have been Type I false positive errors, an explanation not considered in the article. Many such school and classroom variables are important, but nowhere in these studies does the mass of loosely connected quantitative variables add up to teaching style or classroom culture. The implication is that school effectiveness research has been a form of empiricism driven by statistical concerns and largely devoid of educational theory. As Scheerens (2001, p. 365), working within the field, reported, “instructional and pedagogical theory appeared to be practically missing as a source of inspiration for educational effectiveness studies in developing countries.” b) Cultural Context. In addition to neglect of classroom processes, a second and equally serious area of neglect has been the cultural context in which schools exist. Many papers within the school effectiveness literature have recognised the need to study culture, but few have actually done so in detail despite the first generation findings about the importance of context. Parallel to the focus on disaggregated classroom variables rather than teaching styles, attention to context has generally been through disaggregated structural-functional societal variables rather

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than culture (as seen, for example, in Tatto 2008, pp. 500-502). The operational focus has mainly been on student and teacher socio-economic status and variables such as school location. This situation has long been prevalent, as shown by Fuller and Snyder’s (1991) statement that school effectiveness research from developing countries had failed to recognise fully the characteristics, cultural rules and cognitive structures that students bring to the classroom, too often assuming that pupils are invariant textureless creatures, and ignoring social relations in the classroom. “The meaning and effects of given teacher behaviors may depend on the social rules that surround the pupil outside the school. Classroom research … rarely looks at the relational social norms experienced by the child in and out of school” (Fuller & Synder 1991, p. 275). The lack of attention to norms, let alone to cultural paradigms, has remained apparent in the literature, which usually looks at non-residual factors within the policy ambit of authorities. Velez et al. (1993), for example, focussed on alterable factors subject to policy interventions and did not look at context. Of seven models of educational effectiveness found by Yu (2007, pp. 32-47), four did make mention of culture; but none of nine effectiveness studies reviewed had any apparent findings about context or culture and only two of 11 studies from across Africa apparently raised cultural issues (Yu 2007, pp. 5-26). The main attention by Boissiere (2004, pp. 22-23, 26-27), as another example, was to student, family and community characteristics such as intelligence, health, nutrition and socioeconomic status. These are all important, but they do not begin to amount to consideration of cultural paradigms. Major effort has been expended trying to plant findings and methodology from developed to developing country contexts despite an absence of cross-cultural validation. Relatively few school effectiveness studies have focussed on instructional factors in developing countries, and they have provided only weak and inconclusive evidence on the effects of instructional factors that have received empirical support in industrialised countries (Scheerens 2001, pp. 365-368). Yu’s conclusion from his review was that developed country findings do not provide a blueprint for the creation of more effective schools and should not be applied mechanically without reference to the particular contexts of a school or country; nor should it be assumed that developing countries are a single entity. Rather they have different and complex cultures and educational systems, so that the complexity of local conditions should receive much more attention in interpreting and understanding school effectiveness indicators: “ignoring the different contexts when interpreting and implementing research findings would be irresponsible and unlikely to achieve intended outcomes” (Yu 2007, p. 13). Context, Yu reiterated, matters – but we need to add that context applies not just to socio-economic conditions but to the cultural milieu as well.

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In sum, comments by Jansen (1995, p. 181) remain still sound 15 years later. He noted three serious weaknesses in the school effectiveness literature. One was that even critical reviews have argued within this framework; second, very few systematic and coherent attempts have been made to propose alternatives; and third, much of the application of this research has rested erroneously on the fixed assumption that findings about schooling and resources can be transferred to developing countries. 5.4 Data Collection Issues Considerable technical debate has occurred about the relative strengths of school effectiveness findings emphasising family background or school variables. The conventional argument is that the lack of many conclusive findings reflects reliability issues, especially statistical test effects and measurement errors, but there is more to it. Amid all the study of school effectiveness, findings about effective classrooms are hidden in a plethora of variables caged by serious technical problems in measuring both contextual and classroom factors. One clue lies in the continual use of disaggregated data measuring individual variables that in themselves reveal little about the teaching process. A methodological key to the lack of understanding of classroom processes is neglect of structured and unstructured observation within the classroom interior where the tested learning is designed to occur. Fuller and Clarke’s (1994, p. 139) view was that little empirical work within the school effectiveness field had occurred inside classrooms seemingly because a serious weakness of the production-function line was that instructional tools and even teaching practices were seen as cultureless technical instruments for raising achievement. This statement was exemplified by Boissiere (2004), who 10 years later commented that curriculum factors are important, but that only a few of the production function or randomised evaluation studies approach them in much detail. Apparently considering that teaching of reading was merely a classroom detail rather than one of the most important functions of schooling, he additionally observed with no apparent regret that, “Curriculum design also includes decisions about teaching methods and teacher preparation – for example on best ways to teach reading … It is difficult to do good production function studies on details such as this, since data on teaching methods for a particular subject are not easily available or difficult to generate, even in the most advanced countries” (Boissiere 2004, p. 18). Classroom and teaching process data, such as use of class time, has come usually from questionnaire surveys of teachers and administrators (e.g. Glewwe et al.

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1995, p. 237 in Jamaica; IEA studies in Johnson, 1999, pp. 59, 61; and more widely, examples in Yu 2007, pp. 16, 19, 22-23: exceptions include further work in Brazil by Fuller et al. 1999, and in India by Clarke 2003, that did incorporate classroom observation). However, mixed methods studies commonly show that while questionnaires find teacher acceptance of reforms, classroom observation finds that the same teachers do not implement them. Teacher dualism is evidenced in three of the key research studies drawn on in this book that evaluated official reforms. These studies found mismatches between teachers’ stated attitudes and what they told researchers about their classrooms, on the one hand, and independent observation of their actual classroom behaviour, on the other hand. One study, by Morris (1983; 1985) of the effect of the Hong Kong examination system on a progressive curriculum reform, reported that curriculum planners had attempted to introduce innovations involving progressive approaches to teaching and learning requiring pupil participation and a less didactic teaching style (Chapter 4.1). Lessons were observed with 45 teachers in different schools, and supplemented with semi-structured teacher interviews asking what factors had influenced the approach to each lesson. Teachers expressed favourable attitudes to the progressive approaches, but the classroom observation indicated that only a small proportion of the total observed time was spent on activities that required active student involvement, and this time did not generally emphasise heuristic learning. A second mixed methods study, by O’Sullivan (2004) in Namibia in 1995-97, used different types of interview and high inference semi-structured observation with 145 teachers. Teachers were familiar with progressive reform policy and claimed to be using its learner-centred methods, but did not demonstrate understanding of its meaning and, observation showed, in practice still predominantly used rote teaching. A third study by Barrett (2007) found considerable variation in the nature of pupil-teacher interactions in Tanzania in 2002-03. She interviewed 32 teachers and observed 28 lessons to compare what the teachers said was good practice with their classroom behaviour. Teachers’ professed beliefs reflected official progressive reform policy, but they actually taught much more formalistically. The problem with questionnaires and interviews is that they provide only secondhand reports of classroom behaviour and are, therefore, not a valid source of direct evidence about actual behaviour. Questionnaires and interviews can be an important supplementation to observation, in particular to investigate cultural explanations of classroom behaviour. They can also provide key data about student and teacher perceptions and attitudes to the classroom and its processes. However, they are unacceptable when the data is interpreted (as did Ginsburg 2009) as representing observable behaviours that are actually occurring inside the classroom because they provide only indirect and often misleading evidence.

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The underlying issue is that respondents are prone to misrepresent classroom behaviour because of social pressure – i.e. questionnaires and interviews are prone to elicit the views that respondents judge researchers seek. Focus groups can add to such pressures because there can be no confidentiality about participants’ views, especially when the groups contain members holding positions of authority. The outcome can be inaccurate (invalid) and inconsistent (unreliable) data about the classroom resulting from varying perceptions among teachers about researchers and their roles. In particular, the tendency of teachers to present pictures of their classrooms that are more consistent with reform ideologies than their real classroom behaviours can be an issue when official curriculum reforms are being evaluated in societies where scientific values about truth are less important than social status and authority. While genuine professions of confidentiality routinely accompany questionnaires and interviews, these assertions may carry little weight with respondents. The role of the educational researcher may well be perceived by teachers as embodying a power relationship that could operate to their detriment, especially when the researchers are evaluating official reforms or practices. Teachers may be prone to report conformity with official policy from fear of feedback to headteachers and inspectors resulting in negative professional reports on them. Use of invalid data provides a trap for the unwary not only in the school effectiveness field, but also in the curriculum field. Over-reliance on loose data collection techniques helps explain the lack of insight into the classroom that is commonly found in school effectiveness studies based on IEA research. 5.5 Methodological Overview All research has trade-offs between validity, reliability, relevance and generalisability (Guthrie 2010, pp. 10-12). The most fundamental of these elements is validity, lack of which is the fatal flaw in the stages approach, but validity and reliability issues closely interact. I will draw together the previous analysis by considering these matters in turn for the school effectiveness field. a) Validity. A major strength of the school effectiveness research has been use of student achievement as the dependent variable, giving a highly valid schooling output measure when test objectives match the taught curriculum. Often, classroom culture research and evaluations of curriculum reform impact have not matched this particular strength. However, the shortages of school effectiveness research on the classroom and cultural context leave two elements that lack ecological validity.

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Questionnaires and interviews do not provide valid data about behaviour in the classroom. A distinction drawn by Gao and Watkins (2001) between teachers’ ideal conceptions of teaching and their competing practical conceptions that dominate in the classroom provides a perhaps generous understanding of the mismatch between professed ideals and actual practice. However, it would be naïve to overlook the effect of power relations in research as part of the explanation for the mismatch. School effectiveness research often acknowledges contextual factors, but in the pursuit of reliability generally underestimates their influence or confines recognition to easily measured but superficial parameters. A clue about lack of attention to the importance of context lay in the Chilean example from Noonan (Husen et al. 1978), which found that the largest measured effect was the residuals, the outcome being that unmeasured cultural elements disappear pragmatically into the residuals as background noise. Where context has been considered, it has generally been as structural-functional variables rather than culture. Yet, we saw in Chapter 3.4 that cultural epistemology can be very important in understanding the meaning that players ascribe to their classroom behaviours. While this has generally been demonstrated by research from outside the school effectiveness field, the field has contained evidence consistent with this. For example, Riddell (1997, pp. 198-200) found from a review of 16 third generation multilevel analyses that the attributes and background characteristics children bring with them have a greater influence on subsequent achievement than their experiences at school. Later, Daley et al. (2005, p. 400) in Kenya found considerably more depth in their findings with the addition of child behaviour and classroom quality ratings reflecting local beliefs. The obvious interpretation is that both family and classroom variables are embedded in cultural context. Husen et al. (1978) were correct in noting that educational administrators cannot control residual factors, but when the cultural component of the residuals is known to exist from other forms of research, researchers and educational authorities ignore it at their peril. If contextual research does demonstrate deep seated cultural paradigms with revelatory epistemologies, progressive classroom interventions are unlikely to survive the pilot period. On the other hand, improvements to formalism are highly likely to survive because they are congruent with the pervasive cultural setting. Cultural context may not be controllable scientifically or administratively, but it does exist and it does have real effects. b) Reliability. From the first generation reviews, school effectiveness researchers have recognised reliability issues, especially with the types of regression analysis used (Guthrie 1982, pp. 299-300; Boissiere 2004, pp. 3-7). Concerns about measurement have been expanded upon by Glewwe and Kremer (2006, pp.

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984-993), who indicated that the simultaneous presence of both positive and negative effects in the school effectiveness literature suggested either that studies do not measure the same parameter or that estimates are biased. The rigour with which such matters have been pursued has given the research a great deal of statistical strength, but they are embedded more fundamentally in validity issues, as we have just seen. A statistical clue to the lack of operational recognition of both teaching styles and culture lies in Scheeren’s (2001, pp. 361, 368) observation that the range of variation in teaching practices in some developing countries may be quite limited, providing a lack of statistical discrimination. The import is that teaching styles may not be sufficiently dissimilar to give usable statistical results (i.e. they may lack statistical variance). From this perspective, major commonalities in culture and in teaching style provide too little information to analyse statistically. This is because regression analysis uses measurement of variance rather than absolute scores, not comparing the magnitude of scores to determine whether one group scores significantly higher than another, but measuring normatively whether there are significant differences between the groups in distribution of scores (Kerlinger 1977, esp. pp. 603-631). Additionally, multivariate analysis assumes interval and ratio data that allows for differences in degree rather than kind. Advanced parametric techniques are usually robust with nominal and ordinal measurement as well, but when cultural commonalities basically occur in whole rather than in part, they effectively provide lower level binary data. To paraphrase Scheerens (2001, pp. 369-370) on ideology and politics, culture is a precondition to be considered in studies prior to embarking on further school effectiveness research (Chapter 11.3 will discuss the implications for decision-making). The inadequacy of multivariate regression techniques in accounting for the presence or absence of cultural phenomena is not just a reliability matter, but is a statistical artefact that generates a validity issue with real educational import. c) Relevance. Token recognition of culture and the classroom often amounts to little more than a disclaimer. The neglect at one end of the educational process of cultural framework and, at the other end, of classroom processes, has meant that woefully little light has been cast on some very important issues by school effectiveness research. A clue to the weak relevance, especially to the classroom, lay in Boissiere’s casual dismissal of teaching of reading as a classroom detail that is difficult to measure, seemingly based on practical concerns that do not seem to have stopped researchers operating outside the comfort zone provided by the World Bank. School effectiveness studies have generally used quantitative survey methods derived from economics and structural-functional sociology, especially questionnaire surveys with teachers, and have occasionally made use of experimental

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designs in natural classroom settings. However, the research techniques most suited to go behind student achievement to investigate teaching styles and cultural context are structured observational techniques from educational psychology and ethnographic techniques derived from anthropology (see Chapter 10.4). Structured classroom observation lends itself particularly well to the natural experiments sought by Glewwe and Kremer (2006), while ethnography can provide relevance in reaching an understanding of the depths of cultural paradigms, as demonstrated by Tabulawa’s (1997; 1998; 2004) brilliant analyses of classrooms in Botswana. One element adding both to lack of relevance and validity is the search strategies used in school effectiveness reviews. These strategies generally use relatively easily-accessed internationally published material rather than local literature. This was illustrated by the first wave of studies, where the search strategies of the three main reviews differed radically (Guthrie 1982, p. 299). The first World Bank reviews were seemingly restricted to literature available through North American library networks. The search strategy of Husen and colleagues appeared much more thorough, being undertaken in a number of West European international education institutes, but too was located in developed countries. Avalos and Haddad used developing country reviewers with access to their own libraries and networks, and uncovered 23 times the number of reports in the most comprehensive of the other reviews. In light of Avalos and Haddad’s (1981, p. 4) comments about the strategy having stimulated researchers and policy-makers in developing countries, it also appears capable of promoting direct feedback into the developing countries themselves. A later discussion of postgraduate research findings commented similarly on the dearth of research evidence to inform educational decision-making in many developing countries and the desirability of attempting to use all available sources of research, especially because much postgraduate research occurs within these countries (Guthrie 1989, p. 51). The references on education in Papua New Guinea used in this book provide a particular example of the importance of local literature. Of the 149 references, 70% were published within Papua New Guinea and 30% internationally (but often obscurely in Australia). One study provided mixed method case study findings on teachers’ perceptions of school effects (Vulliamy 1987), but only one was based on IEA data (Wilson 1990). A survey of the international school effectiveness literature on Papua New Guinea would not provide many school effectiveness or student achievement findings, and limited evidence about the relevance of context. Of vital importance in understanding classroom behaviours there is the predominantly qualitative local literature, which Section 2 will demonstrate in detail. d) Generalisability. School effectiveness reviews with small numbers of studies have chased illusory generalisations, such as the premature view in the

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1970s that teacher education made no difference. Only with larger numbers of studies did some patterns emerge from a maze of complex findings, including one consistent with Beeby’s view that trained teachers do make a difference. However, numerous findings have actually demonstrated that teacher eduction and teaching styles effects are so highly dependent on context that very careful attention to the limits of generalisations is needed to indicate where context outweighs generalisation (further methodological implications about universalities and generalisation will resurface in Chapter 12.1). Knowing, for example, that some 55% of research results show that investment in teacher education is beneficial has little operational value in any particular setting because the implication is that tosses of the coin would only be 5% less useful. Whether and how teacher training and school investment might be effective in Bolivia, Burma or Burundi is fundamentally dependent on local cultural contexts, local paradigms and local pedagogies, not on international generalisations of little practical value. The school effectiveness field is very strong at analysing quantitative variables within education systems, but has been ineffectual at finding usable generalisations about improving learning. Generalisability failures have come from two directions. One is the failure to generalise findings from developed to developing countries; the other is to chase illusory universalities when the strongest evidence is that context is what matters. The lack of patterns basically occurs not because of the reliability issues, but because the patterns scarcely exist in the first place, as evidenced by the paucity of statistically significant findings by Glewwe and colleagues in Jamaica. Significant findings were so infrequent that false positives may have accounted for nearly half of them. The problem of generalisability is embedded deeply in the Progressive Education Fallacy. As Fuller and Clarke (1994, p. 124) and Scheerens (2001, pp. 372373) also noted, participatory forms of teaching may be at odds with hierarchical forms of teacher authority that coincide with cultural traditions. From an interventionist position on school improvement, this is a serious issue for project design – whether it should work with existing conditions and bring about incremental adaptations (which this book supports), or whether it should try to change them into more democratic, open and participatory progressive approaches. Scheerens noted that it is important to be clear about the distinction between means and goals. Teaching styles, be they formalistic or progressive, are a means of attaining educational achievement. Findings that formalistic teaching can work better should not evoke cognitive dissonance: “school effectiveness researchers should be completely open to discovering approaches that work in local settings, regardless of whether they conform to Western fashions” (Scheerens 2001, p. 373).

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5.6 Conclusion In 1975, Alexander and Simmons questioned whether investment in teacher education was justified in developing countries. Within a few years, wider evidence from the first generation of school effectiveness research refuted their finding. Second and third generation research improved the statistical techniques, but this chapter has found that they added little in the way of findings about teaching processes in the classroom or about cultural context. Indeed, Riddell (1997, pp. 178186) predicted that the third generation of school effectiveness research was in danger of being lost without ever having been explored fully, and Yu (2007, p. 13) concluded his recent review of the international literature by referring to lack of progress over the previous two decades in producing a recipe for an effective school. Culture is an often-recognised element of educational change, but it has generally received only token recognition in the search for the holy grail of international generalisations. In essence, much school effectiveness research remains looking down the wrong end of the telescope in a vain search for illusory patterns. Clearly enough it behoves all research to improve reliability, but its pursuit is of little value if critical underlying validity issues are not addressed. In focussing on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations, school effectiveness research has lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological validity or context and by not taking classroom processes seriously. The second and third generations of technical improvements to statistical techniques added little of substance to findings about teaching or culture. In the failure to break free of the reliability shackles, the field has churned repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground. While Fuller & Clarke, Riddell, Scheerens, and Glewwe & Kremer, despite differences, have all been concerned to see school effectiveness research better exploring context and classroom, few new research strategies have appeared. The effect is that school effectiveness research has been in a rut for the last 20 years, and I have been tempted to conclude that it really is broke beyond repair given its major validity, relevance and generalisability problems and its endless and unproductive pursuit of statistical reliability. However, Daley and colleagues’ (2005) Kenya study has demonstrated that improvements can still be made if mixed methods are used to explore classroom culture. The need now is for more school effectiveness studies to incorporate findings from actual classroom observation and for the studies to start incorporating ethnographic findings about the broader cultural contexts and their epistemologies and paradigms. The distinction in the school effectiveness literature between research driven by aid agency interests in cost-effective investment and educators concerned with lo-

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cal effectiveness has generated considerable differences of opinion. Some consider the educational policies of international aid agencies such as the World Bank to be political and inherently ideological. Perhaps a sporting analogy is as appropriate. School effectiveness research appears confused about the nature of the game being watched. It certainly understands that the educational game is in practice largely about results and that the investment football should be aimed at the goalpost of student achievement. But it does not seem to understand how the game is played and the tactics needed to score classroom goals. Immense effort is spent trying to predict the score from measures such as the number of spectators, the length and breadth of the field, the width of the line markings, the logos on the ball, the socio-economic status of the players, the training schools attended by the coaches and the amount of club finance. The distinct impression is that the research does not actually understand the techniques employed by coaches and, especially, the teaching methods that they use on the classroom pitch with their student players. A case in point from a World Bank review was the cavalier dismissal of the best ways to teach reading as a difficult to measure detail. Reading such comments is something like reading an art critic who doesn’t know how to paint, or a drama critic who cannot act. Perhaps more researchers and commentators should spend time as teachers in developing country classrooms and learn howteaching in their schools is actually done. References Alexander, L., & Simmons, J. (1975). The determinants of school achievement in developing countries: The education production function. Staff Working Paper No.201. Washington: World Bank. Avalos, B., & Haddad, W. (1981). Review of teacher effectiveness research in Africa, India, Latin America, Middle East, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand: Synthesis of results. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Barrett, A. (2007). Beyond the polarization of pedagogy: Models of classroom practice in Tanzanian primary schools. Comparative Education, 43(2), 273-294. Boissiere, M. (2004). Determinants of primary education outcomes in developing countries. Background paper for the evaluation of the World Bank’s support to primary education. Washington: World Bank Operations Evaluation Department. Chimombo, J. (2005). Issues in basic education in developing countries: An exploration of policy options for improved delivery. Journal of International Cooperation in Education, 8(1), 129152. Chudgar, A., & Luschei, T. (2009). National income, income inequality, and the importance of schools: A hierarchical cross-national comparison. American Educational Research Journal, 46(3), 626-658. Clarke, P. (2003). Culture and classroom reform: The case of the District Primary Education Project, India. Comparative Education, 39(1), 27-44.

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Daley, T., Whaley, S., Sigman, M., Guthrie, D., Neumann, C., & Bwibo, N. (2005). Background and classroom correlates of child achievement, cognitive, and behavioural outcomes in rural Kenyan schoolchildren. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 29(5), 399-408. Fuller, B., & Clarke, P. (1994). Raising school effects while ignoring culture – Local conditions and the influence of classroom tools, rules, and pedagogy. Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 119-157. Fuller, B., et al. (1999). How to raise children’s early literacy? The influence of family, teacher, and classroom in Northeast Brazil. Comparative Education Review, 43(1), 1-35. Fuller, B., Hua, H., & Snyder, C. (1994). When girls learn more than boys: Do teaching practices influence achievement in Botswana? Comparative Education Review, 38(2), 347-376. Fuller, B., & Snyder, C. (1991). Vocal teachers, silent pupils? Life in Botswana classrooms. Comparative Education Review, 35(2), 274-294. Gao, L., & Watkins, D. (2001). Towards a model of teaching conceptions of Chinese secondary school teachers of physics. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 27-45). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Ginsburg, M. (2009). Active-learning pedagogies as a reform initiative: Synthesis of case studies. Washington: American Institutes for Research. Glewwe, P., Grosh, M., Jacoby, H., & Lockheed, M. (1995). An eclectic approach to estimating the determinants of achievement in Jamaican primary education. World Bank Economic Review, 9(2), 231-258. Glewwe, P., & Kremer, M. (2006). Schools, teachers, and education outcomes in developing countries. In E. Hanushek, & F. Welsh, Handbook of the economics of education, Vol.2 (Ch.16). Amsterdam: North-Holland. Guthrie, G. (1982). Reviews of teacher training and teacher performance in developing countries: Beeby revisited (2). International Review of Education, 28(3), 291-306. Guthrie, G. (1989). Higher degree theses and educational decision making in developing countries. International Journal of Educational Development, 9(1), 43-52. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. Hanushek, E. (1995). Interpreting recent research on schooling in developing countries. World Bank Research Observer, 10(2), 227-246. Heneveld, W. (1994). Planning and monitoring the quality of primary education in sub-Saharan Africa. Washington: World Bank Human Resources and Poverty Division. Heyneman, S.P., & Loxley, W.A. (1983a). The effect of primary school quality on academic achievement across twenty-nine high- and low-income countries. American Journal of Sociology, 88, 1162-1194. Heyneman, S.P., & Loxley, W.A. (1983b). Distribution of primary school quality within highand low-income countries. Comparative Education Review, 27, 108-118. Husen, T., Saha, L.J., & Noonan, R. (1978). Teacher training and student achievement in less developed countries. Staff Working Paper No.310. Washington: World Bank. Jansen, J. (1995). Effective schools? Comparative Education, 31(2), 181-200. Johnson, S. (1999). International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement science assessment in developing countries. Assessment in Education, 6(1), 57-73. Kerlinger, F.N. (1977). Foundations of behavioural research (2nd Ed.). London: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Lockheed, M., & Komenan, A. (1989). Teaching quality and student achievement in Africa: The case of Nigeria and Swaziland. Teaching and Teacher Education, 5(2), 93-113.

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Lockheed, M., & Levin, H. (1993). Creating effective schools. In H. Levin, & M. Lockheed (Eds.), Effective schools in developing countries (pp. 1-19). London: Falmer. Lockheed, M., & Verspoor, A. (1991). Improving primary education in developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lockheed, M., & Zhao, Q. (1993). The empty opportunity: Local control of secondary schools and student achievement in the Philippines. International Journal of Educational Development, 13(1), 45-62. Morris, P. (1983). Teachers’ perceptions of their pupils: A Hong Kong case study. Research in Education, 29, 81-86. Morris, P. (1985). Teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to the implementation of a pedagogic innovation: A South East Asian case study. International Review of Education, 31(1), 3-18. Mulopo, M., & Fowler, H. (1987). Effects of traditional and discovery instructional approaches on learning outcomes for learners of different intellectual developments: A study of chemistry students in Zambia. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24(3), 217-227. Nguyen, P-M., Elliott, J., Terlouw, C., & Pilot, A. (2009). Neocolonialism in education: Cooperative learning in an Asian context. Comparative Education, 45(1), 109-130. O’Sullivan, M. (2004). The reconceptualisation of learner-centred approaches: A Namibia case study. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(6), 585-602. Riddell, A. (1989). An alternative approach to the study of school effectiveness in Third World countries. Comparative Education Review, 33(4), 481-497. Riddell, A. (1997). Assessing designs for school effectiveness research and school improvement in developing countries. Comparative Education Review, 41(2), 178-204. Riddell, A., & Nyagura, L. (1991). What causes differences in achievement in Zimbabwe’s secondary schools? Washington: World Bank Population and Human Resources Department. Sachs, G., Candlin, C., & Rose, K. (2003). Developing cooperative learning in the Efl/Esl secondary classroom. RELC Journal, 34(3), 338-369. Scheerens, J. (2001). Monitoring school effectiveness in developing countries. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 12(4), 359-384. Schiefelbein, E., & Simmons, J. (1981). The determinants of school achievement in developing countries. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Shachar, H., Sharan, S., & Jacobs, G. (2002). Cooperative learning: Editorial introduction. Asia Pacific Journal of Education [Special Issue on Cooperative Learning], 22(1), 1-2. Simmons, J., & Alexander, L. (1980). Factors which promote school achievement in developing countries: A review of the research. In J. Simmons (Ed.), The education dilemma: Policy issues for developing countries in the 1980s (pp. 77-95). Oxford: Pergamon. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 24968. Tabulawa, R. (2004). Geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice: A case study from Botswana. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 53-73. Tan, I., Sharan, S., & Lee, C. (2007). Group investigation effects on achievement, motivation, and perceptions of students in Singapore. Journal of Educational Research, 100(3), 142-154. Tatto, M. (2008). Teacher policy: A framework for comparative analysis. Prospects, 38, 487508.

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Urwick, J., & Junaidu, S. (1991). The effects of school physical facilities on the processes of education: A qualitative study of Nigerian primary schools. International Journal of Educational Development, 11, 19-29. Vulliamy, G. (1987). School effectiveness research in Papua New Guinea. Comparative Education, 23(2), 209-223. Velez, E., Schiefelbein, E., & Valenzuela, J. (1993). Factors affecting achievement in primary education: A review of the literature for Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington: World Bank Department of Human Resources Development and Operations Policy. Wilson, M. (1990). Science achievement in Papua New Guinea: Cross-national data implications. Comparative Education Review, 34(2), 232-247. Yu, G. (2007). Research evidence of school effectiveness in sub-Saharan Africa. EdQual Working Paper No.12. Bristol: University of Bristol.

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SECTION 2 REFUTATIONS

This section turns to a falsification of Beeby’s stages. In positing a Popperian refutation of the stages, Beeby was bound up in the positivist quest for inevitable universal laws. With only limited qualification, he saw the stages and their progressive philosophy as having applicability to developing countries worldwide. Beeby (1980a, pp. 468-473) did recognise, however, that his stages hypothesis could be relatively easily disproved by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have tried to improve their national educational systems. Thus, his conjecture requires only a single refutation to demonstrate that universal applicability does not exist, which, as Vulliamy (1990, p. 230) observed, can be tested by cumulative case studies within a particular developing country. Papua New Guinea therefore occupies an important methodological position in this book, acting as a Popperian test that falsifies any claims to the universal applicability of the progressive approach. It is a highly relevant methodological test of Beeby’s progressive model because, perhaps more than in any other developing country, his ideas were put into official practice from the late 1960s and still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. The first three chapters on Papua New Guinea proceed first with a test of a progressive teacher education hypothesis. Chapter 6 provides a detailed example of how formalism can provide stability in systems marked by change, using data from my own evaluation of secondary teacher training programmes. In contradiction to Beeby’s progressive approach, the research found that shorter, cheaper formalistic diploma courses were more effective than a longer, more expensive degree course closer to the progressive philosophy. The chapter also shows the positive aspects of formalism in practice in detailing the operations of the school inspectorate and the value of the teaching philosophy within which graduates operated. Chapter 7 broadens the examples from secondary teacher education to evidence about a range of official reforms that were deliberate efforts to replace formalistic teaching and curriculum. Papua New Guinea is a comparatively uncommon example of a developing country with an extensive research literature from the 1960s through to the 1990s that informed educational policy and practice. The chapter reviews some of the more solid qualitative and quantitative research on seven reforms, finding without exception that the progressive

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directions of change hypothesised by the stages model did not occur. Major progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts have failed for 50 years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional, administrative and financial inputs. In itself, each example of failure may not be convincing, but in the absence of any evidence that there have been any sustained successes, the body of findings amounts to a damning case against progressive reform in Papua New Guinea. Clearly, a formalistic teaching style has prevailed in primary and secondary schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace formalism have failed. What are the underlying reasons? Chapter 8 delves into long-term cultural patterns, finding that formalism predated European colonisation in the 1870s, was reinforced by the teaching style introduced by missions and others in colonial schools in the 20th century, and has resisted the efforts of educational reformers since. There is no indication that an evolutionary progression through different types of teaching from Formalism to Meaning is underway in Papua New Guinea. The conclusion is that progressive teaching is inappropriate because it is not culturally congruent with the traditional pedagogical paradigm and the revelatory epistemology on which it is based. Even were working conditions in schools and classrooms improved, formalism would still prevail in Papua New Guinea. In the Popperian sense, the failure of progressive education in Papua New Guinea provides a refutation of the possible universal inevitability of the progressive ideas embedded in the stages model because the predicted changes have not occurred and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future. While it is theoretically and methodologically important, arguably this refutation could be of little practical consequence worldwide because it could be rejected as a small example that is largely irrelevant elsewhere; but not so China. Chapter 9 reviews the English language literature on Chinese education, adding another element to the falsifiability of the stages by generalising the refutation to show that millennia-old educational forms make unlikely the adoption of Western models of progressive education in China. Recent research into classrooms on mainland China has found an apparently stable and widespread approach to formalistic classroom teaching in primary and secondary schools that is supported by institutionalised practices for teachers to develop within this style.

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In positing a Popperian refutation of the stages, Beeby was bound up in the positivist quest for inevitable universal laws. He recognised that his stages hypothesis could be disproved by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have tried to improve their national educational systems. Papua New Guinea provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s progressive model because, perhaps more than in any other developing country, his ideas were put into official practice from the late 1960s and still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. Chapter 6 provides a detailed example of how formalism can provide stability in systems marked by change, using data from my own evaluation of secondary teacher training programmes. In contradiction to Beeby’s progressive approach, the research found that shorter, cheaper formalistic diploma courses were more effective than a longer, more expensive degree course closer to the progressive philosophy. The chapter also shows the positive aspects of formalism in practice in detailing the operations of the school inspectorate and the value of the teaching philosophy within which graduates operated. In small developing countries, a few training institutions without many teacher trainers can have a rapid and long-lasting impact on the school system. In setting up courses, teacher trainers make decisions on type and level of education to be included, partly in response to the style of teacher that they wish to shape. However, tertiary courses that intend to change primary and secondary school teaching styles may be culturally inappropriate if detailed evaluation of teaching styles has not been undertaken and national criteria established. If decisions on courses are inappropriately based on the Progressive Education Fallacy, then all the arguments in this book about teleology and westernisation apply with equal force. Although Beeby did not directly discuss the training of teachers in his book, Musgrave (1974 p. 42) particularly clearly drew the inference that formalistic teachers would be taught “the one best way” to teach a centrally prescribed sylla-

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 105 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_6, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

bus to a fixed timetable, using a restricted number of authorised textbooks and leading to external examinations which, together with a system of inspection, would ensure that standards are met. In contrast, meaning stage education would prepare teachers to meet children’s individual needs as fully as possible, matching material with a wide range of methods. Musgrave’s interpretation of the types of teacher training at different stages had in turn implications for the amount and type of general and professional education. Formal stage teachers would receive an emphasis on teacher ‘training’ for an inflexible classroom role and training to teach specified curriculum content. Meaning stage teachers would receive an emphasis on teacher ‘education’ and a more flexible education with a broader academic approach to disciplinary or inter-disciplinary knowledge. These two approaches typified the two main teacher training programmes in Papua New Guinea in the late 1970s, when secondary schools had existed for barely 20 years and secondary teacher training for only a decade. The small training system was interesting in itself for a multiplicity of programmes, institutional conflict between two small training faculties, and differences between their educational philosophies. More widely, the study is relevant to this book’s concerns for three reasons. One is that it provides a detailed test of Beeby’s teacher education hypothesis, showing a context where teacher education did make a difference, but in the opposite direction to that predicted from Beeby’s progressive conjecture. Second, it illustrates in detail how formalistic classroom teaching and teacher training can be congruent with wider formalistic inspectorial and administrative systems, operating in conjunction with them rather than in antagonism. The third reason is that the study shows that professionals in such systems may operate pragmatically and atheoretically, but embedded in their practice can be coherent informal theories of action.6 6.1 Teacher Education Hypotheses Widespread and on-going professional agreement exists in Papua New Guinea that formalism has prevailed in schools for half a century:

6

Chapter 6 summarises material in Guthrie (1983a) and (1983b), now published by the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute, which has been used with the kind permission of the Institute. A summary was also published in Guthrie (1984), extracts being used here with permission from Elsevier. Changes in the system since the original research were discussed more extensively in Guthrie (2001).

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 

   

formalism was pervasive in the 1960s and 1970s (Beevers 1968; Coyne 1973; Donohoe 1974; Larking 1974; Musgrave 1974; Guthrie 1983a; 1983b); remained pervasive in the 1980s and 1990s (Matane 1986, p. 15; McLaughlin 1990; Pearse et al. 1990, pp. 74-84; Ross 1991a, pp. 85-86; Avalos 1993, p. 110; Burke 1993; Guy 1994, pp. 45-47; McLaughlin 1995, p. 9); has continued to prevail in primary and secondary schoolrooms into this century (Monemone 2003; Wallangas 2003); and has been reinforced by formalistic teacher training (Guthrie 1983b; 1984; McNamara 1989; Avalos 1993; Guy et al. 1997, pp. 36-38; Kiruhia 2003), inspections (Guthrie 1983b; Weeks 1985; Boorer 1993; Thompson 1993; Guy 1994; Mel 2007, pp. 223-224), and examinations (Townsend, Guthrie, & O’Driscoll 1981; Ross 1991b; Mel 2007).

Widespread agreement also exists, even among commentators who sought to replace it, that formalism has been difficult to change, even at tertiary level (McLaughlin 1996, p. 15; Guy et al. 1997, p. 40; Boorer 1999; Nongkas 2007, pp. 246-248). This chapter does not so much focus on the classroom as on other parts of the formalistic education system in turning to my evaluation of the secondary teacher training programmes in the mid-1970s and the inspections philosophy within which their graduates operated. The issue of what effects general and professional education actually have on such a situation in practice had seen little direct analysis in developing countries at the time of the 1980 review of Beeby’s model. Then, Beeby wrote that there were two main hypotheses implicit in his 1966 book: 1. 2.

that there is a recognisable progression in the life-history of most educational systems, and ... one stage ... is a necessary prelude to the stage which follows, and that passage through the stages is limited by the levels of general education and professional training of the teachers (Beeby 1980b, p. 441).

As Beeby (1980a, p. 468) noted, Hypothesis 2 in this form was meaningless unless Hypothesis 1 were true. The analysis presented in Chapter 3.1 rejected the teleological and methodological bases of Hypothesis 1 as invalid, and so the formulation of Hypothesis 2 was rejected. However, it was still possible to make sound

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analytical sense if the hypotheses were stripped of their surplus assumptions about stages. My revision of the second hypothesis was: there is a positive relationship between teachers’ general education and professional training as independent variables and teacher performance as dependent variable (Guthrie 1982, pp. 293-294). The revised hypothesis provides a formal test of progressive theory in a form that is methodologically sound, testing the progressive conjecture but removing the teleological bias of progressive teaching as a goal. Some evidence from the first generation literature reviews in Chapter 5.1 gave support for the hypothesis in developing countries, but made clear that the nature of the relationships is complex and varies considerably between different educational and cultural contexts. In this research, the secondary teacher training programmes constituted the independent variable. The ex post facto evaluation assessed the five most important sources of trained teachers arriving in secondary schools from 1976 to 1978: 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

The two-year pre-service Diploma in Secondary Teaching (DipST) at Goroka Teacher’s College (GTC) for high school leavers. The one-year primary secondary Conversion Course at GTC, funded by a World Bank loan to speed ‘localisation’ by allowing trained primary teachers to become Generalist Teachers in the two lower secondary school grades. A one-year pre-service Diploma in Teaching (Agriculture) at GTC for trained agriculturalists. The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) four-year Pre-service Bachelor of Education (BEd) at the Faculty of Education for high school leavers. The UPNG two-year In-service BEd at the Faculty of Education for experienced teachers with a teaching diploma (Guthrie 1984).

In light of a decision to use inspection reports as the dependent variable, a further refinement of the research hypotheses guided the analytical focus of the study: 1. 2.

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Increased amounts of professional training will result in graduates being rated as more professionally acceptable by inspectors. Increased amounts of general education will systematically add to the professional acceptability of graduates.

Chapter 6 Formalistic Schooling System in Papua New Guinea

The dependent variables were relevant to meeting education system requirements because this was an evaluation of the professional effectiveness of the teacher training system in meeting national requirements, not a school or classroom effectiveness study as such. Two main considerations led to the use of inspectors’ ratings of teacher performance: the difficulty of judging ‘good’ teaching in a crosscultural post-colonial context (which provided a mixture of validity, reliability and relevance concerns) and the policy orientation of the research. The study could have followed the lead of the school effectiveness research then beginning to surface and evaluated the teachers professionally using student achievement. The problem was that there were no sound achievement tests available. Any imported from overseas would have raised questions about relevance and cross-cultural validity; while the Grade 10 Examination used within Papua New Guinea was regarded as invalid and unreliable, in part because of lack of specification of syllabus objectives (Townsend, Guthrie, & O’Driscoll 1981, pp. 16-18, 39-40). There were also doubts about the reliability of locally developed psychological selection tests (Guthrie & Robin 1977). Use of student achievement would inevitably have turned the research into an exercise in tests and testing rather than an evaluation of the teacher training system. A second possible approach lay with study of classroom interaction, especially through Flanders’ Interaction Analysis. Like testing, this would have provided a narrow basis for an evaluation of the wide roles teachers were expected to play, would have been of limited value for practical school subjects, and in any case its progressive assumptions were highly questionable (Dunkin & Biddle 1974, p. 361; Avalos & Haddad 1981, pp. 37, 49-51). The third option was use of observational rating schedules. After consideration, the decision was to use the inspectors’ observational ratings. They had validity on their side in assessing seven teacher roles, and relevance as the institutionalised means by which the Department of Education assessed teacher performance, providing what turned out to be a well considered form of written professional judgement. The fact that they were also formalistic was not an a priori reason either to use or not use them; rather their contextual or ecological validity became a subject of the research. However, no claim was made that the ratings measured ‘good’ teaching in any sense other than they measured the professional acceptability of secondary teachers as offically defined in the school system. A graduate tracer study found 870 formal written inspection reports on 578 graduates, which were used to provide data on two dependent variable sets. The first use was to generate descriptive statistics on graduate attrition and turnover. The second was to allow statistical testing of inspectors’ professional ratings of these graduates to assess their professional acceptability in schools. The mixed methods research also used available programme materials, official documenta-

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tion, questionnaires, interviews, participant observation in both faculties, and nonparticipant observation of the inspection system. 6.2 Secondary Teacher Training The descendants of successive waves of migrants from Southeast Asia have lived in Papua New Guinea for 50,000 years or more. The rugged island remained little known to the outside world and contact with European explorers and traders dated only from the early 16th century. The first European settlement started in the early 1870s with groups of traders and missionaries. The northern, New Guinea half was a German colony from 1884 to 1914, becoming an Australian territory mandated by the League of Nations in 1921 following World War I. The southern, Papua half became a British colony in 1888 and then an Australian territory in 1906, remaining so until Self Governance in 1973 and Independence in 1975. The classical colonial period lasted close to 100 years (Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 2933). Prior to the 1960s, very little secondary schooling was provided in either Papua or New Guinea. Then, however, pressure to expand rapidly meant increased demand for secondary teachers. The 1964 Currie Report on Higher Education envisaged an efficient, integrated tertiary education complex in Port Moresby giving teacher education high priority (Currie et al. 1964; Guthrie 1983c). But in 1967, impatient with delay and other academic priorities at the newly established University of Papua New Guinea, the Australian Administration’s Department of Education converted Goroka Teacher’s College, which had commenced primary teacher training in 1961, to a secondary college. GTC quickly began to produce teachers with a two-year diploma intended to equip them for lower secondary classes. A Faculty of Education was not established at UPNG until 1970. It began a degree programme intended to equip teachers for the full range of secondary teaching, but output was low and initially was predominantly expatriate. From the outset, closer association of GTC with UPNG was advocated by the Department of Education. UPNG was resistant, but when the Department began discussion on amalgamation of GTC with the rival University of Technology in Lae in 1972, UPNG moved with uncharacteristic speed and incorporated GTC at the beginning of 1975. The effect was that the College in Goroka became a faculty of subgraduate secondary teacher training providing formalistic one- and two-year undergraduate diplomas. The smaller Education Faculty in Port Moresby concentrated more on progressive degree education. The amalgamation did not result in academic or administrative integration. Distance meant operational rationalisation was expensive and impractical. Any expectation that two institutions 420 kilometres apart and with no road connection could

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develop a close working relationship was unrealistic; rather they co-existed. While GTC administration followed UPNG policies, operations were decentralised. GTC did not initially receive representation on the UPNG Academic Board equivalent to Port Moresby faculties and largely governed its programme through a lively Board of Studies. At first, relations between Faculty and College were distrustful. Closer professional association did develop gradually, but by the late 1970s had evolved into an acceptance of the status quo of two largely independent programmes maintaining their existing focusses. In effect, the College remained to a large extent administratively and academically autonomous. Two themes intertwined in the programmes evaluated. One theme emphasised teacher training, the other teacher education. In Western terms, one was educationally conservative, the other was educationally progressive. The training versus education distinction governed internal organisation of programmes to a considerable but certainly not complete extent. GTC’s pre-service sub-graduate diplomas aimed to lay a foundation of professional training in teaching methods and content closely allied to the grades 7-10 high school curriculum. Teaching practice occurred in all years including a foundation year. Academic staff provided courses with variable approaches to structuring subject and professional content, and variations occurred between and within departments and over time. Overall, the DipST and the Conversion Course were both formalistic, while the DipT (Agriculture) during the study period was even more so. The Faculty’s Pre-service BEd also involved concern for high school realities, but professional education and teaching practice were end-on in the 4th year following a broad general education in the Arts and Science Faculties. Despite a shift in professional content in the mid-1970s from a Meaning to a Transition approach (in Beeby’s terminology), with more emphasis on the classroom and teaching skills, the differences from GTC remained clear. Staff and student recruitment reflected these approaches (Guthrie 1983a, pp. 63-71). Goroka staff tended to have narrower international experience, lower academic qualifications and publish less, but to have more teaching experience in Papua New Guinean schools. The main academic reason given for the amalgamation was to raise standards at GTC. Intake levels, based on grade 10 school results, rose in 1975, but remained lower than those of the Faculty. Most potential students made a commitment to teaching at the end of grade 10 and chose a threeyear career path (including a foundation year) through GTC as a more attractive option than a five-year path through the Pre-service BEd, or a six-year path through grade 12 at national high school. The Pre-service degree also suffered from internal competition with other degree offerings, and was unpopular with the majority of its students who were forced into it through academic streaming (Lornie 1981, pp. 208-214).

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Despite differences in philosophy, the programmes had in common the major target of localising the secondary teacher training force as rapidly as possible. Quantitative data on efficiency showed that GTC’s concentration on a narrower range of sub-graduate diplomas produced 1915 graduates between 1969 and 1980 (Guthrie 1981; 1983a, pp. 72-84; 1984, pp. 206-207). The Faculty offered a wide range of small programmes (from sub-graduate diploma to doctorate) for primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Its output until 1980 was only 35% of GTC’s, 45% being secondary-trained teachers (compared with about 75% of GTC’s output), and with about 60% at degree or graduate diploma level. Cost-efficiency findings supported the main GTC programme, the DipST, while data on graduate placement and retention seriously questioned the role of the Pre-service BEd in meeting its stated aim of producing high school teachers:

   

Higher output and lower costs made GTC a relatively efficient organisation. The cost of producing a diplomate was one-third to one-half that of a degree holder. The DipST produced approximately five times the number of teachers (355) as the Pre-service BEd (74) from 1976 to 1978. The tracer study found that 86% to 96% of diplomates commenced teaching. Only 49% of the Pre-service BEd’s graduates began teaching, although another 30% took up other educational positions, a total of 78%. Teacher turnover from all programmes was high. Attrition of diplomates ranged from 11% to 13% a year in the first two years of teaching, while attrition of degree programme graduates was 38% a year.

From the above data, it was estimated that 76% of DipST graduates, 70% of Conversion Course graduates, and 63% of DipT (Agriculture) graduates would be in the classroom at the beginning of their third year of teaching. The comparative teacher survival rate for the Pre-service BEd was 18%. Only half the BEd graduates took up teaching and attrition rates were three-four times higher than the GTC diplomates. Thus, the GTC diplomas were more successful in contributing to the localisation goal, with greater output and higher survival rates from fewer, shorter and cheaper programmes. Qualitative data rated numerically also favoured the effectiveness in schools of the diplomates (Guthrie 1983a, pp. 85-100). The inspectors’ written reports on teachers were medium to high inference global reports. They contained eight items covering performance inside and outside the classroom: Preparation and Planning, Administrative Routines, Teaching Effectiveness, Professional Development, Relationships, Extra-curricular Activities, and School Duties, plus a Summary. Use

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of item analysis procedures allowed interpretation of the reports according to domain sampling theory (Nunnally 1978). The inspectors’ rating procedures were based on the assumption that overall the reports measured aspects of teacher ‘quality’ that provided a basis for promotion, which was defined for the study as the professional acceptability domain. This domain was sampled by the item headings in the inspection reports, which were assigned scores through coding by the researcher, which was tested successfully for inter-rater reliability against two inspectors’ coding (given that the purpose of my coding was to match the system’s professional acceptability requirements). Total item scores for each teacher provided scale scores aggregated by training programme and subjected to item analysis. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was .79 for all 870 reports, well above the .65 necessary to distinguish between programmes. This was particularly high given only eight scale items: this level of reliability is often not reached with multipoint tests until they have about twice this number. With alpha = .79 for all reports, 62% of total variance was explained by the eight items. One-way ANOVA on the total scale scores then resulted in rejection of the research hypotheses predicting that the longer programmes would be more successful:

 



There were no significant differences between DipST, Conversion Course, DipT (Agriculture) and Pre-service BEd graduates, with p ranging from .12 to .80. Other 1-way ANOVA tests found no significant differences on the eight inspectorial report headings, although there was a general tendency for teachers to rate higher on non-classroom than on classroom-centred activities. The available controls on intervening variables indicated few significant effects within each year since graduation. Although there might have been longitudinal interaction effects, their influence on the strong pattern of null results was judged to be small.

Conceivably the lack of difference between programmes could have been an artefact of converting written reports to numerical scales. An important triangulation showed this was not so. The importance in the school system of the null pattern of results was shown by independent evidence about teacher promotion rates. There was no significant difference between the four programme graduates’ rates of registration as teachers and eligibility for promotion as awarded through the inspection system. Thus, the differences between the programmes had neither statistical nor educational significance. The theoretically based research and the official

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promotion system both showed that the degree qualifications had no advantages in schools. Delving behind the null statistical results from the inspection reports, questionnaires and interviews showed that in the inspectors’ professional opinion there were indeed some differences between programme graduates’ performance, in part according to subject knowledge criteria not included in their formal reports. Inspectors informally considered many aspects of the diplomates’ performance to be superior to that of degree holders. The DipST teachers, on average, had the most satisfactory available combination of teaching skills, professional attitudes and subject knowledge, although the latter was often not strong. The ex-primary Conversion Course teachers were often regarded as good teachers at lower levels of secondary schools but tended to be weaker in subject knowledge. DipT (Agriculture) teachers were considered to have very narrow abilities. The best of the Pre-service BEd teachers were considered the best of all the teachers, particularly because of their content knowledge, but they were polarised between those with positive and negative professional attitudes. In effect, degree level knowledge was considered desirable, but not if acquired through the existing pre-service degree. In sum, the diplomas were far more cost-efficient and just as effective as the pre-service degree. The shorter, cheaper formalistic diplomas supplied more teachers, more of whom entered teaching and stayed there. They were just as professionally acceptable as graduates from the low producing, longer, more expensive progressive degree programme. Thus the research hypotheses were rejected:

 Increased amounts of professional training did not result in graduates be

ing rated as more professionally acceptable by inspectors. Nor did increased amounts of general education systematically add to the professional acceptability of graduates.

Teacher education did make a difference, but in the opposite direction to that predicted from Beeby’s progressive theory. (Likewise, Roberts (1981), in a study of primary mathematics teachers in Papua New Guinea supervised by myself, also found no effects of increased general and professional education on teacher performance.) Research hypotheses are formal analytical tools whose rejection can be as instructive as their acceptance. Rejection of the hypotheses might seem to support the view that teacher training did not have an important influence. Such an interpretation would be superficial. There were no significant differences in the dependent variable of professional acceptability of programme graduates, but there were differences in the independent variable of the programmes themselves. This

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demonstrated that the differences between programmes were both influential and not in the hypothesised progressive direction. A variety of factors affecting the type of training counterbalanced the short length of the DipST, in particular. It was more successful than the longer Pre-service BEd because it laid a concrete operational foundation of professional skills and syllabus knowledge that later could lead inductively to higher order understanding of the theoretical principles from which practice derived. Because the diploma had educational content and teaching practice each year including the foundation year, it also served the affective purpose of maintaining student motivation to be teachers. In contrast, the Faculty degree was based on deductive principles, providing academic disciplinary knowledge prior to an end-on year of educational studies and teaching theory from which practical applications could later be derived. By then in their fifth year at university, the students had often lost any motivation to be teachers. The shorter, more practical, formalistic GTC training was just as satisfactory in meeting the requirements of the schools and classrooms as the progressive-influenced degree approach. One conclusion was that, if Papua New Guinea were to get a secondary teacher training system capable of operating successfully into the 21st century, the fundamental problem of structural inefficiency needed to be faced, and that amalgamation should occur at Goroka (Guthrie 1983d). Educational and economic considerations justified concentrating investment on GTC given the high cost of two small teacher training institutions, one of which was not performing. The recommended approach for the future was inductive formalistic training programmes focussing on operational skills at diploma level and, after a professional sandwich of teaching for a minimum of two years, addition of higher level conceptual knowledge through modular in-service degrees. The research had little immediate effect on the structure of the teacher education programmes, but was an influence on the subsequent amalgamation of secondary teacher education some 10 years later. During the 1980s, the Faculty came under pressure to justify its existence. It was unable to meet manpower demand for graduate teachers and its graduates were not esteemed highly by their main intended employer, the Department of Education. These threats continued directly and indirectly as part of pressure on an inefficient higher education sector to rationalise, with a high level Education Sector Committee in 1984 – part of a major national planning exercise contributing to a Medium Term Development Plan – being highly critical of inefficiencies in higher education (NPO 1984; Guthrie 1985). Central planning authorities maintained pressure throughout the 1980s and the Education Faculty ultimately could not escape. Both College and Faculty staff resisted the final step of amalgamation at Goroka, but in 1992 the UPNG Council bowed to the external pressure and decided to unify teacher

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education on the one campus at Goroka. Rather than a modular sandwich approach, the two-year DipST had become a three-year programme for cost reasons in the early 1980s; it became a four-year degree course in 1995. Postgraduate studies soon followed. Political action to establish universities in all four regions of the country during the lead up to a national election saw the Government in 1997 declare the University of Goroka as the university located in the Highlands (Guthrie 2001, pp. 1-2). The University has since mainly run an expanded secondary Pre-service BEd (albeit partly an end-on model), a modular In-service BEd (mainly for primary diplomates), and a post-graduate teaching diploma (to qualify arts and science graduates now teaching in secondary schools without professional training). 6.3 Secondary Inspection System Rejection of the formal research hypotheses predicting that the degree programme would be more successful professionally than the diploma programme was no surprise at all because the College’s approach was more relevant to the school system. But what was the inspectorate that adjudicated programme success and what was the educational philosophy that it represented? The development of inspections in Papua New Guinea was a classical case of colonial influence, with a direct lineal connection to inspections that were introduced in England in 1840, followed soon after in the British colony of New South Wales in 1848, then Queensland when it became separate in 1859, and in Papua immediately after World War I as part of a payment by results system of grants to mission schools. After World War II, a formal primary inspection system based on Queensland practices was established in both Papua and New Guinea. At first, free-wheeling district inspectors with wide authority were field heads for school administration and a more systematic classroom inspection system only developed in the 1960s. The secondary inspectorate came about after 1964 in response to expansion of secondary schooling and had only been in existence for some 15 years at the time of this study. Then, there were 12 field inspectors, each responsible for visiting, on average, 8 schools with 117 teachers three times a year (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 11-19). Beeby (1967) was a direct influence on the inspectorate’s development as part of the new National Education System in 1970 with his view that an inspectorate was a necessary part of formalistic school systems. The intention in the 1960s and 1970s was to promote a change from inspectorial quality control to a curriculum advisory role more in keeping with progressive tenets. In practice, the evaluative role continued to dominate, primarily because the system was based on promotion by ability and needed to evaluate teacher performance. The inspectors retained an

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administrative role too because they were the only headquarters officers with constant and frequent field responsibilities, albeit most actually located in the provinces. The inspectors’ official duty statement showed a combination of administrative, advisory and evaluative roles that were easy enough to distinguish in principle but not so clear in practice (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 19-40). These roles were carried out during two “advisory visits” earlier in the school year and an end-of-year “inspection visit”. In the administrative role, the inspectors acted as liaison officers between national and provincial headquarters, schools and teachers, also playing an important role in ensuring schools’ proper internal functioning. The advisory role related to in-service supervision, identifying teachers’ professional problems and providing non-evaluative counsel on overcoming them. The evaluative role involved formal inspections for the purposes of teacher registration and promotion. This role was primary, and it conditioned the advisory role to give the term latent meaning. Inspectors gave ‘advice’ during their advisory visits, but if this was not implemented by the inspection visit, the teacher could receive a negative inspection report. The non-participant observation part of the research included following three inspectors on seven days of school visits. Several features were noted. Inspectors continually emphasised ‘quality’, broadly covering the ‘tone’ of the school, the need for planning and preparation in all professional aspects of school life, and inservice needs. An important feature of the visits was the large volume of work covered and the thoroughness of investigations and crosschecking of teachers’ daybooks, lesson plans, programmes, assessment records, in-service files and student books. The inspector was the system-defined expert on everything from classroom, subject and school administration, through teaching methods, lesson planning, programming, and in-service and the curriculum for all subjects, to exams and assessment procedures. Practicalities meant that the inspectors had to be generalists with few opportunities to specialise in any particular subject. Perhaps because of this, lesson observation comments focussed on teaching structure and process, covering such matters as lesson plans, classroom presentation and language use (teachers and students both operated in English as a foreign language), but rarely focussed on subject content. All this was in the context of highly inexperienced staff in a new school system. Nearly all of the teachers and subject heads were in their first four years of teaching, while principals commonly had only six years of experience. Clearly, many teachers had only a superficial grasp of their duties, and some did not attend to a number of them. With heads and deputies having full administrative loads, inspectors played a vital part in ensuring that schools continued to function at subject department and classroom level. As part of this role, on their first visit of the

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year the inspectors wrote comprehensive reports on the functioning of each school, which provided action lists for principals and kept headquarters informed about field conditions. Inspectors even made confidential quarterly reports to the Secretary for Education on major issues and problems, which indicated a high degree of confidence in them by the top administrators. Additionally, three conferences a year discussed professional matters, four of which I observed during the course of the research. The conferences provided quite rapid and often blunt feedback to national and provincial administrators on issues such as staff shortages, mismanagement of school funds and resources, security problems in schools and shortages of materials. The final field visit of the year resulted in the formal inspection reports used as the basis of the teacher training evaluation. These visits showed that the inspections were a year-long process based on an accumulation of information from a number of people besides the inspector. By the end of the year, the inspector had usually observed five or six lessons by each inspectee, held three or four interviews with each one, discussed each teacher several times with senior staff, and usually considered written reports on them by the principal. Through this process the inspectors built up a file of material on each teacher and between them were professionally informed about nearly every practitioner in the schools. This was not a secret process: the teachers were closely involved and legal regulations underlay the procedures. Teachers were made aware of the likely contents of the final report before it was submitted, and could challenge the contents. Teachers appeared to accept the system willingly, looked to inspectors for guidance and sometimes placed considerable trust in them over personal matters. Inspection reports were then put before the formal end-of-year “ratings conference” involving all inspectors (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 41-49). The reports were each subjected very methodically to peer judgement through officially defined procedures, the central part of which was the reading aloud of inspection reports and adjudication by fellow inspectors of the grade to be assigned to the report and therefore the teacher. These conferences had an air of formality bordering on legalism, and indeed both inspections and rights of appeal had a statutory basis. The formal procedures cut both ways, but reinforced the inspectors’ position more than the teachers’ position for two main reasons: while the reports were written clearly, interpretation of them required esoteric knowledge of the evaluative significance of wordings; and inspectors had much greater familiarity with the procedures. Nonetheless, representatives of the teachers’ union, who were present throughout all proceedings at the ratings conferences, expressed satisfaction with the processes. The primacy of the inspectors might create the impression that they were a generator of conservative even oppressive pressure within the system, but it was apparent in the conferences that senior administrators – entirely national – were

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requiring the inspectors – two-thirds expatriate – to strengthen evaluative standards, for example in giving teachers fewer chances before they could be terminated. The system was very hierarchical and the inspectors were as subject to this as anyone else was. Formalism was not a peculiarity of the inspectorate, but was fundamental to the whole system. 6.4 Practical Theory of Formalism Inspectors were the keepers of standards, their evaluative role dominating advisory and administrative functions. During the period of the research, these three roles kept the secondary school system functioning adequately. Without the inspectorial procedures, arguably many schools would have ground to a halt. The procedures were based on practical experience rather than formal educational theory, but they had a legal foundation and were carefully thought out. As headquarters’ field agents for quality, inspectors closely monitored the high school situation through their three annual visits. In building up considerable information about the schools and the teachers, inspectors had knowledge that could carry over for several years, providing stability in a school system marked by inexperience and rapid turnover. The inspectorate was a body of senior professionals trusted by its own seniors to evaluate teachers and schools, and allowed considerable authority to do so. The inspectorate’s approach to rating teachers was underpinned by an informal theory of formalism consistent with the definition used in this book (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 50-53). Their pragmatic theory placed the teacher firmly in control of whole-class processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with the main emphasis on knowing basic facts and principles. Teachers were expected to have dominant roles and students generally to be passive, although limited overt teacher-student and student-student interaction was encouraged under conditions controlled by the teacher. Students were expected to have individual work and, on occasion, group work. Additionally, formalistic syllabuses, inspections, examinations and administration, for which the inspectors were keystones, set the tone for schools and classrooms. The inspectorate had not expressed this formalistic construct in writing, but the underpinning could be inferred from the statutes, official notices, handbooks, conference minutes and procedures circulars detailing the inspectorial system, as well as from observation in the schools and conferences and analysis of the reports on teachers and schools. The inspectors’ approach constituted what Elbaz (1983) called practical knowledge, which was one of the applications of construct theory noted by Tabulawa (1998). All this provided the backdrop to inspectors’ preference for the GTC diplomates, who best complied with the formalistic requirements.

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Inspectorial formalism recognised that unsureness lay at the base of many teachers’ professional activities and attempted to generate confidence from understanding of educational routines whose outcomes were clear. The teacher, isolated in the classroom and often in a remote school, was linked to the system outside the school by the inspector and precious few other individuals with whom the teacher had direct contact. Undoubtedly, the inspection system restricted some teachers, for example by insistence on the keeping of full daybooks for three years after graduation. However, nearly all of the Papua New Guinean teachers in high schools had sub-graduate diplomas giving them only 13 years of formal education, and were from backgrounds that ensured that even this represented a great educational distance from their cultural origins. For most, the inspectors were not restrictive of classroom behaviours because their orientation was to diversify and improve teachers’ skills. Discipline for teachers was largely external to the schools, and the inspectorate was the agent for this. Such discipline could be considered in two ways. First, there was discipline of the type that inspectors preferred: compliance with formal routines, which – even when not fully understood by practitioners – provided a standard for assessing and improving performance. In their continual emphasis on lesson planning, daybook keeping, programme preparation, roll keeping, records maintenance and so on, the inspectors constantly tried to establish a disciplined approach to teaching. Teachers who followed the routines were likely to receive positive reinforcement in the form of promotion but, more importantly, their students were likely to benefit from a more thorough and systematic approach to schooling both in and out of the classroom. Teachers who did not follow the routines were likely to be the recipients of the second side of discipline: punishment for failure to follow requirements. Failure to be registered or promoted was a serious matter not taken lightly by the inspectors. Their inspections were designed to ensure that, within the available resources, teachers were assessed as systematically as possible, and that the assessment had built-in checks and balances. Because of their knowledge and control over procedures, the routines gave the inspectors much more power than the teachers but, in a period closely following Independence, the inspectors were under instruction to strengthen both forms of discipline. By many, including initially myself, such inspection systems were regarded as conservative and restrictive. By others more influenced by positivism, they were also regarded as non-scientific, subjective and therefore invalid. However, the inspection system did provide a great deal more than personal impressions of teacher performance. The inspectors were professionally qualified and highly experienced education officers who undertook systematic evaluations resulting in structured reports. Their methodology used a combination of qualitative tech-

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niques (involving observation schedules, available records and staff interviews) and their findings were compared closely with those of school administrators; all of which fed into reports written to strict criteria. The procedures went a long way towards making formal, written professional judgements through the range of methods used, formalisation of written reports and strong peer review (Guthrie 2004). Nonetheless, the reports contained high-inference global judgements about teachers’ performance. The research found procedures that could be upgraded, including a need to reduce the number of single ratings used to rate multiple variables. There was a high degree of procedural conformity but significant differences between individual inspectors’ ratings. This indicated a need for training of inspectors in observation techniques to help improve inter-rater reliability, an issue of which they were well aware. The .79 alpha coefficient was very adequate for programme level research, but was not at the .85 necessary to distinguish reliably between individual teachers, which was the purpose of the inspection system. Application of the Spearman-Brown formula showed that to increase reliability from .79 to .85 the reports needed 12 items, assuming similar items to those existing. Content validity was also an issue because domain sampling required that all content of the domain be sampled. However, the research showed that the inspectors considered there were three elements to professional acceptability (subject knowledge, professional skills and professional attitudes), but subject knowledge was not sampled by the inspection reports. The four extra items in the reports needed to include teacher subject knowledge to add greater content validity to the classroom observation schedules. The technical issues demonstrate why no formal scientific claims of validity or reliability were made for the ratings procedures. In particular, content validity meant that the rejection of the teacher education hypothesis was not conclusive. Perhaps, if inspectors had rated subject knowledge, the Pre-service BEd graduates would have been more professionally acceptable and the second part of the research hypothesis (that increased amounts of general education will systematically add to the professional acceptability of graduates) might have been supported. However, a further possibility was that the depth of the formalistic paradigm would have outweighed any such effect. The inspection reports helped optimise validity, reliability and relevance. Ecological validity increased through research into the inspectorial system as a functioning real world entity. Triangulation increased reliability through crosschecking of data from subjectivist and objectivist research techniques. Relevance to teacher education increased through evaluating graduate teacher performance in the field as assessed by the education system’s own criteria. A more positivist approach, perhaps evaluating teachers under experimental classroom conditions,

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would have increased the reliability and replicability of the research. However, it would have reduced validity because of the introduction of artificial controls and the lack of alternative dependent variables validated in this cultural context. A more post-positivist approach, perhaps studying the inspectors’ or the teachers’ subjective views, would have increased knowledge of their social constructs, but not in ways that would have been of much value for recommendations on the effectiveness of the teacher education system. While validity, reliability or relevance could have been maximised individually through alternative approaches, it is doubtful whether the same degree of balance between these competing requirements would have been achieved. The research was used by the inspectorate to review its operations, the Superintendent of Inspections, Neil Murray (1983), making the point that while the inspectorate possibly could become rigid in a stable system, there was little chance of this occurring in one changing rapidly. Although the research was conducted from 1978-81, it still retains relevance within the country. Schools have continued in a state of change since the early 1980s and the inspectorial system was modified along with the rest of the education system during the 1980s and early 1990s (Boorer 1993; Thompson 1993). The inspection system continues to be updated, but the fundamental principles are still in place, remaining entrenched as the means by which the Department of Education maintains operational stability and professional standards in schools (Mel 2007, pp. 223-224). Its formalistic theory continues to be the best-tested approach in Papua New Guinea schools to teacher registration and promotion on ability as defined by teachers’ professional acceptability. The lack of formal theory backing the inspectorate’s professional knowledge demonstrated the inadequacy of formal theory rather than the inadequacy of practical experience. These professional educators made considerable use of informal educational theory constituting a highly developed system of practical knowledge that the research was able to systematise, thereby broadening understanding of their constructs. Pragmatic theories of action like the inspectorate’s do need critical analysis if they are to provide sound explanatory theory because, without critical analysis, the long-term value of the pragmatic action is suspect. Equally suspect is the rejection of pragmatic informal theories of education without an acceptable level of formal analysis. One implication is that educational reformers in Papua New Guinea cannot reject formalistic teaching as an inspectorial artefact. Progressive critics of the system – who these days tend to be aid-funded expatriate curriculum specialists or overseas trained teacher educators influenced by progressive Anglophone approaches – have two major dilemmas. One dilemma remains that a more workable system for ensuring promotion by ability has yet to be devised. The inspection

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system is not problematic; it is symptomatic, and the formalistic approach remains highly appropriate to the teachers and the system. Alternative theories of teaching would require systematic demonstration that they are more appropriate if they were to be taken seriously, and this has not happened in the 30 years since the research took place. The second dilemma is that formalism has long pre-colonial cultural roots in Papua New Guinea. To reject inspectorial formalism is to reject the deeper cultural paradigm that we will see in Chapter 8. Indeed, to be anything other than respectful of such traditions opens critics of formalism to political and cultural attack for having viewpoints scarcely compatible with the post-colonial rhetoric in which their criticism is sometimes wrapped. It is yet to be seen whether Papua New Guinean critics will mount any sustained and well-reasoned challenge to formalism. 6.5 Conclusion Underlying the teacher training findings were two major relevance issues. The first was the relevance of formalism to the local educational culture; in effect, its ecological validity. Essentially, the Faculty’s degree had a progressive teacher ‘education’ approach; the College emphasised formalistic teacher ‘training’. The undergraduate Goroka diploma, in particular, was more successful educationally than the Port Moresby degree because it was based on the inductive learning of professional skills and knowledge, laying an experiential foundation on which students could later build theoretical principles. The professional success of the formalistic Goroka approach lay in its congruence with the requirements of the education system. The second issue is the relevance of this case study to other countries. The Papua New Guinea example shows very clearly the extent to which formalistic classrooms can be embedded in formalistic schools, inspections, teacher training and administration. These do not just provide practical barriers to change or generate inertia: there can be many constructive reasons for such systems to maintain stability. Nor does this amount to an argument for radical change to the entire system, because formalism is often a manifestation of long and meaningful cultural paradigms. Even if experimental research does show that progressive classrooms can generate desired learnings in such cultures (i.e. demonstrate that the Progressive Education Fallacy is not a fallacy in schools in a particular context), the cultural depths of revelatory paradigms mean that the broader culture will likely be resilient to incompatable elements introduced in the relatively minor classroom setting. Short-term progressive pilot projects may generate temporary change in parts of such a system, but they are unlikely to change the whole system.

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References Avalos, B. (1993). Ideology, policy and educational change. In C. Thirlwall, & B. Avalos (Eds.), Participation and educational change: Implications for educational reform in Papua New Guinea (pp. 99-124). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Avalos, B., & Haddad, W. (1981). Review of teacher effectiveness research in Africa, India, Latin America, Middle East, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand: Synthesis of results. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Beeby, C.E. (1967). Improving the quality of education. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 5(l), 3-18. Beeby, C.E. (1980a). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Beeby, C.E. (1980b). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439444. Beevers, R. (1968). Curriculum change in developing countries. Unpublished Master of Education thesis, University of Leicester. Boorer, D. (1993). School inspectors as agents of change within the Papua New Guinea school system. In C. Thirlwall, & B. Avalos (Eds.), Participation and educational change: Implications for educational reform in Papua New Guinea (pp. 195-201). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Boorer, D. (1999). Adopting the andragogic model in Papua New Guinea: Some practical and theoretical considerations. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 35(2), 75-80. Burke, C. (1993). From basic skills to reflective practice. In C. Thirlwall, & B. Avalos (Eds.), Participation and educational change: Implications for educational reform in Papua New Guinea (pp. 219-236). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Coyne, G. (1973). Education in Papua New Guinea schools. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 9(1), 17-21. Currie, G., Gunther, J.T., & Spate, O.H.K. (1964). Report of the Commission on Higher Education in Papua and New Guinea. Canberra: Department of Territories. Donohoe, D.J. (1974). Monitoring educational development in a foreign culture – spotlight the problem areas. In Educational Perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 30-44). Melbourne: Australian College of Education. Dunkin, M.J., & Biddle, B.J. (1974). The study of teaching. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Elbaz, F. (1983). Teacher thinking: A study of practical knowledge. New York: Nichols. Guthrie, G. (1981). Secondary teacher training output in the 1970s. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 17(1), 102-110. Guthrie, G. (1982). Reviews of teacher training and teacher performance in developing countries: Beeby revisited (2). International Review of Education, 28(3), 291-306. Guthrie, G. (1983a). An evaluation of the secondary teacher training system. Report No.44. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1983b). The secondary inspectorate. Report No.45. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1983c). Conflict and consensus in the development of the University of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 19(2), 35-45. Guthrie, G. (1983d). Policy issues in planning secondary teacher training in Papua New Guinea. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 11(1), 33-42.

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Guthrie, G. (1984). Secondary Teacher Training Effectiveness in Papua New Guinea. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 10(2), 205-208. Guthrie, G. (1985). The role of teachers in national development. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 265-281. Guthrie, G. (2001). Then and now: Secondary teacher education 20 years later, Papua New Guinea Journal of Teacher Education, 5(4) & 6(1): 1-8. Guthrie, G. (2004). Typology of educational knowledge. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 40(1), 1-11. Guthrie, G., & Robin, R. (1977). Motivation and ability: selection of in-service trainees. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 13(2), 29-39. Guy, R. (1994). Reconstructing teachers as reflective practitioners in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 30(1), 45-59. Guy, R., Haihuie, S., & Pena, P. (1997). Research, knowledge and the management of learning in distance education in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(1), 33-41. Kiruhia, J. (2003). The practicum as experienced in the student teacher role. In A. Maha, & T. Flaherty (Eds.), Education for 21st century in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific (pp. 109-116). Goroka: University of Goroka. Larking, L.G (1974). Some difficulties in improving the quality of teachers in Papua New Guinea. In Educational perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 130-137). Melbourne: Australian College of Education. Lornie, R. (1981). Inputs and outputs: The supply of pre-service education graduates to the teaching profession. In P. Smith, & S. Weeks (Eds.), Teachers and teaching: Proceedings of the 1980 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 207-224). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Matane, P. (Chairman). (1986). A philosophy of education for Papua New Guinea: Ministerial Committee report. Port Moresby: Department of Education. McLaughlin, D. (1990). A curriculum for teacher education: Some preliminary considerations. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(1), 29-35. McLaughlin, D. (1995). Teaching for understanding: The Melanesian perspective. Papua New Guinea Journal of Teacher Education, 2(1), 7-15. McLaughlin, D. (1996). A view from the inside: A Papua New Guinean at study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 32(1), 15-30. McNamara, V. (1989). Future directions of community school teacher education. Port Moresby: Department of Education. Mel, M. (2007). Quality assurance and assessment in education in Papua New Guinea. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 6(3), 219-228. Monemone, T. (2003). Formalistic teaching is not imposed, it is indigenous to Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism], 39(2), 9195. Murray, N. (1983). Foreword. In Guthrie, G., The secondary inspectorate. Report No.45 (pp. 67). Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Musgrave, P.W. (1974). Primary schools, teacher training and change: Beeby reconsidered – Some data for the Pacific. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 10(1), 42-47. Nongkas, C. (2007). Leading educational change in primary teacher education: A Papua New Guinea study. Unpublished research thesis, Doctor of Philosophy in Education, Australian Catholic University.

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NPO (National Planning Office). (1984). Education strategy 1986-1990: Sector report of the Education Sector Committee. Medium Term Development Plan Discussion Papers (pp. 105166). Port Moresby. Nunnally, J. (1978). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw Hill. Pearse, R., Sengi, S., & Kiruhia, J. (1990). Community school teaching in the Central Province: An observational study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(1), 69-84. Roberts, R. (1981). Primary mathematics learning: A study of the relationships between teacher preparedness and pupil achievement in Papua New Guinea primary schools. Unpublished Master of Education thesis, University of Papua New Guinea. Ross, A. (1991a). The teacher education research project. In B. Avalos, & L. Neuendorf (Eds.), Teaching in Papua New Guinea: A perspective for the nineties (pp. 73-91). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Ross, A. (1991b). Examination performance and internal assessment in school certificate science in Papua New Guinea: A secondary analysis of published examination data. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 27(2), 1-7. Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 249268. Thompson, P. (1993). The performance of the secondary inspector. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 29(2), 97-109. Townsend, G., Guthrie, G., & O’Driscoll, M. (1981). Criterion-referenced measurement: Towards a new school assessment policy. Research Report No.37. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Vulliamy, G. (1990). Research outcomes: Postscript. In G. Vulliamy, K. Lewin, & D. Stephens, Doing educational research in developing countries: Qualitative strategies (pp. 228-233). London: Falmer. Wallangas, G. (2003). Formalism is both indigenous and imposed. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism], 39(2), 96-100. Weeks, S. (1985). The teachers’ role: Research, inspections and standards. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 197-204. Weeks, S., & Guthrie, G. (1984). Papua New Guinea. In R. Thomas, & T. Postlethwaite (Eds.), Schooling in the Pacific Islands: Colonies in transition (pp. 29-64). Oxford: Pergamon.

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Papua New Guinea is a comparatively uncommon example of a developing country with an extensive research literature from the 1960s through to the 1990s that informed educational policy and practice. Chapter 7 broadens the examples from secondary teacher education to evidence about a range of official reforms that were deliberate efforts to replace formalistic teaching and curriculum. The chapter reviews some of the more solid qualitative and quantitative research on seven reforms, finding without exception that the progressive directions of change hypothesised by the stages model did not occur. Major progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts have failed for 50 years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional, administrative and financial inputs. In itself, each example of failure may not be convincing, but in the absence of any evidence that there have been any sustained successes, the body of findings amounts to a damning case against progressive reforms in Papua New Guinea. The remnants of attempts to change formalistic teaching litter the schools of developing countries. Papua New Guinea is a prime example. Education there has seen a continual process of change over the last 50 years. The reformers of the 1960s wanted to replace low-level mission schooling with a national education system to lay a foundation for an independent nation, while the population at large readily accepted increased schooling as a path to employment. In the 1970s and 1980s, further reforms attempted paradoxically both to modernise the curriculum and to make schooling more relevant to village life. Planners came to understand that the most likely long-term future for most school leavers was in the village, but lack of public acceptance was a key factor in the failure of many relevance reforms, while classroom reform efforts failed to replace formalistic teaching. There is little evidence to suggest that another round of education reform persevered with since the early 1990s has succeeded in generating classroom change. Chapter 6 showed two teacher education philosophies in competition but which coexisted. This chapter turns to seven official innovations originating within the school system that were all serious progressive efforts to replace formalistic teach-

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 127 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

ing and curriculum.7 We will look in overlapping chronological order at these reform attempts, including the “Education Reform”, which originated in 1986 and still continues, with support over the last two decades from the Australian aid programme in particular. This catalogue of major attempts to modernise the curriculum will find that they have all failed in the sense that none of them has had any apparent sustained professional success at changing formalistic teaching towards progressive practice. In contrast, in a long, deep and wide search of the published literature on education in Papua New Guinea, I have not found any evidence of sustained progressive success. In the absence of any publicly documented successes, this chapter provides a refutation of the stages model sufficient to demonstrate that it does not have universal applicability. Chapter 8 will show the underlying cultural reasons that make progressive success improbable. 7.1 Beeby’s Progressive Influence Beeby (1980, pp. 471-472) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved relatively easily by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems. Papua New Guinea provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s progressive model because, perhaps more than in any other developing country, his ideas were put into official practice by the Department of Education from the late 1960s, and they still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. Many of the attempts to change teaching styles away from formalism were directly and indirectly influenced by Beeby (Alcorn 1999, pp. 270-271, 282-283, 293-297). He and K.E McKinnon, the reformist Director of Education approaching Self Government, were at Harvard together in the 1960s. McKinnon arranged for Beeby to deliver in Port Moresby the 1966 Camilla Wedgewood Memorial Lecture on improving the quality of education (Beeby 1967). This led to his influential involvement as a member of the important Weeden Committee, which generated a major overhaul of the education system (Weeden, Beeby, & Gris 1969). McKinnon (1976), in a paper first read in 1971, also used Beeby’s stages as the basis of a five stage model of curriculum change in Papua New Guinea. This model named five historical ‘stages’ – Imitative (in the early colonial period), Derivative (from Queensland in the 1950s), Venturesome Local (from the 1960s, progressive syllabuses in eventual preparation for independence), Modern Local

7 Chapter 7 is partly guided by an overview of historical educational change in Papua New Guinea by Weeks and Guthrie (1984).

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(from the mid-1960s, highly influenced by international trends in subject syllabuses), and Integrated Modern Local (approaching Independence in 1975). In the late colonial and early post-colonial period, expatriate and national education officials were highly concerned to change the education system to overcome inertia from the colonial period and to make schooling more relevant to the needs of a country newly attempting to govern itself and to modernise. Progressive philosophies appeared both to reject colonial gradualism and to be relevant to current needs. These efforts were well meant, but their progressive assumptions received little critical scrutiny. Since, progressivism has continued to be a major influence on curriculum reform. The reforms have not always been referenced to Beeby, although Nongkas’ (2007) recent use of aspects of the stages to underpin her research on primary teacher education shows that the influence can still be direct. Beeby’s belief that the Meaning stage would generate the type of Western intellectual enlightenment that he himself typified thus has been an article of educational faith followed frequently and uncritically in Papua New Guinea, despite his own hesitation about using curriculum change in an effort to accelerate teacher development. Papua New Guinea is a sound methodological test of Beeby’s stages conjecture, not only because of Beeby’s strong influence, but because it is a comparatively uncommon example of a developing country with an extensive research literature that informed educational policy and practice from the 1960s through to the 1990s (Guthrie 1989, pp. 45-47). This chapter draws on the more solid empirical work, both qualitative and quantitative, and on professional commentaries. Seven major primary and secondary classroom reform efforts are presented in overlapping chronological order. The list of progressive innovations is comprehensive in that it includes those where classroom outcomes have been thoroughly reviewed and published. Professional documentation of efforts with other subjects tends to be free of data on outcomes in classrooms, and is often hidden in official and aid project files. For space reasons, the following makes only passing references to the community aspects (Smith & Guthrie 1980; Weeks & Guthrie 1984 pp. 35-38). Little-researched change efforts not covered here include:



The 1974 introduction of functional English, one of the first in the world, was a ‘venturesome local’ attempt to replace structural English in secondary schools (Barnett 1977), causing great distrust among teachers (Nayar 1984).

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  

Secondary science and mathematics, which focussed more on making syllabus content relevant to Papua New Guinea than on fundamental changes to teaching styles (Palmer 1990; Wilson 1990; Matang 2002). Extensive adoption of behavioural objectives in secondary-level technical education in the 1980s, later replaced by a competency-based approach (Modakewau & Cortez 2005). Elementary school vernacular education introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, which expanded rapidly but had subsequent logistical problems that were not inherently related to teaching styles (Siegel 1997; Litteral 2000; Kale 2006) (see Chapter 8.4).

7.2 Earlier Curriculum Failures 1. Primary Mathematics. For a decade from the mid-1960s, TEMLAB (Territory Mathematics Laboratory) was an ‘early modern local’ attempt (in McKinnon’s terms) to reform primary mathematics teaching. TEMLAB was based on the work of Zoltan Dienes, introducing ‘the new maths’, which required teacher knowledge of the new maths and progressive teaching skills through similar individual instruction methods to those entering Australia. The progressive games approach, using local materials that could embody mathematical relationships, ran into serious difficulties with teacher capabilities and supply of materials despite strong departmental support (Roberts 1978, pp. 205-213; McNamara 1979, pp. 17-19). TEMLAB failed, but was followed up with an even more ambitious attempt at a new maths curriculum, Mathematics for Community Schools (MaCS), introduced in 1978 and considered relatively sophisticated compared with Australian schools. While issuing teachers’ guides, MaCS still used the new maths and a strong emphasis on activity learning. At startup, many problems existed for teachers, including creating new exercises, programming and timing, printing and distribution of curriculum materials, lack of teacher training and in-service, and language difficulties. An initial evaluation showed poor levels of student mastery (Roberts 1978, pp. 210-220). A follow-up survey a year later with 70 teachers and some 700 students in 14 schools found that students generally were achieving mastery at grade level in lower grades (87% in grade 2 and 69% in grade 3), but were as low as 4% in grade 6. The report asked whether the syllabus was being taught in the “recommended ‘spirit’”, finding generally that it was not. Much of the blame was placed on the teachers rather than an inappropriate curriculum (Roberts & Kada 1979). With the failure of teachers to adopt progressivism, research turned to ethnomathematics in an attempt to understand cultural issues underlying mathematics cognition, to which a Special Issue of the Papua New Guinea Journal of Educa-

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tion was devoted (Lancy 1978). Rather than the base 10 metric counting system now prevalent internationally, preliterate Papua New Guinean cultures had a variety of traditional counting systems. They included ones with prime bases ranging up to 47, with the base depending on the number of body parts used as a reference and how they were combined (not uncommonly leading to odd-numbered bases deriving from the head being used for the median number). While highly interesting from a theoretical perspective, this research produced little of practical value for teaching and is an example of where culturally-based content may have little direct relevance to teachers. Later, researchers found that the difficulties primary school students had in solving elementary verbal arithmetic problems lay in lack of understanding of English, especially mathematical English (Clements & Lean 1981). Bilingual students more readily comprehended both English (Esling & Downing 1986) and mathematics (Clarkson 1994) than did monolingual ones. Since then, indications are that on-going attempts to influence the mathematics curriculum have come again from progressivism rather than ethnomathematics (Kaleva 1991, pp. 209-210; Matang 2006, pp. 96-97). 2. Secondary Social Science Syllabus. SSSS was a ‘modern local’ conceptbased spiral development attempt to promote a student-centred, subject-integrated classroom experience following the principles of Jerome Bruner and Hilda Taba. With origins in the mid-1960s, it grew to involve a large international team until the mid-1970s. The design and writing occurred at a time when educational policy was to provide manpower to localise the formal sector of the economy. Implicitly, this was a syllabus educating future university students who would become members of a new governing elite. SSSS contained an academic perspective on the world and attempted to provide the sort of knowledge and intellectual skills necessary for a tertiary education. The approach was concept- rather than fact-based; there was to be a spiral development of concepts from year to year; pupils’ community experiences were to be the basis of concept development involving as much as possible material from outside the classroom; and enquiry methods, experimentation and simulation were to be the key learning methods to develop concepts from pupils’ experiences rather than teachers’ presentations. When planning started, the assumption was that SSSS would be taught by Australian expatriate teachers, many of whom would have specialist university subject degrees. Independence seemed far away, but Self Government came in 1973 and Independence in 1975, along with rapid localisation of the secondary teaching force (mainly with Goroka diplomates). The expectation of expatriate teachers dated more rapidly than anticipated (Trevaskis 1969; Ritchie 1977; Lornie 1979). Appropriately, however, much content reflected Papua New Guinea governmental policies, for example on urbanisation (Guthrie 1980a).

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The original version was found to be only a partial success, partly for administrative reasons that occasioned early delays (Pollock 1978, pp. 69-72; see also Lornie 1979; 1980a), and finalisation took longer than anticipated. By the end of 1972 materials had been produced for grades 7 and 8, with those for grades 9 and 10 produced from 1973-76. Following trialling, the full course was implemented from 1977. Classroom and student teachers had many difficulties with SSSS. False assumptions in its design included an expectation that pupils working in a foreign language could derive abstract relationships and theoretical principles from social science concepts, the spiral development of concepts was therefore sound, and teachers would have a solid grounding in academic subjects (Guthrie 1980b, pp. 98-100). Centrally supplied teacher materials provided background on the topics that teachers could draw on in the absence of reference libraries to develop their own materials. The original form was a series of folders with 3,600 pages of material covering grades 7-10, which was beyond the English language skills of teacher trainees and the ability of short teacher training courses to cover. The progressive emphasis on the teacher’s role as a facilitator of learning was another false assumption, in part because of the sheer volume of background reading, long and complicated guidance on content, and problems teachers had working out how to use the material. The claim that the progressive principles made “the curriculum branch of the Department of Education an international front-runner” (Cleverley 1975, p. 21) was thus premature. The Department of Education began to revise SSSS almost as soon as it was implemented. Revisions to grades 7 and 8 were issued in 1979 and 1980, while the approach for grade 9 was rewritten independently as two student textbooks with matching teachers’ guides (Field, Guthrie, & Lornie 1978a; 1978b; 1980a; 1980b). The textbooks provided specific objectives within the framework of the existing general objectives, downplayed the concept basis and spiral approach, and reordered topics, but did add student-centred activities that teachers might use (Lornie 1979; 1980b; 1982, pp. 61-68; Weeks & Guthrie 1984, p. 50). Content was pruned for even more relevance to national planning strategies adopted in the mid-1970s. Subsequently, the textbook approach was adopted for the whole course, albeit with a hope that it could involve some school-based curriculum development (Lornie 1982, p. 75). Rewriting in the 1980s further downplayed the failed progressive approach and the syllabus was developed as a series of standalone student books with content becoming a mixture of geography, history and politics, far removed from the original progressive intentions. Eventually the revised syllabus was replaced in 2006 with support from an Australian aid project, the Curriculum Reform Implementation Project, which supported the Education Reform (see below). Despite the lessons involved in turning the original progressive syllabus into a more formalistic one, the new syllabus

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for grades 9 and 10 dubiously reverted to the progressive enquiry mantras at the centre of the original design 40 years previously, albeit with the addition of integral human development and cultural relevance themes. The Progressive Education Fallacy was explicit in official documentation on teaching and learning, which stated that the Social Science syllabus again used a student-centred approach as a vehicle to guide and facilitate student learning: “with the opportunity to practice and develop critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills as well as a range of practical skills and knowledge …. [students can] think critically about what they are learning and … take responsibility for their learning. They learn to teach each other and to learn from each other, to work cooperatively and to work individually” (Department of Education 2006, p. 8). Presumably, if the new writers were even aware of the history of failure behind this approach, they assumed that the situation had ‘progressed’ since the early days of SSSS 40 years before. The only plausible reasons for reintroducing the approach could be that there was classroom change in the meantime, teachers had become less formalistic, or that academic standards had risen: none of which arguments has any evidence to support it. 3. Community Schooling. With Independence in 1975, the education system was subject to major change to transform primary schools into community schools in keeping with government policies encouraging community self-reliance. The school reforms adopted many elements of progressive education as part of an ‘integrated modern local’ approach to the curriculum. A key element was a curriculum intended to be flexible and school-based, providing only a framework for teaching so that, “the actual stuff of instruction should be devised by the teacher to ensure that it is adapted to the community” (Lancy 1979, p. 4). Teachers were unable to do this. They not only lacked subject knowledge on which to build local curricula, including in science and mathematics, they could also lack both general knowledge and local knowledge about the community (Cheetham 1979, pp. 83-87, 93-95). A Community Life Syllabus introduced to grade 1 in 1978 without a trial or a teachers’ guide aimed to prepare pupils for returning to life in the rural community (Watson 1979). Its progressive approach required teachers to be flexible and self-reliant, use improvised materials, and integrate the syllabus with other subjects as well as relate them to community activities. Teachers in a sample from 16 schools spread across five provinces voiced difficulties in dealing with many aspects of the syllabus, including obtaining materials, understanding its content and vocabulary, programming topics, and preparing a programme without a teachers’ guide. Teachers considered excursions created some dangers for children, found problems with lack of community sup-

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port, and preferred to use pre-packaged community life materials when they were available. Many preferred the previous more formalistic social studies programme. The progressive syllabus was often unread and ignored. Within a few years, it was becoming obvious that ‘relevant’ schooling was developing into a failure, as shown in a 1979 Special Issue of the Papua New Guinea Journal of Education. From an educational perspective, the community school concept had not been tested fully. However, the government had not matched the rural development orientation with a redirection of funds to rural areas, indicating broader systemic problems in addition to the problematic integrated curriculum. Overall, Lancy’s (1979, p. 5) conclusion was that, “on the whole, the news is bad and the community school now has few firm supporters.” 4. Generalist Teaching. GT was another ‘integrated modern local’ approach used in grades 7 and 8 of provincial high schools from 1975-79. In many ways it was a high school verson of the progressive community school curriculum. GT attempted to initiate change from subject specialisation to subject integration using a primary teaching approach to class and subject organisation, which was a major change demanding school-based curriculum development and changes to teaching styles. Field (1981, pp. 18-35) comprehensively evaluated policy and practice, including a questionnaire survey of 96 generalist teachers in a random sample of 33 of the 81 high schools, and qualitative case studies of five schools. She found that many contradictions existed between the policy and practice of GT because it was poorly planned and badly managed. GT had a top-down approach that originated in the upper echelons of the Department of Education and was introduced rapidly to schools by administrative fiat. Administrators directed that the change be introduced and then expected teachers to take all further initiative. Schools usually fulfilled the Department’s organisational requirement for one teacher to take a class for three subjects during at least half of the available periods, but in the absence of curricular guidelines, teachers’ definitions of GT were vague. Classroom approaches varied widely within and between schools and over time. GT teachers reported that 21% taught subjects separately, 29% taught them separately but introduced linkages, only 16% attempted subject integration, and 14% attempted thematic teaching. Of the 96 teachers surveyed, 64% were trained to teach one to three subjects, but 84% had three or more. Of the respondents, 18% were trained to teach mathematics, for example, whereas 70% actually taught it. Teachers were equally divided on whether GT was a success, and only 48% were willing to continue with it. Significantly fewer national than expatriate teachers were willing to continue.

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Teachers were inadequately prepared and unable to cope with their new freedoms and responsibilities. Field (1981, p. 99) noted that the initial headquarters failure was compounded because teachers were formalistic, yet GT required teachers willing and able to undertake curriculum development and teach at Beeby’s ‘stage’ of Meaning. GT was very different in concept, structure and practice to any other method of teaching and learning teachers had previously experienced, and this worked against successful adoption: Teachers were given the freedom to experiment, to devise their own aims, objectives, teaching methods and content. Such responsibility caused problems because it only showed young, generally inexperienced teachers more things they could not do, thus magnifying their feelings of insecurity, confusion and bewilderment (Field 1981, p. 106). Generalist Teaching was a particularly clear example of an inappropriate and incompetently managed attempt to promote integrated curricula at lower secondary level without even a pilot project. The effect was that it was implemented in organisational form but not educational substance. A Departmental enquiry found it was adversely affecting school standards (Roakeina 1977), and it was allowed to fade away from the high schools. But, despite Field’s (1981, p. 110) warning that as a style of teaching and learning, generalist teaching had little future in Papua New Guinea, it was only to reappear in the 1990s as part of the Education Reform, when grades 7 and 8 were moved from high schools to primary schools. 5. Secondary School Community Extension Programme. SSCEP was a third ‘integrated modern local’ curriculum attempt that took progressive elements from community and lower secondary a level higher to middle secondary grades 9 and 10. For some 10 years from 1978, SSCEP was a high school pilot project that introduced a more relevant curriculum intended to lead students to value education for its contribution to improvement in village life through integrating classroom and practical work. The theoretical basis of SSCEP, put by a proponent of community schooling and SSCEP’s main driver in the Department of Education, Vin McNamara (1979; 1980; 1982), was an attempt to generate behavioural change with students through a classical conditioning process. McNamara asked whether school system policy-makers could influence the affective learning process to establish behaviours that would then act as a basis for a more effective social system. The underlying problem was the dysfunctional effect of large and rapidly growing numbers of school leavers without employment prospects in the modern sector. Given that parents and children generally aspired to modern sector employment, but the future for most school leavers was rural villages and the

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informal sector, McNamara asked how their attitudes could be changed constructively. SSCEP was the proposed solution. McNamara (1980, pp. 15-19, 23) posited a classical conditioning process explained as a carrot placed in front of a donkey (somewhat inappropriately, given the absence of donkeys in Papua New Guinea). The carrot was selection through the examination system, managed to focus on the socially relevant nature of learning by developing behaviours that would survive consumption of the carrot. SSCEP was not a vocational project, but attempted to apply the grade 9 and 10 high school syllabuses to practical, community-oriented tasks. Specialist staff would “provide the practical project management skills to enable the general subject teachers to teach their subjects in such a way which makes them more meaningful, by applying the concepts and skills of each discipline to practical on-going school projects that are relevant to the surrounding community” (McNamara 1980, p. 20). To do this, syllabus interpretation, assessment procedures, programming and teaching methods would change. The pupils would have to undertake practical applications of their subjects to meet the extrinsic motivation of modern sector employment mediated through the selection function of the grade 10 examination. Hopefully, those who failed would have internalised the value of practical work so that it became an instrinsic motivation adapted to problem-solving in the community. SSCEP ran as an internally-funded pilot project from 1978-82. The project initially applied in five provincial high schools a revised curriculum designed to give more practical emphasis to core subject skills. Each project school was provided with five extra teachers, while a headquarters team of four maintained a steady round of visits particularly to provide in-service training. SSCEP was heavily researched, notably by Michael Crossley and Graham Vulliamy, and was hailed internationally as a highly promising pilot programme. An extension phase from 1983-85 gained World Bank funding for five more schools. Crossley’s (1984, pp. 80-84) case study of the school-based curriculum development strategy included 6 months as a participant observer in one of the pilot schools. On the positive side, the mobile advisory staff provided motivation to teachers, school-based planning provided a meaningful focus for professional development and INSET, staff enthusiasm in the pilot period was generally high, participating teachers were observed to develop increased competence in curriculum development and pedagogic skills, students voiced few sustained objections to SSCEP, and 1981 examination results suggested that there had not been a decline in academic achievement compared with control schools. However, Crossley wrote, the research was primarily a cautionary tale. The pilot project had been conducted under especially favourable conditions and over-optimistic extrapolation from this experience would be unwise. Problems were encountered with the curriculum change strategy in all five pilot schools, and two experienced

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major difficulties. Perhaps most significantly, despite the positive impact of the staff development, many teachers continued to find the development of integrated teaching-learning and assessment programmes excessively taxing. There was as yet little evidence to suggest that SSCEP in-service adequately prepared formalistic staff for the demands of integrated and student-centred teaching focussing on higher cognitive and affective objectives. The effects were illustrated further by Vulliamy’s (1985) comparative ethnographic analysis using case studies at three of the five SSCEP trial schools that had developed outstations to teach practical applications of the core subjects, such as to vegetable growing and trade store operation. The case studies were carried out over five months in 1982 through a combination of structured individual and group interviews with teachers and students, observation, and documentary analysis. Findings included some important differences between student life at outstations and student life at the main schools, although these differences varied from school to school. Outstations tended to be more characterised by a family atmosphere than was possible in the main schools. The greater informality of staffstudent relations made possible a more student-centred teaching style, greater student responsiveness in classrooms, and greater use of both group and discussion work. Outstations had more opportunities than the main schools to integrate academic and practical work, and interviews with students suggested that these opportunities helped enhance their understanding. The main benefits were attitudinal. Some, but not all, stations could promote greater initiative, leadership skills, responsibility and intrinsic motivation. However, Vulliamy found that some benefits were not transferable to the main school or to other schools. Students tended to perceive the integration of practical and academic work as relevant only to the outstation itself, which suggested that their transfer would be difficult. The provision of suitable staffing was the most difficult logistical problem faced by SSCEP outstations, and this could impair the quality of core subject teaching. Within schools, curriculum was hampered by the unwillingness of staff and students to move away from core subject study, unreasonable demands on teachers’ time and skills requiring an enormous level of in-service support, logistical problems of providing enough practical work, the programming of outstation curricula, and divisions between SSCEP and non-SSCEP staff. These difficulties created serious obstacles to compliance with national regulations governing the internal assessment of students. While considerable successes did occur under the pilot project conditions, Vulliamy (1985) found that there were major questions of transferability to other schools, especially when the high level of support available under a well-funded, aid-supported pilot project would no longer be available. This was prescient.

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With the end of the World Bank loan period, from 1986 the project was to be disseminated across all provincial high schools. Government funding could not be found to extend it in a difficult economic period, and it faded away by the end of the 1980s. Apart from the funding issue, what went wrong? Why did professional changes not quietly survive? Like GT, SSCEP required major school-based change, including to teaching styles, with progressive teaching methods stressing integrated curricula and activity methods, and intensive school-based curriculum development and in-service, as well as outstations. Difficulties arose with the implementation of all these aspects, including a classic conflict between formalistic and progressive styles (Vulliamy 1983; Lipscomb 1985; Crossley & Vulliamy 1986, pp. 17-23, 41-43, passim). As Vulliamy (1990, p. 230) found: many of the difficulties teachers were seen to experience – in, for example, adopting the more student-centred learning strategies, in the integration of academic and practical skills in their teaching and in using new styles of school-based internal assessment – were symptomatic of a conflict between the ‘formalistic’ teaching styles in which they had been trained and teaching at ‘the stage of meaning’. Despite the strongly funded and supported pilot project, SSCEP is now only a fond memory among some former participants. 7.3 Later Reform Failures 6. The Education Reform. The Education Reform is a label applied to a major series of ‘integrated modern local’ change efforts that have drawn on a number of the earlier progressive reform failures. The Reform derives from a 1986 Ministerial Committee into Education (the Matane Committee) that recommended radical approaches to comprehensive classroom teaching and to greater equity and social justice. Progressive change derived from this has encompassed the whole elementary, primary and secondary school system during the past two decades. In effect, the Matane Committee took the failed community school concept further, providing what Guy (2009, pp. 134-135) has called “an important prologue for much of the policy documentation and literature on education in Papua New Guinea today.” The Matane Report’s approach was influenced by the notion of integral human development found in the Papua New Guinea Constitution. The Report proposed that, “The philosophy is for every person to be dynamically involved in the process of freeing himself or herself from every form of domination and oppression … education must aim for integrating and maximising: socialisation, participation, liberation, equality” (Matane 1986, p. 6). One of the members

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of the Matane Committee reported that members of the various groups charged with reviewing the education sector, “spontaneously and almost unanimously reached the conclusion that merely trying to patch the holes in the system would be insufficient …. Almost in the sense of a sudden illumination, it became clear to the members of the group in charge of the Sector Review, that … a radical examination of the educational structure and its contributing elements needed to be considered” (Avalos 1992a, pp. 312-313). From this brainstorming epiphany came recommendations for a far-reaching series of structural and curricular changes. They started with new village-based vernacular elementary schools for the first three years of schooling in grades K-2 (with a need to establish schools, and recruit and train vernacular teachers), transferred grades 7 and 8 to primary schools (with an integrated generalist teaching approach and a requirement to retrain primary teachers for these grades), and added grades 11 and 12 to provincial high schools (with the necessity for changing curriculum and teaching methodology in secondary teacher education). The Matane Report met with professional scepticism. Its introduction was delayed until after a professionally-led Education Sector Review (Department of Education 1991). The result was somewhat ad hoc structural change from 1993, depending on locally available resources and, in considerable part, driven politically in the belief that it would reduce student attrition and permit enrolment expansion at all levels. In this regard, Webster (2006, p. 16) stated that in 2000 the gross enrolment ratio for the basic education age cohort was still only 64%, although encouragingly Guy (2009, p. 136) said it increased to 81% in 2005. However, these increases were attributable largely to the establishment of the K-2 vernacular elementary schools, which took off at grass-roots level (see Chapter 8.4) rather than to increases in primary and secondary enrolments. At higher levels, there is little evidence to suggest that the Education Reform met planned school expansion targets or teacher education output requirements. Maha and Maha (2004) reported that educational planners had made bold predictions about increased primary and secondary enrolments, but the Department of Education failed to provide for pre-service and in-service teacher education to meet increased need for secondary teachers. Results included unplanned establishment of high schools, engagement of untrained teachers, and a subsequent need to catch up with postgraduate in-service training for hundreds of unqualified graduates who had been employed as teachers by secondary schools. The structural changes remain in place, but quite unclear in the upheaval to the school system were the merits of high levels of administrative reorganisation, professional dislocation and financial cost. The structuring gave the appearance of educational change, but the curricular substance intended by the Matane Report did not actually require restructuring the whole school system.

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The late 1990s saw efforts turn from structural to professional issues, in particular to curricular and teacher training for the vernacular pre-schools. In the 2000s, considerable aid-assisted attention was given to an ‘inclusive’ curriculum and to subject syllabuses at primary and secondary levels (as seen for secondary social science). These developments were supported strongly from 2000-05 by an Australian aid project, the Curriculum Reform Implementation Programme (CRIP), so much so that the project “has been criticised on the basis that its technical advisers drive policy decisions and the development of the national curriculum for Papua New Guinea through project activities”, albeit a criticism denied by the Department of Education (Guy 2009, p. 136; see also Ryan 2008 and Le Fanu 2011, pp. 212-213, who supported the criticism). CRIP carried forward many of the curriculum aspects of the Education Reform, pursuing a ‘student outcomes’ approach (AusAID 2002, pp. 20-24; SAGRIC 2002, p. 27), which was more consistent with progressive student-centred classrooms than the prevailing and more formalistic ‘teacher objectives’. Norman (2006, p. 66) valiantly attempted to clarify the intent in explaining that, “The curriculum reform uses outcomes to replace objectives. Outcomes are phrased in present tense and may be thought of as competencies. Objectives are phrased in future tense. ‘Students identify needs of living things’ is an outcome. ‘By the end of this lesson students will be able to identify needs of living things’ is an objective.” Unsurprisingly, the outcomes approach meant considerable confusion in the teaching profession (Guthrie 2005, pp. 2, 16). Reference to outcomes in contracted project documents was also ambiguous for aid administrators used to considering them as project developmental impacts rather than as student learning. My own report on a related project noted that it was doubtful whether AusAID generalist project managers were aware of the significance of these issues: Professional educational issues such as teaching styles and attempts to change them are often buried in coded language in the sub-text of curriculum and teacher education activity designs, and may not be apparent to aid administrators ... Where such issues are not resolved, or different approaches are taken in different activities, educational interventions can be professionally counterproductive (Guthrie, 2005, pp. 10-11). The evaluation processes that CRIP arranged appear to have been very weak, however. The closest to publicly available review evidence about the curricular changes was contained in the proceedings of a first national conference on the reform curriculum that was held by stakeholders in 2005 (Pena 2006). The 31 papers include many discussions of the origins and philosophy derived from the Matane Report and much earnest professional commentary, but only four papers had sys-

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tematic research findings related to reform effectiveness in primary or secondary schools and classrooms, albeit mainly contracted as Impact Studies by consultants writing to CRIP terms of reference. Morgan (2006) wrote about pilot testing that occurred in 2003-04. This was a type of school effectiveness research that could provide baseline data for trend studies, but no numerical results were presented and no information was provided about curriculum implementation or classroom teaching. Murphy (2006) reported on a questionnaire survey of 113 elementary and primary teachers in 12 schools in eight provinces. Teachers reported high use of new materials in the new vernacular elementary schools, quite high levels of usage in primary schools, and a considerable amount of in-service. The survey included teachers’ perceptions of the materials, but became less credible when it reported that changes in teaching practice had occurred. From 64% to 85% of elementary, lower primary and upper primary teachers said they had changed the way they taught, mainly in programming and lesson planning, with some claiming more child-centred methods. Critically, however, self-report questionnaires like this have low validity, and there was no classroom observation to investigate whether the claimed changes were actually practised (Chapters 5.4 and 10.4). Guy et al. (2006) reported on a large evaluation of primary in-service workshops for vernacular language bridging. Teachers generally reported positively on knowledge gained in the workshops. However, implementation of the skills learned was problematic due to lack of materials, school support and language issues. Kaleva et al. (2006) reported on a study of perceptions of upper primary teachers, finding that they generally claimed to value the principles and philosophies underpinning the reform curriculum, but that they also were particularly concerned about implementation issues. In a trial phase with considerable aid-supported assistance, there were many positives especially with in-service and materials provision, but the sole reliance on unreliable self-report questionnaires meant that none of these formative evaluations had any solid evidence about actual changes to teaching practices in the classroom. In contrast, an independent study by Le Fanu (2010) found considerable reason to question the inclusive curriculum reforms. His research was a qualitative case study in three rural primary schools in the Eastern Highlands Province between 2008 and 2009, involving lesson observation, interviews with the teachers, and conversations with other stakeholders. The new curriculum identified various inclusive precepts that teachers should follow, with the research assessing their impact on teaching and learning practices and identifying the factors that enabled or inhibited their implementation. Le Fanu found that the teachers were often unable or unwilling to implement the progressive reforms and employed alternative practices. Like in GT, teachers were required to integrate subjects; however, the teachers claimed that they found it conceptually difficult to synthesise the different

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learning areas of the curriculum. They also claimed their teaching was more focussed and intelligible when they taught subjects separately. Teachers were also required to provide students with opportunities to take charge of their own learning; however, the teachers pointed out that it was very difficult to provide their students with these opportunities given the lack of learning resources in their schools, particularly print materials. Consequently, teachers tended to give students the same tasks and to control tightly the learning process. The new curriculum also recommended that students support one another through peer tutoring. Although the teachers encouraged their students to help one another in this way, lesson observation indicated that peer tutoring generally took the form of answer sharing, as opposed to the explanation and demonstration of problem-solving processes, and students were highly reliant on the remedial support provided by teachers as they patrolled the classroom. The new curriculum also expected teachers to deploy expertly a considerable number of assessment instruments to identify the learning characteristics of students, including class grids, anecdotal records, student portfolios, self and peer reflective records, observation class lists, demonstrated achievement checklists, incidence charts, Likert scales, sentence completions, and tests that could be standardised, objective or free response. Unsurprisingly, teachers said that they lacked the time, energy and expertise to use many of these instruments, and they tended to rely on tried and tested methods. Non-implementation, Le Fanu found, could be partly attributed to the gap between the technical demands of the progressive curriculum and the capacity of the teachers to meet those demands – for instance, lack of in-service training and access to resources. It could also be attributed to culturally embedded teacher resistance to the facilitative roles they were expected to play in the classroom and to teacher scepticism about the validity of constructivist theories of learning. Although the teachers ignored many of the curriculum’s precepts, some had developed their own contextually appropriate approaches for promoting student learning. Many of these approaches assumed teachers should centrally control teaching and learning and were contrary to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the curriculum. Teachers also used expertly a variety of strategies to transmit skills and knowledge to their mixed ability classes. These strategies included speaking in short, simple sentences, providing examples relevant to the students’ own experiences, providing concise definitions, using visual aids, and scrutinising the expressions on children’s faces in order to check for understanding. The teachers also tended to show great respect towards their students, an essential approach in a shame-based society. These findings contrasted with the unreliable research commissioned by CRIP, which either did not observe in classrooms or used very loose evidence to claim classroom change. In essence Le Fanu’s independent findings showed that the

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progressive ideas inherent in the new curriculum were little used. There were some improvements in teaching, but clear English and culturally-appropriate treatment of students were as consistent with formalistic as with progressive teaching. The implication, as Le Fanu (2010, p. 1) very appropriately put it, was that “policymakers should work with rather than against educational realities …”. 7. Primary Teacher Training. In the 1970s and 1980s, the primary teacher colleges had a prescriptive curriculum based on behavioural objectives, assessment and inspections (McLaughlin 1995). In support of the 1986 Matane Report (of which it became, in effect, a sub-set) the 1989 McNamara Report on Future Directions for Community School Teacher Education argued against the formalistic approach dominating the theory and practice of teacher colleges. It recommended a qualitative shift to progressive teacher education programmes that would encourage students to analyse a wide variety of teaching and learning situations, encourage students to reflect on these strategies and on their own performance, and learn to modify teaching strategies for different contexts. Such programmes would require a shift in teaching behaviour from one preoccupied with set procedures to a more holistic approach that would provide a learning environment to promote learning for meaning (McNamara 1989, p. 6). This progressive approach came to be reflected in official policy, which specified that the fundamental purpose of primary teacher education was to produce teachers “able to think critically about the curriculum and their teaching; and adjust the learning environment to meet the needs of different children and classroom situations” (Department of Education 2000, p. 47). The McNamara Report also proposed a three-year training programme, an aspect where Beeby’s views were directly influential (O’Donoghue 1992, p. 194). Teachers’ colleges began upgrading their programmes from two to three years starting in 1991 (albeit later changing to a two-year trimester programme because of teacher shortages and costs), the aim being to promote the general education of students in their subject matter as well as producing good pedagogic performers (Norman 2003). The Australian Community Teachers’ College Lecturers Professional Development Project provided support with training and higher degree study for college lecturers from 1990-95. The appropriateness of a basic skills approach in the 1970s had been justified on the basis of serious deficiencies in basic English and mathematics skills due to low teachers’ college entry levels. Now, college lecturers were said to resent centralised control. Rather than focus on institutional strengthening, the project took a train-the-trainers approach focussed on subject knowledge as well as curriculum development and pedagogical skills. Not surprisingly in a well-funded and intensive programme, a mid-term review found that professional development opportunities for college lecturers in Australia and

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Papua New Guinea were having a positive effect on participants’ competence and self-confidence (Toomey, Guthrie, & Penias 1992, pp. 6-9). However, project intentions went much further than this. Its Director called for “a shift in teacher education philosophy away from the predominantly unreflective emphasis on ‘basic skills’ and the ‘skilled technician’, towards ‘critically reflective practice’ and ‘meaningful teaching’” (Burke 1996, p. 41). Reformers paid considerable attention to the radical form of reflection (Matane 1991, p. 144; Burke 1993; Pickford 2003), which viewed formalism as an ‘ideology’ to be replaced, introducing a very value-laden term into a situation where the label ‘cultural tradition’ was rather more appropriate. While the project might have had long-lasting effects on some lecturers, there is no evidence to suggest that radical reflection was sustained widely or that it had any flow-on effect to teaching in the schools. The implication of a statement by Guy (1994, p. 47), who supported adoption of radical reflection in teacher education, was that any changes were not sustained: “the expansion of teacher education programmes from two to three years of study in the early 1990s were ideal times to reconstruct teacher education. Instead the colleges chose to do more of the same.” A successor project from 1999-2004, the Australian-funded Primary & Secondary Teacher Education Project (PASTEP), included a somewhat more grounded approach to capacity building in the primary teachers’ colleges. Rather than taking lecturers out of colleges and attempting a form of political re-education, this project successfully attached long-term advisers to colleges, where they were able to adapt to local requirements (Guthrie 2005). One controversial professional issue was embedded in teaching styles. PASTEP followed then Department of Education teacher education curriculum guidelines with an ‘objectives’ approach to curriculum and teaching, which was consistent with a formalistic teacher-centred classroom, but unfortunately contradicted by the overlapping CRIP ‘outcomes’ approach. The confusion may have contributed to the disapproval of Nongkas (2007, p. 246), whose extensive assessment of PASTEP’s impacts on three primary colleges concluded, “little has changed in the pedagogies employed by current teacher educators.” The majority of primary teacher educators were lecturecentred formalists, which she primarily attributed to poor work facilities, lack of subject knowledge and weak educational leadership, underestimating somewhat the depths of cultural reflex underlying formalism as a deep-rooted cultural paradigm in Papua New Guinea, to which Chapter 8 will turn. 7.4 Failed South-South Transfer The reforms attempted by the Matane Report illustrate the principle that borrowings from other developing countries may be as irrelevant as borrowings from de-

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veloped countries. The empirical basis of the assumptions underlying curriculum reform in developing countries has often been sketchy. The apparent focus of change has been the cognitive aspect of syllabuses, but the hidden agenda has often been moral and philosophical assumptions about the desirability of promoting psycho-sociological change. Applied cross-culturally, radical reflection, for example, makes heroic assumptions about psychology and may not lead educators very far in cultures where formalistic teaching is valued: Reaction against the colonizers’ political assumptions and the desire to replace their moral perspective on the nature of the colonized have engendered an enthusiasm for innovation that has not always been matched by an enthusiasm for investigating the empirical referents that the philosophy might provide (Guthrie 1986, p. 81). Whether the lessons have been learned about the failure of progressivism in Papua New Guinea is highly dubious. Nearly all the information in this chapter has been on the public record, but the 1986 Matane Report ignored the earlier findings. The thinking behind the Report, on Avalos’ (1992a, p. 309; 1992b, pp. 426-431) own evidence as an active leader in the process, apparently came about in a fit of enthusiasm arising from a single brainstorming session, spiced with elements of liberation theology and a dose of Chilean-influenced Marxism. Avalos placed the reforms in the South American context of Ivan Illich and Paulo Friere and in the socialist tradition of Antonio Gramsci, Agnes Heller and Jurgen Habermas. While notionally emphasising ‘participation’, essentially the major school reorganisation recommended by the Matane Report was based in the Marxist-influenced view that structural upheaval is necessary in society to remove tradition as an obstacle to modernisation. Freirian principles were also claimed with glib pseudo-radical jargon from the Director of the aid-funded Community Teachers’ College Lecturers Professional Development Project to go “beyond critical reflection/inquiry to transformative praxis” …. “Underlying the Project’s approach is the reconceptualisation of professional development in teacher education based on critical reflection and transformative action. The approach has been developed so that critical understanding developed through Project experiences will be transformed into a self-sustaining professional development cycle back in the college context” …. “Basically, lecturers were called upon to see themselves as political actors in a process of political (re-)socialisation which is self-renewing” (Burke 1996, pp. 41, 44, 47). Quite what the relevance of Latin American radicalism was to an entirely different context on the far side of the Pacific was never established. Reasoned criticism of the proposed curriculum principles came from O’Donoghue (1994; 1995), who argued, correctly in my view, that the Education

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Reform proposals were seriously misguided. He recommended pragmatically a major overhaul of the system in order to facilitate greater pupil access to primary school by taking the much less radical step of increasing the average primary school class size. He also commented that the Reform proposals were also made to facilitate introduction of a primary school programme based on a child-centred notion of curriculum, but that it would have done better to recommend that the existing primary school educational structures be maintained, the existing subjectbased curriculum be implemented properly, and that steps be taken to improve the quality of the formal style of teaching with which the majority of teachers feel most comfortable. As McLaughlin and O’Donoghue (1996, Ch. 3) put it, “Guthrie’s (1983) proposal in relation to high school education, namely, that there should not so much be a changing of formal teachers and a formal system to other styles but rather one of helping both to improve the quality of their formalism should now be applied to the community school … a thoughtful knowledgeable formal teacher is what is appropriate for today’s PNG schools.” The Education Department was able to resist some of the curricular pressures for a while but progressive influences crept back through Australian aid projects. Despite O’Donoghue’s warnings, the curriculum work in the 2000s through CRIP, with the latest version of the secondary social science syllabus, for example, reiterate the failed mantras of the earlier reforms directly influenced by Beeby. The officially published material that is available on the Education Reform is skimpy and unreliable, providing no evidence that any substantive changes have occurred to teaching styles or to student learning. No sound published evidence exists that the curriculum approach from the Matane Report has been successful, or that teaching styles have changed as a consequence, or that any of the goals of the politicised rhetoric have been attained, despite large-scale aid funding. Indeed, Le Fanu’s (2010) case study found the progressive mantras were not being implemented. Predictably enough, the churning created by the structural changes from the Education Reform appears to have generated a great deal of organisational dislocation for no apparent educationally substantive outcome. 7.5 Conclusion Major progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts have failed for 50 years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional, administrative and financial inputs. They have failed in the sense that none of them has had any apparent sustained professional success at changing formalistic teaching towards progressive practice. Failure has followed several paths. Three of the earlier topdown change efforts did not survive the initial attempts at implementation and were allowed to fade away (Primary Mathematics, the Community School and

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Generalist Teaching), while a fourth was so heavily revised that it came to bear little resemblance to the initial progressive precepts (Secondary Social Science). Despite initial successes, the two later project-based change efforts did not outlast aid-funded trial periods (SSCEP, Primary Teacher Training). Or, in the case of the Education Reform, system-wide structural changes continue to exist, but any evidence in support of professional change in schools is highly optimistic and contrary to independent findings. Certainly, many of the curriculum reforms described in this chapter had measurable benefits in delivery of technical inputs and outputs, for example in supplying materials to schools. But there is no evidence that reliably suggests that the progressive reform tenets have had any sustained professional impacts on formalistic teaching and learning styles in the classroom. In itself, each example of failure in this chapter may not be convincing, but in the absence of any solid contrary evidence that there have been any sustained progressive successes, the body of findings amounts to a damning case against progressive education in Papua New Guinea. This is a very strong outcome given the imbalance in the findings favours formalism 7-0 over progressivism. By the standards of developing country research literature, the body of findings reported in this chapter provides very strong evidence. As Le Fanu (2010, p. 1) put it, the policy-makers would have been better to work with rather than against educational realities. Is this entirely convincing as a refutation of Beeby’s universal claim of inevitable progress to the stage of Meaning? It convinces me, but possibly not some others. Those less familiar with this particular context may become slightly more persuaded by Chapter 8. Those less persuaded by the relevance of this case study elsewhere in the world may be more persuaded by Chapter 9 on China. Those less concerned about methodological principles may ask for more time given that 50 years is not overly long in the evolutionary scheme of things. They do need to remember, first, that there is a history behind formalism in Papua New Guinea that dates back millennia and, second, that having Meaning recede infinitely into the future is methodologically unrefutable and therefore untenable as a basis for change. Those with vested professional and financial interests in the aid projects allied with the Education Reform may claim that the jury is still out. If so, it is mainly because of the sloppy evaluation processes in CRIP. If there is any rigorous classroom research providing evidence of sustained progressive success, let it be brought forth for scrutiny.

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References Alcorn, N. (1999). ‘To the fullest extent of his powers’: C.E. Beeby’s life in education. Wellington: Victoria University Press. AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development). (2002). Papua New Guinea: Program profiles 2001-02. Canberra: AusAID. Avalos, B. (1992a). The need for educational reform and the role of teacher training: The case of Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Educational Development, 12(4), 309-318. Avalos, B. (1992b). Education for the poor: Quality or relevance? British Journal of Sociology of Education, 13(4), 419-436. Barnett, J. (1977). A functional syllabus for post-intermediate E.S.L. in Papua New Guinea. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 10-19. Beeby, C.E. (1967). Improving the quality of education. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 5(l), 3-18. Beeby, C.E. (1980). The thesis of stages fourteen years later. International Review of Education, 26(4), 451-474. Burke, C. (1993). From basic skills to reflective practice. In C. Thirlwall, & B. Avalos (Eds.), Participation and educational change: Implications for educational reform in Papua New Guinea (pp. 219-236). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Burke, C. (1996). The changing agenda in teacher education in Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Educational Development, 16(1), 41-51. Cheetham, B. (1979). School and community in the Huli area of the Southern Highlands. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 78-96. Clarkson, P. (1994). Language and mathematics: A comparison of bilingual and monolingual students of mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 23(4), 417-429. Clements, M., & Lean, G. (1981). Influences on mathematical learning in Papua New Guinea: Some cross-cultural perspectives. Report No.13. Lae: Mathematics Education Centre, University of Technology. Cleverley, J. (1975). Trends in education in Papua New Guinea. Current Affairs Bulletin, 52(3), 16-25. Crossley, M. (1984). Strategies for curriculum change and the question of international transfer. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16(1), 75-88. Crossley, M., & Vulliamy, G. (1986). The policy of SSCEP: Context and development. Research Report No.54. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Department of Education. (1991). Education sector review. Port Moresby. Department of Education. (2000). Primary education handbook (2nd Ed.). Port Moresby. Department of Education. (2006). Social science lower secondary syllabus. Port Moresby. Esling, J., & Downing, J. (1986). What do ESL students need to learn about reading? TESL Canada Journal, Special Issue 1, 55-68. Field, S. (1981). Generalist teaching policy and practice. Research Report No.36. Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Field, S., Guthrie, G., & Lornie, R. (1978a). Adaptation: Grade 9 social science textbook, part 1. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture. Field, S., Guthrie, G., & Lornie, R. (1978b). Adaptation: Grade 9 social science teachers’ guide, part 1. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture. Field, S., Guthrie, G., & Lornie, R. (1980a). Adaptation: Grade 9 social science textbook, part 2. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture.

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Field, S., Guthrie, G., & Lornie, R. (1980b). Adaptation: Grade 9 social science teachers’ guide, part 2. Port Moresby: Ministry of Education, Science & Culture. Guthrie, G. (1980a). Current approaches in schools to education about urbanization. In R. Jackson (Ed.), Urbanization and its problems in Papua New Guinea: Papers presented to the 1979 Waigani Seminar (pp. 37-47). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1980b). Towards a new social science syllabus for the 1980s. In R. Lornie (Ed.), Introduction to the revised secondary social science course. Occasional Paper No.3 (pp. 97110). Port Moresby: Teaching Methods & Materials Centre, University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1986). Current research in developing countries: The impact of curriculum reform on teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 2(1), 81-89. Guthrie, G. (1989). Higher degree theses and educational decision making in developing countries. International Journal of Educational Development, 9(1), 43-52. Guthrie, G. (2005). PNG Primary and Secondary Teacher Education Project: Independent completion report. Canberra: Educo. Guy, R. (1994). Reconstructing teachers as reflective practitioners in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 30(1), 45-59. Guy, R. (2009). Formulating and implementing education policy. In R.J. May (Ed.), Policy making and implementation: Studies from Papua New Guinea. Studies in State and Governance in the Pacific No.5 (pp. 131-154). Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Australian National University. Guy, R., Paraide, P., Kippel, L., & Reta, M. (2006). Review of the catch-up bridging to English workshops – CRIP Impact Study 2. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 112-122). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Kale, J. (2006). Bilingual schooling in Papua New Guinea: A sharp tool easily blunted. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 201-213). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Kaleva, W. (1991). Teachers and school mathematics in the 1990’s. In B. Avalos, & L. Neuendorf (Eds.), Teaching in Papua New Guinea: A perspective for the nineties (pp. 203-212). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Kaleva, W., Maha, A., Maha, N., & Badenoch, R. (2006). The development and perceptions of the reformed upper primary curriculum, CRIP Impact Study 4. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 141-150). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Lancy, D.F. (1978). Introduction. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Indigenous Mathematics Project], 14, 1-18. Lancy, D.F. (1979). Introduction. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 1-6. Le Fanu, G. (2010). Promoting inclusive education in Papua New Guinea. EdQual Quality Brief No.7. Bristol: University of Bristol. Le Fanu, G. (2011). The transposition of inclusion: An analysis of the relationship between curriculum prescription and practice in Papua New Guinea. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Bristol. Lipscomb, P. (1985). Teacher development through curriculum innovation. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 219-228. Litteral, R. (2000). Four decades of language policy in Papua New Guinea: The move towards the vernacular. Radical Pedagogy, 2(2), 1-6.

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Lornie, R. (1979). The design and adoption of curriculum materials for secondary social science in Papua New Guinea. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 11(4), 336-337. Lornie, R. (1980a). It may be social, but is it science? Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(1), 63-69. Lornie, R. (Ed.) (1980b). Introduction to the revised secondary social science course. Occasional Paper No.3. Port Moresby: Teaching Methods & Materials Centre, University of Papua New Guinea. Lornie, R. (1982). A partial evaluation of grade 9 social science. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 18(1), 56-78. Maha, A., & Maha, N. (2004). Education reform and implementation in Papua New Guinea: The missing factor. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 40(1), 31-42. Matane, P. (Chairman). (1986). A philosophy of education for Papua New Guinea: Ministerial Committee report. Port Moresby: Department of Education. Matane, P. (1991). Teachers for the future. In B. Avalos, & L. Neuendorf (Eds.), Teaching in Papua New Guinea: A perspective for the nineties (pp. 139-145). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Matang, R. (2002). The role of ethnomathematics in mathematics education in Papua New Guinea: Implications for mathematics curriculum. Directions, 24(1), 27-37. Matang, R. (2006). Enhancing the learning of formal English and arithmetic strategies by elementary school children through indigenous counting systems of Papua New Guinea: The case of Kate counting system of Madang Province. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 96-103). Port Moresby: Department of Education. McKinnon, K.R. (1976). Curriculum development in primary education: The Papua New Guinea experience. In E. Barrington-Thomas (Ed.), Papua New Guinea education (pp. 49-56). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. McLaughlin, D. (1995). Promoting quality in teaching: A Papua New Guinea case study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 31(2), 129-142. McLaughlin, D., & O’Donoghue, T. (1996). Community teacher education in Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. McNamara, V. (1979). Some experiences of Papua New Guinea primary schools, 1953-1977. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 1026. McNamara, V. (1980). School system structure, curriculum, SSCEP and functional motivation for learning. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(1), 12-28. McNamara, V. (1982). The long-term effects of ‘carrots’, school system structure and curriculum, SSCEP and the problem of motivating learning that is functional. International Journal of Educational Development, 1(1), 19-60. McNamara, V. (1989). Future directions of community school teacher education. Port Moresby: Department of Education. Modakewau, P., & Cortez, P. (2005). Accreditation and quality assurance in higher education in Papua New Guinea. Country report, Asia Pacific Accreditation and Certification Commission Conference, Manila. Morgan, G. (2006). Policy issues arising from key findings of the pilot curriculum standards monitoring test study. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 43-51). Port Moresby: Department of Education.

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Murphy, P. (2006). What do teachers think of the reform curriculum? In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 23-33). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Nayar, P. (1984). A fully functional ESL syllabus: A pioneering effort in Papua New Guinea. In On TESOL ’84: A Brave New World for TESOL: Selected Papers from the Annual Convention of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Houston. Nongkas, C. (2007). Leading educational change in primary teacher education: A Papua New Guinea study. Unpublished research thesis, Doctor of Philosophy in Education, Australian Catholic University. Norman, P. (2003). Curriculum reform under program 2000 for primary teachers’ colleges in Papua New Guinea. In A. Maha, & T. Flaherty (Eds.), Education for 21st century in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific (pp. 93-98). Goroka: University of Goroka. Norman, P. (2006). Impact of curriculum reforms on some teacher education programs. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 65-74). Port Moresby: Department of Education. O’Donoghue, T. (1992). Improving the quality of primary teacher education in Papua New Guinea: An outline and analysis of recent policy. Compare, 22(2), 183-196. O’Donoghue, T. (1994). The need for educational reform and the role of teacher training: An alternative perspective. International Journal of Educational Development, 14(2), 207-210. O’Donoghue, T. (1995). Educational restructuring gone astray in paradise? The Papua New Guinea experience. Journal of Educational Administration, 33(1), 79-90. Palmer, W. (1990). Science education research in Papua New Guinea 1978-1990. Research in Science Education, 20, 240-248. Pena, P. (Ed.). (2006). Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience. Port Moresby: Department of Education. Pickford, S. (2003). Dialogue and learning in teacher education: The importance of generative pedagogy. In A. Maha, & T. Flaherty (Eds.), Education for 21st century in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific (pp. 99-108). Goroka: University of Goroka. Pollock, J.E. (1978). The secondary social science project in Papua New Guinea. Research Report No.27. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Ritchie, J.E. (1977). Teaching the social sciences: Innovation in small systems. In R.W. Brislin (Ed.), Culture learning: Concepts, applications and research (pp. 51-63). Honolulu: EastWest Center. Roakeina, G. (Chairman). (1977). Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Standards of High School Students Entering Colleges. Port Moresby: Department of Education. Roberts, R. (1978). Primary mathematics in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Indigenous Mathematics Project], 14, 205-220. Roberts, R., & Kada, V. (1979). The primary mathematics classroom. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 174-201. Ryan, A. (2008). Indigenous knowledge in the science curriculum: Avoiding neo-colonialism. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3(3), 663-683. SAGRIC. (2002). PNG Curriculum Reform Implementation Project second annual plan July 2002-June 2003. Adelaide: SAGRIC. Siegel, J. (1997). Formal vs. non-formal vernacular education: The education reform in Papua New Guinea. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18(3), 206-222. Smith, P., & Guthrie, G. (1980). Children, education and society. In G. Guthrie, & P. Smith (Eds.), The education of the Papua New Guinea child: Proceedings of the 1979 Extraordi-

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nary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 5-21). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Toomey, R., Guthrie, G., & Penias, W. (1992). The Papua New Guinea Community Teachers' College Lecturers Professional Development Project: Report of the mid-term review team. Canberra: International Development Program. Trevaskis, G. (1969). The development of a curriculum in social science for secondary schools of Papua and New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 6(2), 57-73. Vulliamy, G. (1983). Core subject-core project integration in SSCEP: Practice and possibilities. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 19(2), 13-34. Vulliamy, G. (1985). A comparative analysis of SSCEP Outstations. Report No.50. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Vulliamy, G. (1990). Research outcomes: Postscript. In G. Vulliamy, K. Lewin, & D. Stephens, Doing educational research in developing countries: Qualitative strategies (pp. 228-233). London: Falmer. Watson, P. (1979). The introduction of new curricula: Community life, Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 154-173. Webster, T. (2006). The road to universalising primary education in Papua New Guinea: Are we really serious about getting there? In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 14-22). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Weeden, W.J., Beeby, C.E., & Gris, G.B. (1969). Report of the Advisory Committee on Education in Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Department of External Territories. Weeks, S., & Guthrie, G. (1984). Papua New Guinea. In R. Thomas, & T. Postlethwaite (Eds.), Schooling in the Pacific Islands: Colonies in transition (pp. 29-64). Oxford: Pergamon. Wilson, M. (1990). Science achievement in Papua New Guinea: Cross-national data implications. Comparative Education Review, 34(2), 232-247.

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CHAPTER 8 CULTURAL CONTINUITIES AND FORMALISM IN PNG

Clearly, a formalistic teaching style has prevailed in primary and secondary schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace formalism have failed. What are the underlying reasons? Chapter 8 delves into longterm cultural patterns, finding that formalism predated European colonisation in the 1870s, was reinforced by the teaching style introduced by missions and others in colonial schools in the 20th century, and has resisted the efforts of educational reformers since. There is no indication that an evolutionary progression through different types of teaching from Formalism to Meaning is underway in Papua New Guinea. The conclusion is that progressive teaching is not appropriate because it is culturally incongruent with the traditional pedagogical paradigm and the revelatory epistemology on which it is based. Even were working conditions in schools and classroom improved, formalism would still prevail in Papua New Guinea. Clearly, a formalistic teaching style has prevailed in primary and secondary schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace a formalistic paradigm have failed. Curriculum reformers have often attributed the failure to formalistic teachers and teacher training, but what are the underlying reasons for their persistence? One major factor is that formalism is associated with long-term cultural belief systems. No centralised government or anything resembling Western political, bureaucratic, religious or educational institutions existed in Papua New Guinea during the 50,000 years of habitation prior to colonial rule. Rather, a considerable number of diverse tribal groupings lived largely autonomous lives isolated by geography and languages (Lewis, 2009, estimated there are still 830). Indeed, one area containing some one million people was ‘discovered’ only in the early 1950s. There were few social class divisions, except for hereditary leadership in some areas. The tribal groups lacked institutions recognisable to Europeans, but they did have methods of governance, religion and education. Formalistic teaching in modern

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 153 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_8, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

schools has cultural continuities with aspects of teaching and learning dating back millennia before European contact. In this chapter, I will analyse the long-term cultural issues associated with the prevalence of a formalistic teaching style, starting with traditional epistemology and pedagogy, then the modern period and cultural continuities to the present.8 This analysis shows that formalistic classroom teaching is congruent with traditional revelatory epistemology and instructional methods, with which progressive teaching is incompatible. 8.1 Traditional Formal Education A fond but false belief held by many modern romantics is that education in traditional cultures in Papua New Guinea was a gentle art of cultural transmission through childhood socialisation. A related belief is that the colonial period saw the introduction of a new, authoritarian, formalistic teaching style that is not compatible with traditional socialisation practices. This argument errs by comparing unlike aspects of education. To correct this, we need to note that traditional Papua New Guinean societies contained several long-recognised types of education, and still do. One type is informal education, of which childhood socialisation is part. Through socialisation, much knowledge is passed informally from one person to another, usually from an older person to a younger one within the family or clan, but also among peers, and often through story-telling. Young children gain their identity through learning constructs from their elders and siblings that define who they are and what it means to be a member of their particular group. For example, Ochs and Schieffelin (1984, pp. 288-294) described how mothers among the Kaluli in Southern Highlands Province defined young babies’ development through physical, emotional and verbal interaction. Kaluli described babies as helpless and having no understanding. They were never left alone, but were rarely the focus of attention and were rarely spoken to directly. Mothers tended to face their babies outwards to be part of the social group. Others might address the baby, but the mother responded on its behalf, using well-formed language that was assertive, controlled and competent (i.e. that defined her expectations for the child’s own language). Exchanges were not based on anything initiated by the baby, partly because in Kaluli culture it was inappropriate to discuss others’ feelings. As a baby became older, it was addressed directly and if necessary corrected 8

Chapter 8 is based on an article that was the focus of a 2003 Symposium in the Papua New Guinea Journal of Education (Guthrie 2003). The chapter is partly guided by an overview of historical educational change in Papua New Guinea by Weeks and Guthrie (1984).

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by shaming, but no response was expected. Babbling was not recognised as communicative or related to the speech that eventually emerged. Not until a baby used the words for ‘mother’ and ‘breast’ was it regarded as beginning to speak. The mother then provided assertive adult phrases to be copied and pushed the child into situations requiring their use. The child’s own utterances were corrected to take adult form as part of a hardening process so that eventually it could converse as an assertive adult in a face-to-face egalitarian society, an ability that defined a person’s cultural identity. From this example, we can see that socialisation into culture (in the sense defined in Chapter 1.1 as unspoken, implicit rules of behaviour and thought) occurs from children’s earliest years. A second type of education is non-formal education, where knowledge is passed from experts in a particular field – gardening, fishing or tribal warfare, for example – to others who are learning these skills on the job. Aspects of nonformal education are illustrated by the Bundi on the border of Madang and Simbu Provinces (Fitz-Patrick & Kimbuna 1983, pp. 44-51). After weaning at about the age of 4 or 5, children received informal instruction in the skills and beliefs necessary for the physical and social environment. Boys moved into the men’s house, receiving an arrow to mark the first ceremonial period of their life. During this period, they learned by watching and imitating fighting, house building, pig raising and hunting skills. Throughout childhood, physical and emotional punishment (especially shaming) was used to direct behaviour to comply with traditional expectations. A third type is formal education, through which particular forms of highly valued knowledge were (and still are) passed from one generation to another in systematically structured ways. In the Bundi example, boys’ passage to a period requiring strict formal educational instruction was marked with a flute ceremony when they were some 10-14 years old. Learning was now stressful. It involved much practice of skills and recitation of instructions, with beatings for bad behaviour and punishment by fire that could verge on brutality. Correct behaviour, however, could generate much respect and it earned praise and other rewards. Completion of the boys’ learning was marked by another initiation ceremony involving exchange of pig meat, after which they were men capable of taking part in tribal warfare. Logically, a comparison of modern formal education should be with traditional formal education not informal or non-formal education, with which it is usually compared. A book by the Australian anthropologist, A.P. Elkin, called Aboriginal Men of Higher Degree, first published in 1945, put traditional formal education into perspective. Elkin’s very title was a radical concept for the time. After all, it was well known that traditional Aboriginal societies had no written languages. How could

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people obtain a degree, let alone a higher degree, if they were illiterate and, the racists of the time believed, of inferior intelligence? Elkin argued, using examples of Aboriginal medicine men across Australia, that traditional forms of sacred knowledge in Aboriginal society were highly developed and highly structured. This knowledge was secret and was passed only to selected people for particular purposes by elders, who chose and taught their medical students. When students completed learning this knowledge, their graduation was marked by initiation ceremonies, which were rites of passage that identified them as having qualified in their field and gave them access to a life of knowledge and power (Elkin 1978, p. 3). Medicine men could go through a sequence of levels resulting in higher-level knowledge that was in many ways the cultural equivalent of medical doctors’ knowledge in European society, albeit with considerable touches of the priest and the psychologist. Elkin’s analogy was a major insight into traditional Aboriginal culture and the understanding of it by European Australians. Evident were educational parallels with European culture that too had various forms of secret knowledge kept by academic elders responsible for passing it to selected university students. University graduation ceremonies were a public demonstration of the achievement of a particular level of knowledge, a rite of passage into the medical world as a doctor or teacher, for example. While Aboriginal formal education was part of an oral culture and education in European countries revolved around the written word, many elements of European and Aboriginal education ran parallel. Elkin did research in Papua New Guinea, but his book drew few of the obvious similarities between traditional Aboriginal and Papua New Guinean cultures. In Papua New Guinea too, there were and still are complex forms of knowledge handed down by elders to selected younger folk, with the attainment marked by initiation ceremonies. This parallel with Western-style education helps explain the enthusiasm of university students in Papua New Guinea for their graduation ceremonies. This enthusiasm appears not to result just from successful completion of programmes of modern learning, but appears also to resonate with traditional cultural values and practices, which some students symbolise by graduating in traditional dress. Elkin’s argument also resonated with the major anthropological debate over cultural relativism in the 1960s and 1970s. Some Western anthropologists used to argue that tribal societies in Africa, Australia and the Pacific did not have educational, legal or political institutions because there were no manifestations readily able to be understood in ethnocentric European terms. If there were no schools, how could there be education, they asked; without hospitals, was there medicine? Cultural relativists argued that it was not the institutional form – schools or hospitals, for example – that mattered. What mattered was that other manifestations, in

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this case of education and medicine, existed and that they reflected indigenous systems, however different from culture-bound examples in Western societies. Elkin himself did not debate cultural relativism in his book, but the book does illustrate the issue well. Without literacy or schools, could there be formal education? There was, Elkin showed, and bush teaching through oral tradition was a valid way of passing knowledge from one generation to the next. This formal knowledge was marked by initiations, notably celebrating passage from childhood to adulthood, but possibly continuing throughout adulthood as further knowledge – higher degrees, in Elkin’s analogy – was gained. 8.2 Traditional Epistemology and Teaching Methods What forms did knowledge take as it was passed on through traditional formal education and how was it taught? The anthropological literature describes a millennia-old paradigm providing a basis for formalistic instruction. From this, we will see that later versions of formalism introduced into classrooms and teacher training during the colonial period were highly consistent with traditional cultural patterns. Papua New Guinea contained many different cultures, but there were many similarities in their approach to knowledge. Another key anthropological work has noted that traditionally people dismissed the principle of human intellectual discovery except in minor matters (Lawrence 1964, p. 30). Myths were accepted as the sole and unquestionable source of all important truth. All the valuable parts of the culture were invented by the deities, who taught men both secular and ritual procedures for exploiting them. “The body of knowledge was conceived to be as finite as the cosmic order from which it was contained. It came into the world ready made and ready to use, and could be augmented not by human intellectual experiment but only by further revelation by new or old deities. There was no need – in fact, no room – for independent human intellect” (Lawrence 1964, p. 33). Thus, discussing, relating, sifting, appraising and hypothesising were not inherent in traditional knowledge and might even be strongly discouraged. The aim of preliterate societies was to transmit faithfully an accepted and shared way of life. In essence, traditional knowledge had a unified epistemology going back to the ancestors and the deities. Knowledge was revelatory, and this usually applied to general technical knowledge as well as to secret sacred knowledge. Technical elements were normally passed on through informal education, which dominated in childhood, and through non-formal education. Technical skills were available generally (depending on age and gender) and satisfying in their practicality and relevance to village life (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 63-70).

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Sacred elements were normally available only to select initiated males through formal education as adulthood approached and, later, in adult life. Sacred knowledge was revealed by the gods or through instruction from those who already possessed it. It was pragmatic and finite, to be accepted not challenged. The task of the learner was to locate knowledgeable people and to gain knowledge, not by asking questions, but by looking and listening to people who were known to be trustworthy (Carrier 1980, pp. 110-113; 1984, pp. 6-7). New knowledge came from initiation, dreams, purchase or ritual – it was not self-generated nor was it critically assessed. The purpose of this paradigm was human survival and transmittal of the culture, and it was controlled and regulated to these ends. Formal education was elaborate and varied (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 73-75). As with the young Bundi, the process often required separation for extended periods from the rest of the community and an extraordinary amount of time and effort could be put into the elaborate ceremonies and rituals. Ritualism, sacred rite and sorcery were important aspects of formal knowledge. Learners had to master esoteric sacred knowledge; it could not be newly generated, but could only be passed on to initiates by those already in possession. The institutionalised role of leaders was acknowledged and they played an important personal role in teaching initiates, whether individually or in groups. Teachers often gave didactic verbal instruction based on a ‘core curriculum’ of sacred knowledge. In practice, however, informal education dominated the learning of the young. Informal teaching methods were characterised by motivation through scolding, threatening, encouraging, bribing and punishing. Rewarding was based primarily on reciprocity and approval of task-oriented behaviour. Obedience was esteemed in most traditional societies and disobedience could be met by severe punishment. Story-telling and myths were also important aspects of relaying culture: Kaima (1998) has illustrated how oral tradition in preliterate society operated in all aspects of education as a way of defining and transmitting the belief systems of the Wantoat of Morobe Province. Non-formal education was also made available efficiently throughout life when it was needed (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 70-73). It was village and activity-centred, involving observation, imitation and repetition in real life trial and error situations. Institutionalised teachers did not exist, but knowledgeable people acted as mentors, providing guidance through leading, instructing and demonstrating. A romantic but false belief is that traditional societies in Papua New Guinea were marked by notable degrees of equality, the absence of which in modern times is now sometimes blamed on colonialism and a formalistic school system. Carrier has refuted this view of equality in relation to Ponam Island in Manus. He noted that linking formal Western education (and the more general process of colonisation of which it was a part) with a sort of fall from egalitarian grace remained po-

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tent in the consideration of education and colonialism in Papua New Guinea. In spite of its potency, the belief is inaccurate: The crucial element of this belief, the element that gives it particular poignancy and moral force, is the construction of the pre-colonial condition, the assertion that life was one of substantial equality, consensus and communalism ... a fair body of evidence, gathered both retrospectively and at the time of early contact ... seems to suggest that the pre-colonial system had substantial elements of inequality, dissensus, and coercion (Carrier 1985, p. 87). In support of these contentions, Carrier showed that traditional inequality in Ponam revolved around the need for poorer young men to put themselves into a lifelong client relationship with wealthy financiers in order to meet bride price payments, which were the biggest financial obligation of men’s lives. Carrier referred to other researchers who also identified traditional inequalities in many other parts the country. Similarly, Mel (2002, p. 411) has pointed out that a “picture of organic bliss can be misleading” because people traditionally had to fend within competitive terrains. Indeed, the very existence of formal education or ‘higher degrees’ in traditional society meant inequality existed. After all, not all men were educated in specialist fields, women were excluded from secret men’s knowledge and vice versa, and not all people gained knowledge equally well. Clearly, traditional formal education was an intricate part of the unequal distribution of power and prestige in complex social systems. Colonialism added new inequalities that sometimes replaced old ones. Schools and formalistic teaching were elements in this, but elements that were different in degree not kind. 8.3 Modern Formalism One thing that Europeans did bring to Papua New Guinea in the modern period was a new form of formal education in schools (here, ‘modern’ refers to the time from colonial control in the 1870s to the present). Until the 1950s and 1960s, colonial administrations were content to leave in mission hands most of the little schooling that was provided. Various Christian missions, mainly Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist and Anglican, established the earliest schools. In Papua, the colonial administration did not set up schools, but attempted to control the missions through regulation and funding, while the Australian administration in New Guinea set up only six schools by 1940. Most mission schools were in the island and coastal areas; the highlands were barely known to the colonialists until the 1930s and 1940s. The National Education System was established only in 1970 (Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 33-35).

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The role of the predominant mission schooling was to convert Papua New Guineans for a limited role as Christian church members, clerks and labourers, with academic training limited to basic literacy and numeracy (McNamara 1979; Smith & Guthrie 1980, p. 7). Considerable similarities in teaching and teacher education existed in different parts of Papua and New Guinea during colonial times, as shown in studies by Pomponio (1985) in Manus, Smith (1985) in Papua, and Williamson (1985) in Papua and the adjoining Torres Strait in Australia. Smith’s historical research into Catholic education by the Sacred Heart Order in Papua in the first half of the 20th century illustrates the nature of the mission schooling that dominated during the colonial period. Typical of mission and administration educators, the Order promulgated formalistic curriculum and teaching methods. Its particular methods were set out in a pastoral letter in 1916 that governed the provision of the mission’s schooling until the 1960s. The letter set out to regulate and improve the school system by instituting a set programme of work and organising regular supervision akin to inspections. Foreign religious staff taught at central boarding schools, which had village feeder schools usually with paid Papuan teachers. A separate circular for the priests gave detailed instructions on supervision of these teachers, who had three defined roles: religious leader, village schoolmaster, and family model for Christianity. As school teachers, their main role was to facilitate evangelisation through instructing children in the Christian doctrine and way of life. Teachers were instructed to prepare their lessons well, be punctual, keep regular hours for the school, ensure that discipline and order were kept, ring the bell early, keep the children silent and in good order, maintain rolls and to be strict. Mission policy banned corporal punishment, but teachers commonly used it despite contrary instruction. In teaching catechism, teachers were to use repetition and question and answer until the material was learned off by heart. Simple charts were supplied as teaching aids. At the discretion of the supervising priests, the secular curriculum was to include reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography and other subjects. In fact, there was a great deal of similarity in all this to the requirements for teachers under the formalistic secondary inspectorate in the National Education System during the late 1970s, which were shown in Chapter 6. At first, formal schooling was imposed in the colonies of Papua and New Guinea and many indigenous people were reluctant to take it up. Over time, it did become accepted, indeed sought after, as a route to the advantages of the introduced way of life. Schooling did not create inequalities for the first time, but often replaced old ones with new. To carry the example of Ponam forward in time, Carrier (1985) has shown how education was an important factor in the structural shift that colonialism brought. The pre-colonial pattern of traditional inequality in Manus, in which financing of bride price played a significant element, changed to a

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different colonial one, where education and out-migration gave access to the cash economy. Schooling allowed Ponams to export labour during the colonial period. The outcome was changes in attitudes that resulted from migrant labourers seeing their island in perspective from outside, ability to earn wealth off the island, and return migrants’ eventual willingness to spend this wealth outside traditional patterns of obligation. This led to a breakdown of the power of the financial patrons but resulted in new forms of financial and political inequality from differential access to employment, business and politics. Colonialism did not introduce inequality for the first time; it saw traditional systems of inequality broken down and replaced with others, and modern schooling was a factor in this. From 1946, education was gradually taken more seriously by the administration. Initially, the emphasis was on schooling for rural life in the community. Mass literacy and a gradualist approach to universal primary education became an objective in 1955 but remains far from complete (Webster 2006). Gradualism became increasingly out of step with the international agenda on decolonisation, and the late 1950s and early 1960s saw a wave of expansion of primary schooling, the establishment of more secondary schooling and an increase in basic teacher training. From 1960-73, a period of consolidation and expansion of the disparate school system saw attempts to provide a curriculum that would allow Papua New Guineans to localise expatriates, who dominated the urban sector and plantation agriculture. When oversupply of school leavers started to become apparent in the late 1960s, the focus turned again to attempts to make schooling more relevant to village life (McNamara 1979; Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 35-38). The significance of this is underscored by the fact that Papua New Guinea’s population was still 87% rural according to the 2000 Census. Following the 1969 Weeden Report, efforts at educational reforms followed the two inherently contradictory paths of schooling for the modern sector and for the community. Nationalistic and liberalising influences within the education system have kept these issues to the forefront since Independence in 1975, albeit not helped by a complicated and unwieldy political and bureaucratic system sharing educational powers between national and provincial governments. Since 1975, influence has also come through foreign aid-funded programmes, whether in curriculum or the provision of overseas scholarships (Guthrie 2002). The contradiction remains at the core of government policy even until the present, as the Education Reform has already demonstrated. 8.4 Community Context The curriculum and community education reform paths in Chapter 7 have both largely failed for the same reason: they underestimated contextual factors. An important contextual factor manifested inside schools was teaching styles.

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Fundamentally, the curriculum reforms foundered professionally on attempts to generate progressive teaching. In the 1970s, there was professional agreement in Papua New Guinea that formalism prevailed in classrooms across the country. Widespread efforts to change it through the introduction of new progressive syllabuses were unsuccessful and they required considerable on-going revision. The Education Reform introduced in the early 1990s and continued into the present century saw another concerted effort to restructure primary and secondary schooling and change classroom teaching. The restructure occurred, as did some syllabus changes, but there is no evidence to suggest that teaching styles have changed or that learning has benefited. Both the curriculum and the community reforms attempted to replace formalistic teaching with progressive enquiry-based methods that were unsuccessful. In large part, they are quite inappropriate in most primary and secondary school settings in Papua New Guinea because progressive teaching is culturally incongruent with with the traditional pedagogical paradigm and the revelatory epistemology on which it is based. A second contextual factor in the failure of the reforms was lack of government resources. Since Independence, the Department of Education, try though it has, has been unable to deliver the long-term administrative and professional support that such changes require, and the government has been unable to sustain largescale funding, either for SSCEP when it moved past the aid-funded trial phase to full implementation during a difficult period for the national economy, or subsequently for the Education Reform. The main contextual factor external to the school system was community attitudes. A central concern in many of the reforms was to make schooling more relevant to village life, but the populace saw schooling as an entry to modern life not the village, and the reforms attempted to give children a type of education that parents did not seek. Like the community schooling innovations of the 1970s, SSCEP in the 1980s underestimated attitudes held by teachers, students and the community. In particular, SSCEP was marked by a tension in schools between the outstations’ community and vocational emphases and a desire to maintain academic standards. Parents, however, widely viewed schooling as an investment with the potential for their children to gain cash employment and the ability to send home remittances, not an opportunity to learn skills for modernising village life. Case studies of education at village level have since given some variable indications that more realistic recognition of changes in the job market mean that schooling is no longer always perceived only as a route to modern sector employment, important though that remains. In some places, some of the secondary benefits of schooling have been accepted slowly as more relevant to village life (Demerath 1996; Guy 1996, pp. 49-50; Avei 1997, pp. 23-25; Guy & Avei 1997, pp.

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137-138; Khambu 1997, p. 101; Tawaiyole 1997). However, as Carrier (1985) and Fife (1992) showed, cultural understanding of schooling can be anything but straightforward. And, even were the primary purpose of schooling now seen as community education, orientation of formal schooling to village culture would not change classroom teaching away from formalism. Community-focussed schools would be open to more influence from traditional pedagogy, not less. For students, tradition is a real element in their everyday lives and in the informal learning styles that they bring with them to school. As Ochs and Schieffelin’s (1984) example of the Kaluli illustrated, early childhood socialisation starts a process whereby young children gain their identity through learning constructs from their elders and siblings that define who they are and what it means to be a member of their particular group. In that example from a collective culture quite unfettered by Western notions of psychology or constructivist learning, young babies were largely ignored by the group, their early efforts at language were neither valued nor even recognised as language, and their thoughts and feelings were not valued either. In Papua New Guinea, children spend at least their first six years totally immersed in such environments, shaped by traditional culture rather than modern educational theories. Even after they enter school, a majority of learning time is spent in informal educational situations that are shaped more by cultural inclinations than by explicit pedagogy (Eyford 1993, p. 16). For teachers too, local knowledge systems are an important component of the deep cultural inclinations that they bring to the classroom and which continue to affect strongly the type of pedagogy they use and that students intuitively accept. Their formalistic construction of classroom behaviour helps link classroom pedagogy with the broader formalism of the education system as a whole, as well as with traditional culture. This formalist paradigm also affects the types of change teachers do not accept and the types of change to which they might be open. Cultural background includes traditional epistemological expectations, practices and devices that structure the production, circulation and consumption of socially valued knowledge (Lindstrom 1990, p. 14). Thus, the community context of schooling can be very complex, which has been illustrated by Fife (1992), who identified two hidden curriculums in community schools in West New Britain. The primary one promoted the values associated with urban life and the developing cash economy over the subsistence-based life of rural villages. The secondary one revealed that the formal organisation of the modern school could break down to become more similar to less formally structured community life that reflected traditional cultural understandings, for example of time, record keeping (or lack thereof) and differences in acceptable behaviour for boys and girls. Community conflicts related to this latter hidden curriculum often led to school closures. Inside the classroom too, as Pickford (1998, p. 6) likewise noted, “there are cultural

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meanings and sensibilities which mediate the activity structures of classroom practices, which also require acknowledgement if post-colonial teaching and learning are to be better understood.” While such beliefs do alter, their essence carries with the students through secondary school and teacher education (Ope 2003; Kiruhia 2003). This is not to say that contextually relevant changes will necessarily be easy or successful, as demonstrated by the Vernacular Pre-Schools. Vernacular education received some support in the 1970s as a replacement for an English-only policy (Litteral 2000) and was taken up with community support in Bougainville, where the Provincial Government introduced it in 1979 in the form of Viles Tok Ples Skuls (Village Vernacular Schools). Two other provinces soon followed. A national conference of provincial education ministers in 1985 then supported it and the Matane Report recommended that the first three years of schooling be in the vernacular as part of a central concern of the Education Reform to make schooling more relevant to village life. By 1991, 386 vernacular schools existed. This schooling expanded rapidly in the 1990s, initally mainly as non-formal education by church organisations with a variety of aid support. By the end of 1993, the schools operated in 220 languages with over 48,000 students and 3,000 teachers. The formal elementary school system got underway soon after in 1994. By the mid-2000s, there were over 400 languages in use (Siegel 1997; Ahai & Bopp 1995 cited by Kale 2006, pp. 202, 209). Vernacular schooling did have a basis in research on cultural context. It was neither inherently formalistic nor progressive, but revolved around the issue of teaching in a foreign language, about which Downing and Downing (1983) and Esling and Downing (1986 pp. 60-61) reported in Bougainville. A first experimental study with preschool children suggested that bilingual capacity was a decided advantage in dealing with language ideas and developing pre-literacy skills. A follow-up study compared students taught literacy from the beginning in English and students introduced to literacy for the first two years of school in their mother tongue and then transferred to instruction in English. Preliminary results from the 4th year of instruction showed that the children taught to read for the first two years in their vernacular had similar scores in English to those who were taught in English from the beginning, even though the latter group had four years of English instruction instead of two. Furthermore, the students who began in the vernacular were very much more rapid readers in English than those who began in English. These results suggested that students who received their initial instruction in their mother tongue made excellent progress in acquiring the skill of reading and could apply it to three languages (even one in which they had received no instruction). In contrast, students introduced to reading in a third and little used language, English, had not comprehended their instruction. They did not know

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how to read in English and consequently could not do so in any language. Later, Clarkson (1994) reported similar effects with bilingual students’ achievement in mathematics, while Siegel (1997, pp. 210-211) referred to several other positive research findings. While such findings are context-specific, the basic propositions are that the vernacular strengthens community culture, provides a more effective base for learning of a foreign language and of mathematics, and is more efficient than spending the whole of primary schooling learning the language in which lessons are to be given. Vernacular schooling expanded rapidly, but in practice the schools struggled for several reasons widely acknowledged within Papua New Guinea. One was conflict between the non-formal vernacular approach and the formal elementary system, with effect on community support (Siegel 1997). A second problem, as Gould (2004) reported for the Southern Highlands, was the absence of vernacular texts in a country with some 830 languages. A third major problem was training enough vernacular teachers. A related fourth problem was training primary teachers to cope with the transition into English of pupils arriving from vernacular elementary schooling into grade 3 in primary schools (Siegel 1997; Guy et al. 2006; Kale 2006, pp. 207-208). Many primary teachers do not know the vernacular of the locations in which they are posted and thus they have had difficulties with language transition because they cannot use examples from the vernacular in which pupils have been schooled. None of this affects the issue of teaching styles, nor is vernacular schooling an example of progressive reform as defined in this book, but it does reflect the magnitude of operational problems that can arise even when a reform is apparently contextually appropriate. 8.5 Process and Product The cultural issues impact heavily on teaching styles and curriculum. The most damning professional criticism of the progressive curriculum reforms reviewed in Chapter 7 is that they exemplified the Progressive Education Fallacy in confusing process with product. The assumption that teaching the enquiring mind needs enquiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools was never treated as a proposition to be debated systematically or as a hypothesis to be tested empirically in the cultural context seen in this chapter. Dunkin (1991, pp. 54-58) found no experimental studies in Papua New Guinea on the relationship between teacher training in changing classroom behaviour and student achievement. Papua New Guinea participated in the IEA Second International Science Survey in the early 1980s, but analysis was not related to teaching methods (Wilson 1990). There has been a marked drop-off in published educational research in and on Papua New Guinea over the last 15 years and I have not uncovered any experimental studies since or

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any less controlled research that leads to the conclusion that enquiry teaching and learning methods generate enquiring minds. The desired product of most of the attempted reforms was the acceleration of the learning of higher order enquiry skills. However, changes in teaching styles have not been assessed for the extent to which they might change learning outcomes among students. Specifically, the adoption by teachers of a meaning or progressive style has not been tested experimentally to see whether or not it accelerates the development of higher level cognitive skills. On the contrary, other evidence is supportive of the hypothesis that formal enquiry abilities develop with mental maturation as part of the aging process and that this development has a strong cultural basis. The evidence that does bear on the development of the higher order cognitive levels required by formal enquiry is derived from Piagetian research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Lewis and Ransley (1977) reviewed a number of such studies from the South Pacific and found that high school students were predominantly concrete operational rather than formal operational, as required for problem-solving. Price (1978) found that concrete operational students in Papua New Guinea were two to three years behind their counterparts in first language education in industrialised countries. Shea’s (1985) review of the Papua New Guinea literature suggested that high school students were likely to be developing conservation skills. Wilson and Wilson (1984) found from testing upper level high school and lower level university science students in Papua New Guinea that large numbers were in a transitional period between concrete and formal operations, although there were strong indications of a steady development of formal operational thinking during their four years of university study. Consistent with these findings, Bleus (1989, p. 83) identified schooling, culture and language of instruction as three variables that affect the maturation rate. The most overriding explanation comes from Lancy (1983), who developed Piagetian research into a new ‘stage’ theory of cognition from a socio-cultural perspective. His ethnomathematical research among students in Papua New Guinea found that the sequence of Piaget’s developmental stages was similar but not identical to Piaget’s European findings. Leaving aside objections to stages methodology as such, Lancy found that the first ‘stage’ was very similar to Piaget’s sensorimotor and early concrete operational stages, putting the view that this level is where genetic programming has its major influence. Here, socialisation is the key focus of communication and many children’s activities are very similar across cultures. The second, concrete operational ‘stage’ finds enculturation taking over from socialisation. With culture and environment more influential and genetics less, different cultures emphasise different knowledge and ideas. The third ‘stage’ of meta-cognition has individuals acquiring theories of language and cognition.

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Essentially, this level is based on cultural values, with different cultural groups emphasising different theories of knowledge that represent the values lying behind language and symbols. Lancy considered that Piaget’s formal operational stage was a cultural theory emphasised in Western culture, but neither in Papua New Guinean nor Confucian cultures. One deduction from Lancy’s case is the dubious nature of any assumption that teaching styles from one cultural context will accelerate similar cognitive results in another context. Both independent and dependent variables in cross-cultural classroom research thus need close consideration. 8.6 Cultural Continuities In sum, numerous elements of traditional education, especially formal education involving sacred knowledge, anticipated the formalistic classroom teaching that was introduced in the colonial period in Papua New Guinea. One key element was that the traditional paradigm was revelatory. This is consistent with an underlying element in modern formalism, where the assumption also is that the teacher knows and transmits and the student does not know and receives. A second key element was that the learner’s job was to find people who had knowledge and would teach it, which schools now institutionalise. These views of knowledge in both traditional and modern times help explain the dominant role of teachers in traditional formal education and also the acceptability of teachers as the font of knowledge in modern formal education. Both traditional and modern formalism require students to play passive roles in receiving the ordained knowledge. Both share an emphasis on memorising a curriculum of basic facts and principles. The importance of traditional rites of passage is also evocative of modern graduation ceremonies and the ritual that goes with them. Colonialism institutionalised formal education in schools, but it did not introduce formalism. The coincidence between traditional and modern formalism was fortuitous. There is no indication that colonial educators deliberately sought to reinforce traditional teaching styles, but formalism resonated then and now with the underlying cultural paradigm. Fortuitously too, the leaving of education in mission hands meant that the revelatory epistemological base of Christianity was compatible with the way knowledge was understood in traditional cultures. In part, the persistence of formalistic teaching in Papua New Guinea can be explained by long-standing culturally-based pedagogical techniques grounded in traditional formal education but consistent with modern formalistic teaching. The grounding of these techniques in epistemological constructions based on transmission of traditional sacred knowledge is far more consistent with formalistic teaching than with progressive Western alternatives: “The conceptual framework for Melanesian knowledge processes is inspirational, revelationary and transmissional, while

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western knowledge is characterized by enquiry, reflectivity and creativity” (McLaughlin 1994, p. 67). As Guy et al. (1997, p. 36), who also emphasised cultural continuities in teaching and learning in Papua New Guinea, put it, “Western education systems value questioning, creativity and problem-solving behaviours. In an inspirational system, the problem is to find the right source or text, rather than engaging with the source or text in a creative fashion”, and, “learning is, above all, a social construction based on relationships with teachers that are immediate, dialogical, and hierarchical.” In contrast, progressivism is based primarily in a very different paradigm of knowledge construction, intellectual enquiry and the generation of new scientific knowledge. The lack of emphasis on enquiry, reflectivity and creativity in traditional epistemology has meant a high degree of incompatibility with recent Western educational theories that gained currency after the transference of formalistic school teaching during the colonial period. Traditional formal education can have considerable elements of authoritarianism, including physical punishment. The definition of modern formalistic teaching used in this book does not have physical punishment as an element, but in Papua New Guinea it seems that violence in schools also occurs. Such violence appears as much derived from traditional culture as modern. Consistent with this view, Larking (1974) contended that changes in authoritarianism in teaching in Papua New Guinea would only occur with changes in the social personality of society itself. One major difference between old and new is that traditional formalism is part of an oral bush culture, unlike the emphasis on literacy inside that institution of modern formalism, the school. And, of course, the content is very different. Quite possibly, educators in the colonial period would have been surprised to learn how similar their pedagogical principles were to traditional ones, but “there was never any intention that the schools should merely serve to reproduce the values, beliefs and lifestyles of the societies in which they were placed: in fact, the explicit intention was the opposite” (Smith & Guthrie 1980, p. 7). In the post-colonial period, despite curricular efforts to promote schooling relevant to community life, the core content of literacy and numeracy continues to prevail and partly to be a vehicle for transmitting aspects of foreign culture. The continuing relevance of formalism nearly 40 years after Self Government in Papua New Guinea and the considerable failures introducing alternatives imply that formalism is not just an outdated colonial impost. The coincidence between traditional and modern teaching was fortuitous, but formalism resonated then and now with underlying cultural patterns. Rather than being a barrier to change, formalism is consistent both with the rest of the education system and with deep cultural patterns. This does not mean that formalism is appropriate in all parts of the education system. It is appropriate to most parts of primary and secondary school-

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ing in Papua New Guinea, but may not fit all parts. An elite education system is developing in the now misnamed international schools and in other private schools. Originally built in the colonial period to provide an Australian education to expatriate children who were not expected to remain in Papua New Guinea, the growing international school system now predominantly provides schooling orientated to the modern sector for those parents able to afford the fees. These schools remain influenced by progressive methods, although no evidence about their effectiveness appears to be available. Tertiary education may also be able to use more student-centred teaching styles. 8.7 Conclusion Formalism predated European colonisation in the 1870s, was reinforced by the teaching style introduced by missions and others in colonial schools in the 20th century, and has resisted the efforts of recent educational reformers to change it. The fundamental professional issue underlying curriculum development and teacher training in Papua New Guinea since the 1960s has been the pervasive differences between the progressive and formalistic approaches in the classroom. Progressive educational reforms during this period largely failed in the classroom, and there is no counter evidence to indicate any successes at replacing formalistic with progressive teaching styles. On the contrary, the failed reforms and the ongoing prevalence of a formalistic teaching style in primary and secondary schools are associated with long-term cultural patterns. Formalistic teaching fundamentally persists because it is culturally congruent with the traditional formal teaching styles that predated European colonisation. There is no indication that an inevitable evolutionary progression through different types of teaching from formalism to meaning is underway in Papua New Guinea. The implication of the theoretical and cultural objections to the progressive stages mentality is that, even were working conditions in schools and classroom improved, formalism in Papua New Guinea would still prevail. The anthropological view of traditional epistemology is now recognised, but it has been approached by educators as an ex post facto explanation for their failure to ‘modernise’ teaching styles. Few it seems have been able to take the next step and see the problem as an opportunity to take a culturally intuitive formalistic teaching style and develop it further rather than to try unproductively to have teachers adopt methods that are counter-intuitive to them. Some argue that formalistic teaching was an outside imposition. Formalism, as we have seen, was not new, but having it in schools certainly was. There is no indication that colonial educators deliberately sought to reinforce traditional teaching styles. The coincidence between traditional and modern was fortuitous

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but the underlying similarities in epistemological and pedagogical principles do help explain why formalistic teaching in schools was and still is congruent with a pre-existent cultural paradigm in formal education. From the research summarised in Chapters 6-8, we can infer that formalistic teaching is not an intermediary stage on the path to educational development, but is a state that is likely to remain embedded in the Papua New Guinea school education system because it is compatible with traditional and on-going cultural practices. The concerted evidence is a refutation of the proposition that primary and secondary teaching will slowly but inevitably change to a progressive style. In any foreseeable future, this is highly unlikely to happen. References Ahai, N., & Bopp, M. (1995). Missing links: Literacy, awareness and development in Papua New Guinea. Research Report No.67. Port Moresby: National Research Institute. Avei, D. (1997). Poverty and education at Pinu village, Central Province. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(1), 13-27. Bleus, A. (1989). Psychology for teachers in the South Pacific. Goroka: Goroka Teacher’s College. Carrier, J. (1980). Knowledge and its use: Constraints upon the application of new knowledge in Ponam society. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(2), 102-126. Carrier, J. (1984). Education and Society in a Manus Village. Report No.47. Port Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea. Carrier, J. (1985). Education and the transformation of traditional inequalities in Manus province. In M. Bray, & P. Smith (Eds.), Education and social stratification in Papua New Guinea (pp. 86-97). Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Clarkson, P. (1994). Language and mathematics: A comparison of bilingual and monolingual students of mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 23(4), 417-429. Demerath, P. (1996). Social and cultural influences on the decline in Manus school certificate examination performance. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 32(1), 55-64. Downing, J., & Downing, M. (1983). Metacognitive readiness for literacy learning. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 19(1), 17-40. Dunkin, M.J. (1991). Teacher education, lessons from research. In B. Avalos, & L. Neuendorf (Eds.), Teaching in Papua New Guinea: A perspective for the nineties (pp. 53-72). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press. Elkin, A. (1978). Aboriginal men of higher degree (2nd Ed.). Brisbane: Queensland University. Esling, J., & Downing, J. (1986). What do ESL students need to learn about reading? TESL Canada Journal, Special Issue 1, 55-68. Eyford, H. (1993). Relevant education: The cultural dimension. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 29(1), 9-20. Fife, W. (1992). Crossing boundaries: Dissolution as a secondary message in education in Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Educational Development, 12(3), 213-221. Fitz-Patrick, D., & Kimbuna, J. (1983). Bundi: The culture of a Papua New Guinea people. Nyrang: Ryebuck. Gould, S. (2004). Purposeful reading in elementary schools: From ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 40(1), 43-54.

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Guthrie, G. (2002). Crumbs from the table: The impact of globalization and internationalization on the poverty of Third World universities. In P. Ninnes, & L. Tamatea (Eds.), Internationalizing education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Proceedings of the 2002 ANZCIES conference (pp. 325-338). Armidale: Australian and New Zealand Comparative & International Education Society. Guthrie, G. (2003). Cultural continuities in teaching styles. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism], 39(2), 57-78. Guy, R. (1996). The experiences and outcomes of education: A village case study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 32(1), 43-54. Guy, R., & Avei, D. (1997). An ethnographic study of education and wealth in Pari village, National Capital District. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(2), 131-143. Guy, R., Haihuie, S., & Pena, P. (1997). Research, knowledge and the management of learning in distance education in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(1), 33-41. Guy, R., Paraide, P., Kippel, L., & Reta, M. (2006). Review of the catch-up bridging to English workshops – CRIP Impact Study 2. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 112-122). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Kaima, S. (1998). Takwan, written records and information sources in an oral culture: The case of Wantoat. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 34(1), 33-39. Kale, J. (2006). Bilingual schooling in Papua New Guinea: A sharp tool easily blunted. In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 201-213). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Khambu, J. (1997). The struggle to bring education to Kawa village in Simbu Province. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(2), 95-106. Kiruhia, J. (2003). The practicum as experienced in the student teacher role. In A. Maha, & T. Flaherty (Eds.), Education for 21st century in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific (pp. 109-116). Goroka: University of Goroka. Lancy, D.F. (1983). Cross-cultural studies in cognition and mathematics. New York: Academic Press. Larking, L.G (1974). Some difficulties in improving the quality of teachers in Papua New Guinea. In Educational perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 130-137). Melbourne: Australian College of Education. Lawrence, P. (1964). Road belong cargo. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Lewis, G., & Ransley, W. (1977). Piagetian testing in the South Pacific: Implications for teacher education. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 5(3), 191-198. Lewis, M.P. (Ed.). (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (16th Ed.). Dallas: SIL International. Lindstrom, L. (1990). Local knowledge systems and the Pacific classroom. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(1), 5-17. Litteral, R. (2000). Four decades of language policy in Papua New Guinea: The move towards the vernacular. Radical Pedagogy, 2(2), 1-6. McLaughlin, D. (1994). Through whose eyes do our children see the world now? Traditional education in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 30(2), 63-79. McNamara, V. (1979). Some experiences of Papua New Guinea primary schools, 1953-1977. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on the Community School], 15, 1026.

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Mel, M. (2002). ‘Ples bilong mi’, Shifting cultures and the learner in relation to identity in Papua New Guinea. In P. Ninnes, & L. Tamatea (Eds.), Education in the Asia-Pacific region: Critical reflections, critical times (pp. 410-422). Armidale: Australian and New Zealand Comparative & International Education Society. Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialisation: Three development stories and their implications. In R. Shweder, & R. Levine (Eds.), Culture and theory: Essays on mind, self and emotion (pp. 276-320). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Ope, D. (2003). The implications of educational beliefs of early adolescents on their learning goals, motivational orientations and achievements: A case study of early adolescents in Port Moresby North schools. In A. Maha, & T. Flaherty (Eds.), Education for 21st century in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific (pp. 117-127). Goroka: University of Goroka. Pickford, S. (1998). Post-colonial learning: Classroom rituals as social and cultural practice. Papua New Guinea Journal of Teacher Education, 5(1), 6-14. Pomponio, A. (1985). The teacher as key symbol. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 237-252. Price, J. (1978). Conservation studies in Papua New Guinea: A review. International Journal of Psychology, 13(1), 1-24. Shea, J. (1985). Studies of cognitive development in Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Psychology, 10(1), 33-61. Siegel, J. (1997). Formal vs. non-formal vernacular education: The education reform in Papua New Guinea. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 18(3), 206-222. Smith, P. (1985). ‘Labouring with us in the gospel’: The role of Papuan teachers of the Sacred Heart Mission before the Pacific War. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 151161. Smith, P., & Guthrie, G. (1980). Children, education and society. In G. Guthrie, & P. Smith (Eds.), The education of the Papua New Guinea child: Proceedings of the 1979 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 5-21). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Tawaiyole, P. (1997). The impact of education on Dobu Islanders of Milne Bay Province: A case study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 33(1), 49-65. Webster, T. (2006). The road to universalising primary education in Papua New Guinea: Are we really serious about getting there? In P. Pena (Ed.), Sustainable curriculum development: The PNG curriculum reform experience (pp. 14-22). Port Moresby: Department of Education. Weeks, S., & Guthrie, G. (1984). Papua New Guinea. In R. Thomas, & T. Postlethwaite (Eds.), Schooling in the Pacific Islands: Colonies in transition (pp. 29-64). Oxford: Pergamon. Williamson, A. (1985). Comparative notes on the role of the indigenous teacher in Papua, New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands, 1871-1942. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 163-172. Wilson, M. (1990). Science achievement in Papua New Guinea: Cross-national data implications. Comparative Education Review, 34(2), 232-247. Wilson, M., & Wilson, A. (1984). The development of formal thought during pretertiary science courses in Papua New Guinea. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 21(5), 527-535.

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In the Popperian sense, the failure of progressive education in Papua New Guinea provides a refutation of the possible universal inevitability of the progressive ideas embedded in the stages model because the predicted changes have not occurred and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future. While it is theoretically and methodologically important, arguably this refutation could be of little practical consequence worldwide because it could be rejected as a small example that is largely irrelevant elsewhere; but not so China. Chapter 9 reviews the English language literature on Chinese education, adding another element to the falsifiability of the stages by generalising the refutation to show that millennia-old educational forms make unlikely the adoption of Western models of progressive education in China. Recent research into classrooms on mainland China has found an apparently stable and widespread approach to formalistic classroom teaching in primary and secondary schools that is supported by institutionalised practices for teachers to develop within this style. In the Popperian sense, the case of Papua New Guinea provides a refutation of Beeby’s stages model because it demonstrates that the model does not have universal application. But, with a population of some 5 million, Papua New Guinea contains under one-tenth of one per cent of the world’s population. Arguably the refutation could be of little consequence on a world scale because Papua New Guinea could be rejected as a minor example that is largely irrelevant to the rest of the world; but not so China. With at least 1.3 billion people, China’s Confucian tradition remains a strong influence on Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore – altogether containing some one-quarter of the world’s population. China adds another element to the falsifiability of Beeby’s stages by generalising the refutation to a country that appears very different from Papua New Guinea, but which also has long-standing traditions involving revelatory epistemology and formalistic pedagogy. This chapter will sketch in the history of the ancient Confucian educational paradigm that pervades modern classrooms. A major difference between Chinese

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 173 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_9, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

and Papua New Guinean traditional cultures is that Chinese culture was literate. Its dynastic histories were highly documented and a large amount of written evidence has generated detailed descriptions of its traditions, in contrast to knowledge of pre-colonial Melanesian cultures, which derives from oral tradition and anthropological analysis. The chapter also summarises relevant research findings on classroom teaching from the English language literature since the mid-1990s, finding that formalistic educational forms over two thousand years old make unlikely the adoption in China of far more recent Western models of progressive education. 9.1 Confucianism and Other Philosophical Schools Traditional historical interpretations derived from China’s official dynastic histories portray a continuous empire with northern China at its forefront. Emerging archaeological evidence suggests that in many periods since the 3rd millennium BC other areas within modern China were just as advanced, competing kingdoms existed, and there were long periods with lack of central control (Keay 2008, pp. 5-7, 25-49, passim). Regardless of the continuities and discontinuities among the polities, Confucianism provided philosophical continuity that linked dynasties and still remains a direct influence on Chinese education – a point on which foreign revisionists and Chinese scholars are able to agree (Keay 2008, pp. 3-4; Guo 2006, pp. 7-8). As an historical figure, Confucius the philosopher was somewhat the Chinese equivalent of Socrates. But Confucian moral philosophy laid the basis, first, for a state religion, then, a popular religion, and eventually it became the cultural equivalent of the Judeo-Christian tradition in European civilisation. China had schools and a rudimentary examination system over three millennia ago. From the 11th to the 8th century BC, education became more sophisticated, precipitating intellectual ferment as rival schools of thought challenged one another (Cleverley 1991, pp. 1-4; Guo 2006, pp. 128-153). The Confucian tradition, which began in the 6th century BC, came to dominate existing and subsequent philosophical schools (Needham 1956, pp. 3-215; see also the abridgement by Ronan 1978, pp. 78-126). Confucius himself (Kong Qiu) lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. How much he contributed to the writings imputed to him is problematic. Some writings derive from his students, but all were modified and added to over centuries in succeeding layers of scholarship that came increasingly to influence governance (Keay 2008, pp. 66-71, passim). In contrast to the central concerns in Western philosophy with the metaphysical, with rational thought as a distinguishing characteristic of humans, and in the scientific study of nature, philosophy in China has been concerned more with social and ethical principles. Modern interpretations impute various materialist and

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idealist standpoints to different Confucians over the millennia (e.g. Guo 2006, pp. 98-99, passim), but for Confucius the proper study of mankind was man. He emphasised a social sense of justice, with nature a given as part of the moral order inherited from an idealised golden age about five centuries previously and revealed in its writings, rites, poetry and song (Needham 1956, pp. 3-32; Guo 2006, pp. 38-46). Early revelatory concerns central to Confucian epistemology focussed on the customary transmission of ancient wisdoms about social relations and the moral authority of good leaders. Confucianism taught that there was moral order to the universe in the sense that there was an ideal way to order human society, and was thus founded teleologically on a belief in design in nature. China’s governance early came to synthesise ethical Confucian and authoritarian Legalist principles that dated from the 4th century BC (Needham 1956, pp. 1, 204-215; Ronan 1978, pp. 187-189, 273-275). The Legalists had a codified system of laws and regulations that were the basis of government in the Qin state, while Confucian views were paternalistically concerned with the orderly administration of affairs based on historical precedent (Keay 2008, pp. 75-77, passim). Confucianism won the intellectual debate, but in practice the authoritarian Legalist approach to administrative regulation remained embedded in governance. After being ignored officially for several centuries, Confucianism became entrenched as the ritualistic state religion during the Han Dynasty from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD, albeit one usually not followed fully in practice. Although headed by scholars and officials rather then priests, Confucian contributions to science were almost entirely negative, according to Needham (1956, p. 1). Rather, proto-scientific thought developed from four other schools of philosophy that had naturalistic world views. Chief among them in the long-term was Taoism, but none of these schools came to dominate the intertwined systems of governance and elite education in the same way as Confucianism. The basis for a Chinese scientific tradition lay in the abstract philosophical ideas of Taoism, the beginnings of which were ascribed traditionally to a slightly older contemporary of Confucius, Lao Tzu (Lao Zi) (Needham 1956, pp. 33-164; Wilkinson 1997; Guo 2006, pp. 132-141). Modern scholarship considers that Taoist philosophy was more likely an anthology of thinking from subsequent centuries. Early proponents included philosophers, who not infrequently lived in seclusion away from court politics in the safety of the countryside. Another influence came from magicians and shamans who had faith in nature worship. Magic and science were not then distinguishable and it was not unnatural for the two to combine gradually and develop into a popular religion, which occurred by the time that Confucianism also became one in the 2nd century AD. Two other schools of thought, the Mohists and the Logicians, had also pursued an interest in basic scientific logic (Needham 1956, pp. 165-203). Mohism in the 4th century BC particularly had an interest in

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mechanics and physics for defensive military purposes. It reached a threshold for scientific reasoning, with an understanding of conceptual models, induction and deduction, but did not develop into a theory of science. The Logicians’ similar school of philosophy, differentiated in the 1st century AD, was also concerned with logic, particularly the use of paradoxes to analyse change in nature. Both schools were lost over time, but some of their proto-scientific thought became incorporated into Taoism. A fourth group, the Naturalists, gave rise to the earliest Chinese scientific theories in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Naturalists developed schemes for classifying the basic properties of material things into five elements (water, fire, wood, metal and earth) and two fundamental forces (Yin and Yang), codified symbolically through the Book of Changes (I Ching) (Needham 1956, pp. 216-345; Cleary 2005, pp. 3-35). These schemas represented a view of nature as an organic, patterned and harmonious whole. Later influential philosophies, such as Buddhism, also admitted elements of scientific thinking, but none led to scientific method in the modern sense. The I Ching, in particular, resonated for centuries in Chinese society. Its arcane system of classification and connections reflected the predominant bureaucratic approach in a feudal system of governance. Taoism came to include three relevant differences from Confucianism. The first was that it sought both inorganic and biological knowledge about order in nature through observation and naturalistic practical experimentation. The second was a denial of the teleological acceptance of design in nature that was held in Confucianism (Needham 1956, pp. 55-56; Ronan 1978, p. 93). Third, like later schools of philosophy, Taoism admitted a pragmatic interest in change. While Taoism never developed a systematic natural philosophy, Taoists were adept at developing the technological consequences of their observations, largely in a practical, empirical and atheoretical fashion. However, the combination of magic and science remained in force. The type of formal scientific epistemology that eventually developed in Europe in the 17th century AD did not develop in China, and thus Chinese epistemology has remained revelatory. 9.2 Confucianism and Education Confucius held in principle that the capacity to govern had no necessary connection to birth, wealth or position. He taught that this capacity depended solely on character and knowledge, which depended on education. In principle, every man (schooling was of little concern for women) was educable. Needham’s (1956, p. 6) view was that Confucius was greatest as an educator, being “the first who pointed out that in teaching there should be no class-distinctions. No qualifications of birth were necessary in acceptance for the … training that Confucius gave. In this we

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see one of the germs of the bureaucratic system, according to which whoever was teachable and ambitious for letters could become a scholar and serve his prince.” With Confucianism becoming the Han Dynasty state religion in the 2nd century BC, it provided a prototype for a system of bureaucratic governance. Confucian books were regarded as providing the ideal educational curriculum, with memorisation of classical texts the basis for an examination system that developed with a selection function for official careers. In turn, Confucianism acquired institutional substance and a veneer of orthodoxy through state endorsement (Keay 2008, p. 129). Although the examination system was not designed to select scientists, or even to encourage an interest in science, it did nevertheless select educated people for positions of power, something that was not even contemplated under feudalism in Europe (Needham 2004, p. 227). Selection by examination was revolutionary for the times because it was a vehicle for opening up government appointments based on ability but, in practice, examination access became limited to the ruling classes that had the leisure and resources for a classical education for their sons. “The examination system thus came to perpetuate the interests of the ruling classes. The great respect for learning … together with the idea of choosing officials steeped in Confucian literature, survived as fundamental characteristics of Chinese civilization” (Dawson 1972, p. 22). During the 7th century AD, Confucianism was embedded in local government too, with the establishment of Confucian teaching temples in all provinces and counties. Here, stone tablets displayed imperial decrees for study (Dawson 1972, p. 58). They, together with a script that has been standardised for some 3000 years and the development of printing before the end of the first millennium, meant Confucian precepts remained accessible over the centuries. While Chinese civilisation remained largely self-contained and stable until the 19th century, change did occur. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism were mutually influential at a philosophical level. As religions, they usually coexisted comfortably during times of peace and were often intermixed in daily religious practice. Keay (2008, pp. 196-209) has usefully typified the role of Confucianism as being a state religion and the guiding philosophy of the ruling elites, but paying little attention to the ordinary people and despising trade. Taoism was an alternative for the commercial and agricultural classes, and for dynastic challengers from within China. It was particularly influential in some periods (for example, part of the 8th century AD when candidates for the civil service examinations could choose to be tested on Taoist rather than Confucian texts), reaching a popular peak in the 12th century. Buddhism more typically was the religion of outside challengers. Its influence began in the 4th century AD and was particularly strong from the 7th to 9th centuries AD, and again in the 13th century when Kublai Khan established the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. However, Confucianism generally prevailed in

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government, in considerable part because of its principle of the Mandate of Heaven, which provided legitimacy for rule to pass from an unjust dynasty to a new one when power could no longer be maintained in the face of rebellion. This reinforced the role of officials in conducting Confucian rituals, applying precepts that could legitimise (often retrospectively) changes of government from one dynasty to another, and in maintaining governmental stability (Dawson 1972, pp. 2029, passim; Keay 2008, pp. 216-218, passim). Confucianism waxed, waned and changed too. During the 12th & 13th centuries AD, a renaissance led to the school known as Neo-Confucianism attempting to invigorate the moral authority of Confucian thought, although in turn it came to be regarded as tyrannical. Confucian writings were pared down to the Four Books by the key figure in the development of Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi. These became not just the basis for memorisation in the examination system but also the mark of an educated man, whose role was to investigate the complex relationships that ordered social life rather than to be curious about other areas of knowledge or empirical investigation. Reform of the civil service examination system was shortlived, although a longer lasting national school system was established with the intention that civil servants would have to attend it before entering the examination system. At the end of the Buddhist-influenced Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century, Neo-Confucian examinations were restored. Neo-Confucianism became the dominant ideology for much of the rest of the Imperial period, with examinations dominating throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the beginning of the 20th century (Keay 2008, pp. 346-350). In the later half of the 14th century, the first Ming Emperor also had Confucian schools established in every county, sub-prefecture and prefecture to augment private and monastery schools. Only a classical Confucian education was available beyond school. Senior institutions prepared candidates for civil service selection through the only path, the ritualistic and highly competitive examination system, which imbued the ruling elite with Confucian doctrine and could result in progressively higher trappings of office and wealth. By requiring set standards, prescribing teaching methods and uniform syllabuses, and establishing controlling bodies of literary superintendents and chancellors, the examination system assumed a systematic comprehensiveness unknown in the West before the mass education systems of the early 19th century. The examination system produced more graduates than the civil service required, but conferred considerable prestige even on lower-level degree holders who were unplaced in the civil service and for whom teaching became an option. Additionally, a network of small private Taoistinfluenced popular schools taught literacy to traders and artisans. They were subject to lower level state control, but were much under-resourced compared with the elite’s Confucian schools. Taoist education was more practical than in elite

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schools, although teaching methods were similar. Pupils were taught the values of filial propriety along with some 2,000 characters a year, plus calligraphy. Arithmetic and practical skills were usually taught outside school. The effect was that there were two distinctive kinds of schooling. One taught Confucian-based high culture to the sons of the governing elite. The other kind, closer to Taoist concern with nature and the practical, provided schooling for artisans and traders (Dawson 1972, pp. 142-146, 204-205; Cleverley 1991; Bol 1997; Keay 2008, pp. 395-396). 9.3 Confucian Teaching Styles Confucian philosophy had three key elements that underpinned its historical dominance in educational thought. One was its respect for traditional moral authority, another was the emphasis on memorising the truths revealed in the ancient lore documented by Confucius, and a third was its pivotal role in social advancement through the examination system. To these was added content about human relations that reinforced respect for the teacher as the fount of traditional wisdom. However, Confucian teaching methods evolved over time (Gu 2001, pp. 189-194). Confucius’ own school used active non-formal educational methods based on the teacher setting the example in developing moral and intellectual qualities among gentlemen scholars (Guo 2006, pp. 34-38, 48-75). Some confusion appears in the educational literature about the age groups to which Confucius applied this method, but the predominant impression is that it applied not at the lower levels of schooling but to older students in higher education: university level and adult learning in the higher cognitive and affective domains, in today’s terms. The development of Confucian thought on teaching during the 3rd century BC by the second great Confucian philosopher, Mencius (Mengzi), stressed that the role of a teacher was to identify the most talented individuals and teach and nourish them. The teachers’ job was to present ethical precepts rather than advocate critical thinking. Question and answer methods were to encourage students to persist, in part through reflection (Guo 2006, pp. 94-109). Within a few more centuries, formalistic schooling became the Confucian norm. The key Book of Rites compiled in the 1st century BC from the writings of Confucian scholars laid down a system with first-level village and district schooling and second-level education for nine years in universities in the capitals. Schooling was closely structured, with formalistic observance of rituals, lectures, and memorisation of texts tested through examination. One of the volumes, Records of Learning, gave considerable guidance to teachers on the use of open-ended questions to elicit student thinking, elaboration of teachers’ answers, drilling of students, and use of analogies. Teachers were required to undergo strict training and were ascribed

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with an absolute authority to generate respect for doctrines (Guo 2006, pp. 153168). Confucianism has always taught that a moral code linked individual and state as part of a harmonious whole. The family was patriarchal, but the expectation that extended families related by descent and marriage would share wealth and good fortune was conducive to nepotism. Beyond the family, society’s aim was for harmony and unity through educational prescription, ruled by emperors expected to maintain ethical principles and good management. The five key human relationships were those of ruler and minister, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and friend to friend. Notionally reciprocal, the relationships depended in practice on deference and devotion by the junior partner. Within families, the old had more rights that the young, males more than females, and the head of the household more than other members. Children were bound by filial piety, which required absolute obedience and complete devotion to their parents and, by extension, to their teachers, whom students were taught to revere (Cleverley 1991, pp. 1-14). Confucian obligations were initially taught informally within the family. Zhu Xi also produced a Neo-Confucian handbook on family rituals (Keay 2008, pp. 349-350) with precepts that set the basis for upbringing in the ruling classes, starting with rules for pregnant women on how to nurture the unborn. Young children were to be taught hygiene, courtesy and correct ways of reading and writing through imitation and persistence until learned behaviours became natural habits. A detailed textbook for children prescribed nine years of formalistic primary schooling up until the age of 15. Rational principles were to be learned from the works of the sages through formalistic methods of teaching and learning. Teachers should have well-planned programmes, while students should read articles until they were memorised, respect the explanations of the ancient masters, practise the message in their own life, persist in reading, and read with concentration (Guo 2006, pp. 287-309). The teachers’ first task was to teach characters. At eight, a boy began tutoring to rote learn the Four Books and the Five Classics. By fifteen, he was apparently expected to have memorised over 400,000 characters of text (at 2-3 English words per character, perhaps equivalent to some 10 books the size of this one). Once the texts were learned, he had to learn the longer commentaries on them and begin work on specimen examination answers. Teaching used formalistic methods of imitation and repetition. Students were forbidden to ask questions lest they transgressed their rank, and a sharp slap from the teacher’s ruler was possible for inattention. In turn, teachers were controlled formalistically by an inspection system (Cleverley 1991, pp. 15-19, 25). As noted in Chapter 3.4, the effect of all this was to generate an educational paradigm that persists even in modern times and differs markedly from progres-

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sive Western constructs. The Confucian perspective emphasises benevolence and ethical behaviour. The intelligent person studies hard, enjoys learning and persists in lifelong learning. The underlying conceptions of intelligence include nonverbal reasoning ability, verbal reasoning ability, and (notably, given the derogatory view of it often held in the progressive school) rote memorisation (Ginsberg et al. 2004, p. 99). Memorisation, however, means more than mere rote learning without thought to meaning. It is regarded not as an end in itself, but as a vital repetitive step preceding understanding by ensuring accurate recall (Lee 1996, pp. 35-36; Biggs 1996, p. 54). This is not far removed from the role of remembering as the basic building block in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives (Table 11.1). Teaching styles 2000 years later still resonate with the formalism of the Book of Rites and with the Neo-Confucian approach to primary schooling. Today a recognised concept is “vernacular Confucianism”, the common beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning that are held by Chinese teachers, parents and students (Chang 2000). Vernacular Confucianism includes beliefs that praise spoils children, scolding builds character, failure results from laziness rather than lack of ability, and learning requires painful effort. Chang argued for ethnographic research into these beliefs; the available research since coming largely from Hong Kong, where Salili (2001) found that traditional child-rearing beliefs about praise and punishment were reflected in teachers’ classroom behaviour. The examination system reflected both historical tradition and the highly competitive life chances for children. “Cultural values are also reflected in educational policies such as the length of the schooling, the type of role models the textbooks promote, as well as the manner in which students and teachers interact” (Salili 2001, p.79). Additionally, respect and obedience to superiors, including teachers, was typical, so that questioning a teacher could be considered a sign of disrespect. Traditional Confucian traits that teachers valued in their students included honesty, selfdiscipline, respectfulness to parents, responsibility, diligence, humbleness and obedience. Teachers should appear stern, especially with new classes; they seldom praised and provided only limited feedback. Ability was perceived as achievable and dependent on effort through memorisation and repetition. Many vernacular Confucian beliefs would not be recognised by Confucius or endorsed by him as Confucian (Watkins & Biggs 2001, pp. 4-5 ff.). The teaching styles based in vernacular Confucian beliefs are not apparently consistent with Confucius’ own approach to higher education, but are more consistent with later Confucian and Neo-Confucian approaches to first-level schooling. Today, China is largely a secular country. Confucian philosophy is studied, but practitioners of Confucianism as a religion are rare. However, like Judeo-Christian values in Western culture, Confucian-heritage values provide a paradigm that permeates the constructs even of non-believers.

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9.4 Modern Educational Developments Three distinct educational periods can be discerned in China’s modern history from the opening up forced by the first Opium War in the early 1840s. The first period spanned some 120 years through the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the Republic in the early 20th century, to the early Communist years in the 1950s and 1960s. Ideas from both Confucianism and Taoism coexisted. From a moral education perspective, the Confucian tradition emphasised benevolence and doing what is right, while the Taoist tradition emphasised the importance of humility, freedom from conventional standards of judgement, and full knowledge of oneself and external conditions (Ginsberg et al. 2004). However, there was little apparent change to the underlying culture of formalistic teaching (Guo 2006, pp. 384-577). The main outcome from this period was widening of educational opportunity. A key event in 1905 was the abolition of the Imperial examinations. Content also widened and Chinese intellectuals adopted some elements of progressive Western educational thought. Educational philosophers criticised rigid teaching of the classics and grappled with bringing together broader Western academic and technical knowledge with Taoist-influenced practical learning. Some modernisation of Confucian and Taoist practices also occurred, for example with mission education of girls. Opening up education to girls became a major accomplishment in the postLiberation period after 1949 as part of a push towards universal education under the Communist government (Keay 2008, pp. 481, 519). The early years of Communist governance prior to the Cultural Revolution also saw modelling of the education system on the Soviet Russian approach, which had strong pedagogical traditions influenced by German thought (Hayhoe 2001, pp. 11-13; Gu 2001, pp. 184-186). The second period was the seemingly most thoroughgoing educational revolution of all, the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong’s early educational writings were progressive, emphasising that student learning should focus actively on moral, intellectual and physical development and that students should not be overburdened with rote learning and examinations. In 1929, he laid out ten teaching methods that should be heuristic, use lively language, and encourage students to learn in a lively and active way. Increasingly, he was also against examinations (Gu 2001, pp. 94-95). By 1964 at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s views had become radical rather than progressive, emphasising class struggle, the integration of education and manual labour, and of theory and practice – but carried to a “destructive extreme” (Hayhoe 2001, p. 11) that left a generation undereducated. From 1966 to 1976, formal schools had very restricted programmes mainly comprising political education. Millions of young people were sent to the countryside for non-formal education aimed at breaking feudal tradition and political opposition. Universities were closed. While studied internationally and sometimes na-

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ively for its educational philosophy, these days the Cultural Revolution is often seen primarily as a disastrous political strategy within which educational philosophy was used by Mao as a political weapon (e.g. Chang & Halliday 2005, pp. 534569; Keay 2008, pp. 519-522). Its significance for this book is that the Cultural Revolution did include a comprehensive, highly radical and very unsuccessful revolutionary attempt to overthrow an educational philosophy that embodied classroom formalism. The failure saw reversion to traditional educational practices. The third period, since 1978, has seen considerable educational reform as part of the modernisation of the Chinese economy and opening up to international trade (Hayhoe 2001, pp. 20-23; Rao et al. 2009, pp. 216-219). Notable has been major expansion of a very large and increasingly well-funded formal education system providing for nine years of compulsory schooling. In 2001, education reforms promulgated 22 primary and 16 senior middle school subject syllabuses (Zhu 2007). They further added to the drive for modernisation by focussing on student competencies with practical applications and attempting to move away from examination-dominated approaches. Concern for moral and ethical education was also apparent from the late 1980s in a “back to tradition” movement. It began at the grass-roots implicitly teaching traditional Confucian-based virtues, spread to 3,000 schools and one million students within four years, gained governmental support in 1994 in the name of “Chinese traditional virtues”, and was still going strong over ten years later (Yu 2008). The moral concern was illustrated by Guo (2006, pp. 578-590), who particularly emphasised following truth and respecting ethics, the cultivation of sound personal character, benevolence towards others, and trustworthiness. These traditional virtues were placed against a concern that commercialisation and modernisation could lead to “insatiable” and “avaricious” ways. Recent interest in Confucianism in education is consistent with attempts to help develop greater respect for laws and to combat corruption through the traditional Confucian emphasis on moral qualities as well as intellectual ones. 9.5 Recent Classroom Studies in China Some 20 years ago, Cleverley (1991 p. 29) observed that young Chinese learners often brought a diligent, even docile approach to learning: the deference that many display towards their teachers, and the reverence that they give the printed word have their historical precedents. Large amounts of factual content from approved texts are still regularly committed to heart, examination results are highly commended … Teachers can be found quoting their favourite Confucian precepts ...

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Much of the recent research on the Chinese classroom has been driven by interest in what Biggs (1996) labelled the Paradox of the Chinese Learner, which applied in the Confucian-heritage cultures of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Biggs noted that the sort of teaching conditions generally agreed in Western progressive thought to be required for good learning were rarely to be observed in Confucian-heritage classrooms. On the contrary, classrooms generally had over 40 students, appeared to Western observers as highly authoritarian, had highly expository teaching methods focussed on stressful examinations with low level cognitive goals, and had lower per capita expenditure than is typical in Western countries. Yet, learners from Confucian-heritage countries consistently scored towards the top in IEA studies and nearly always higher than American students in mathematics, science and language. Biggs (1996, p. 49) pertinently commented: We thus have some explaining to do, otherwise some well-supported propositions about the nature of teaching and learning are at risk. And what of the political implications (not to mention the face lost by researchers), if large classes, outdated teaching methods, poor equipment, inadequate public expenditure per student, and relentless low-level examining can produce students who see themselves as engaging in high-level processing, and who outperform Western students in many subject areas! Biggs (1996, pp. 50-54) put the paradox in the Dunkin and Biddle (1974) framework of student presage, teaching presage, process and product factors operating in interaction in an open system tending towards equilibrium. The Western perception had these factors out of kilter because high quality outcomes merged from poor contexts, but what of Confucian-tradition cultural perceptions? The apparent contradiction between Western progressive and Confucian formalistic perceptions arose from too narrow a focus on the components of classroom learning. Rather, the systems theory perspective meant that, “we should interpret a piece of the action in terms of the system of which it is part, not in terms of an exotic system” (Biggs 1996, p. 54). Several other researchers have since investigated Confucian-heritage learning from this perspective, notably in papers found in two volumes edited by Watkins and Biggs (1996; 2001) and revisited in Chan and Rao (2009, see their overview and update at pp. 3-32). These three volumes contained papers based predominantly on research in Hong Kong. Essentially, the evidence is that student performance there was not due passively to superior memorisation, but to superior cognitive strategies. Rather than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts, teaching encouraged active, ‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. The

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2001 volume added an additional issue, the Paradox of the Chinese Teacher. Similarly, the evidence was that Chinese teaching used formalistic methods in a highly sophisticated fashion that actually encouraged student engagement in the material, and that the teachers’ operational context encouraged a collective approach to teaching. Interestingly, the Confucian tradition provides a rare example of reverse educational borrowing from a developing to a developed country. Vulliamy (1998) commented on some borrowing of Taiwanese whole-class teaching methods for use in primary schools in England in the 1990s. Very properly, he cautioned against such overseas borrowings without consideration of cultural contexts in countries both of origin and destination. This warning provides an ironic mirror image of the key issue underlying risky borrowings from developed to developing countries. The rest of this discussion draws mainly on research that has provided examples from within classrooms in mainland China itself or among teachers there. Cortazzi and Jin (2001) reported on the perceptions of good teaching as revealed in open-ended essays by 135 university students in Tianjin. The highest rating characteristic, mentioned by 67% of the writers, was teachers’ subject knowledge; 25% mentioned patience, 24% humour, and 22% moral example and friendliness. As mentioned in Chapter 4.2, they also reviewed evidence that large classes in China were often not reduced in size even when resources were available because large classes permitted fewer lessons per week for each teacher and therefore more time for preparation, supervision of study, and the expected individual attention to students outside the class. Teachers also could deliver the same lesson to different classes as a kind of rehearsed performance (the virtuoso approach identified by Paine 1990). Physics teaching in Guangzhou was studied by Gao and Watkins (2001), who undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 senior secondary teachers. The interviews were focussed using videotaped episodes from the teachers’ lessons. They found that the teachers had conceptions of knowledge delivery based on the view that learning was a process whereby the teachers knew and delivered knowledge and skills, learning being the process of acquiring them (a view held in common with formalistic teachers from other revelatory cultures). The formalistic teacher was at the centre of classroom teaching-learning processes, the learner a passive receptor accumulating increasingly more knowledge. The course syllabus and textbooks defined this knowledge, with neither teachers nor learners making decisions about content. The teachers’ role especially focussed on exam preparation, with the examination system perceived as an external driver of teaching and learning. However, students were not regarded just as passive receptors of information, but were expected to develop their ability through an active process of in-

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ternal construction. Teachers should guide the students using a variety of teaching strategies, relate the learning to the real world, match students’ ability levels, play a role in motivating students so that their attitudes to learning were promoted, and guide their conduct. The effect was that teachers had both ideal conceptions of teaching relating to learning facilitation, and competing practical conceptions orientated to knowledge transmission that dominated in the classroom. Highly centralised, top-down curriculum reforms introduced in China in 2001 included a more student-focussed model of teaching and learning. There was a move away from single national subject textbooks, and emphases on discovery and cooperative learning with a view to laying a foundation for lifelong learning (Zhu 2007). Three classroom studies since the introduction of these syllabuses have shown that discovery and cooperative learning did not extend in practice far beyond apparently increased attention to more closed questions directed by teachers to students to check their engagement in the lessons. The first study, by Ma et al. (2004), compared mathematics teaching in two urban and two rural primary schools in Jilin Province for over one month each. Observation and interviews found few differences in the way in which formalistic lessons were structured. In 40-minute lessons, teachers on average spent about 15 minutes questioning students from the front of the class. A closed question/answer format for checking understanding was commonly used, with students seldom initiating the questions. Both urban and rural teachers typically used textbooks and exercises. Students spent 13 minutes on average completing exercises from textbooks, which were checked extensively. The second study by Rao et al. (2009) found similar results. They concentrated on mathematics teaching in six grade 3 and 5 urban and rural schools in Zhejiang Province against the background of the curriculum reforms. The schools had average grade 3 and 5 class sizes of 48, ranging from 34 to 61. The children attended between six and seven 40-minute classes each day. Different rating systems mean no direct comparisons can be made with Pfau’s Nepal data in Chapter 2.4, but the overall pattern of teacher lecturing occupying a considerable majority of time was similar. Despite large class sizes, videotaped lessons showed children were welldisciplined and very engaged in the learning process. Teachers did not have to manage disruptive behaviour, children were seldom criticised and the classroom atmosphere was very pleasant. Lesson structures were very similar across all schools, and both grades were instructed in a similar fashion. Teachers typically introduced a new topic, then used closed questions with students, assigned class work, and finally summarised the lesson. Notably, nine of the 12 teachers observed did not use textbooks; rather they predominantly used question-and-answer methods and explanation. Whole-class teaching was used for the majority of lesson time but, consistent with the new curriculum, with questioning to ensure that

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students were actively involved in learning. The research identified lower student achievement in rural schools, but teaching styles were similar. The common pedagogical approaches used by the teachers were ascribed by the researchers to the school system, the centrally-prescribed syllabus, common textbooks and a uniform teacher training curriculum. A third, ethnographic, study by Ma et al. (2006) found similarly that mathematics teachers in two primary schools in Jilin Province closely followed the new primary mathematics syllabus but had not taken effective steps to adapt it to students’ individual differences, particularly because of the exam culture. Several other studies showing the subtleties of formalistic mathematics classrooms in China can be found in Fan et al. (2004). There are some strong examples of teacher development being institutionalised in schools. Cortazzi and Jin (2001, pp. 121-125) additionally reported that the school system could provide incentives for teachers to learn from each other, act as mentors, model practices effective within their own context, and that they operated in a school-teacher culture of collective support. The authors also presented several examples of good teaching at kindergarten and primary levels: the implication being that good formalistic teaching was considered in this culture to be a highly developed professional form. A later oversight by Tsui and Wong (2009) showed that using schools as the prime site for teacher development derived from the Soviet Russian model adopted in the 1950s, an approach that has continued to the present. Formal qualifications in teacher education from ‘normal universities’ were regarded as a beginning; much INSET occurred as daily teacher practice within schools. Standard approaches included “lesson research” (which included collective lesson preparation, lesson observation and post-observation conferencing), demonstration lessons and one-on-one mentoring. The researchers provided a case study based on 12.5 hours of interviews with players in a programme in Shanghai that was recognised as an outstanding success, and which has been modelled elsewhere in China (Tsui & Wong 2009). The programme involved support to schools from district education offices (whose role was to help teachers understand the standardised curriculum framework and materials and to provide in-service support) and from district level educational academies (which undertook action research on teaching). In a number of schools, teacher professional development was organised systematically, including subject groups working on collective lesson preparation. Networks among schools had also been established. The systematic approach to INSET was based on an apprenticeship model for inexperienced teachers, who were initially lightly loaded. They were assigned mentors, whom they observed and who provided feedback on subject knowledge and instructional strategies from classroom observation. Collective lesson preparation was used to develop virtuoso lessons that would be carefully planned, critiqued, refined into a standard piece, and rehearsed and repeated,

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perhaps for decades with standard material. Teaching demonstrations were also held at school, district, province and national levels, and open to critique from large audiences. The key proponent of this programme was guided by Confucian thinking on the integration of teaching, learning and doing, within which any Western influences were applied (Tsui & Wong 2009, pp. 290-304). Mok (2006) reported a case study of 15 videotaped lessons from one Chinese mathematics classroom in Shanghai that was influenced by this teacher development programme. The lessons had 67% of time on whole-class instruction, 22% on individual work and 11% on small group or pair work. The teacher was pedagogical in style, with the whole-class instruction including frequent questions to the students (although hardly any instances of student-initiated questions), and with some attention to variation within lessons. The consistently attentive students valued learning of content, but did actively reflect on what was happening in the lessons. Based on this, Mok argued the somewhat convoluted notion that a teacher-dominated lesson may actually be interpreted as an alternative form of student-centredness. Halstead and Zhu (2010) drew a useful distinction between a central goal of Western progressive education (the “personal autonomy” of the individual as a self-actualised decision-maker) and the emphasis in recent educational reforms in China on the more limited “learner autonomy” (which applies to individuals taking more responsibility for their own learning, balanced by a recognition of interdependence and collectivism). Their ethnographic research provided a snapshot from observation of 12 lessons in a senior high school English class in Beijing and semi-structured interviews with the teacher and 10 randomly selected students. Even limited learner autonomy was hardly a reality at all in the classroom, the researchers found. The teacher and students expressed a desire for student autonomy and management of class activities for which the students had responsibility, but there was very limited implementation in practice. The teacher found her hands tied both by her own tendency to dominate the learning process (in accordance with traditional Chinese expectations of a teacher) and by the requirements of the university entrance examination. The overall effect of these studies is to show that the heritage of formalistic Confucian teaching apparently predominates in classrooms in mainland China. The state lays down syllabuses, textbooks and teacher training requirements, and the school system has much in common across the whole country. Since the start of this century, policy had been for teachers to pay more attention to student learning. Given centralised control and the effectiveness of the INSET strategies, these policies appear to have been implemented quickly. The effect is not, however, to introduce progressive liberal or democratic methods, but to upgrade the level of

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formalism by having teachers direct more closed (rather than open) questions to students during the predominant whole-class lessons. Some research based primarily on the Confucian tradition in Hong Kong is also germane. One finding about the working role and the formalistic culture of teaching in Hong Kong compared with Australia was that the Chinese teacherstudent relationship was more formal and hierarchical but not necessarily authoritarian, and was not limited to the classroom. Like in China, there were very hierarchical classroom practices, but they were surrounded by active and more informal friendly interactions outside the classroom (Ho 2001). Many students often initiated informal collaboration in small groups (Tang 1996). Within Hong Kong classrooms, progressive influences have also come from Western educated teachers and educators, “who are active in trying to change the education system of Hong Kong from teacher-centered, examination and textbook driven to a more student-centered, broader-based and analytical system” (Salili 2001, p. 78). Chan (2001) put a case for Western-developed principles of constructivist instruction for the promotion of learning and understanding in Hong Kong, although Sachs et al. (2003) subsequently found difficulties in transferring laboratory-based studies of cooperative learning task performance to classroom conditions. Chan and Rao (2009, pp. 12-22, 326-330), in revisiting the Chinese Learner Paradox, perhaps prematurely claimed that recent contextual changes to system structure in China and Hong Kong (decentralisation, school-based development, redefinition of educational goals and an emphasis on life-long learning) have included a paradigm shift from knowledge transmission to knowledge construction. Chan (2009) called this “transforming pedagogy”, with an emphasis on practices drawing on constructivist and problem-based learning that help Chinese learners learn how to learn. Yet, the examples of research within mainland China suggest that the main change to classroom practice appears to relate to teachers asking more closed questions of their students to check knowledge, which is scarcely a full-scale adoption of constructivist techniques. Nor do 10 years of mild change seem to carry the potential to alter dramatically 2000 years of formalistic Confucian tradition. 9.6 Conclusion The educational psychologist, John Biggs, using systems theory as a conceptual framework, reached a similar end point about the importance of context as comparative educationalists influenced by anthropology (Chapter 1.1). In this vein, the Chinese educationalist, Gu Mingyuan (2001, pp. 105-110; see also Wu 2009), has sensibly argued that a country with strong educational traditions, such as China, must aim both to preserve cultural identity and to modernise. For Gu,

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modernisation did not mean Westernisation as such; rather indigenous cultural traditions must change and develop, partly on the basis of considered choices about the assimilation of foreign cultural elements. Recent research into classrooms on mainland China has found an apparently stable and widespread approach to classroom teaching and teacher development. This is consistent with the view that teaching in primary and secondary schools is primarily formalistic, albeit with some very effective institutionalised procedures for teacher development, especially to have teachers increase closed questioning of students in class. Three cautions need to be entered about this research, however. The first is that the studies reported in the international English-language literature are quite limited in volume and scope. They are mainly from mathematics classes and from urban and coastal areas, and it may be that further research will indicate more variation in practice than is apparent so far. The second is that while the findings are highly consistent, this could be in part a reflection of limited samples and non-random access to classrooms. Western commentators tend to fluctuate between extremes in a love-hate relationship with China: on the one hand, I am conscious of the guided academic reportage on China during the 1950s and 1960s, which often verged on hagiography, and the unrealistic enthusiasm that dominated international attention to China when it opened up in the 1980s; and, on the other hand, of current hostility to China as it emerges into the international arena on issues such as climate change. The requirement to meet both cautions is further larger scale research, preferably including reviews of research published within China. The third caution about the recent literature is that most of the recent, valuable wave of research into Confucian-heritage education is based on studies in Hong Kong, not mainland China. Hong Kong was originally established by Britain and has been exposed to considerable British educational influence, as well as to a diaspora of political and economic refugees from China. Hong Kong and China thus have cultural and structural differences as well as similarities in education and classroom practice (Biggs & Watkins 2001, pp. 284-288). While seemingly focussed on the classroom, current critiques claiming that progressive forces are changing formalistic Confucian tradition need to be seen against the political background of the severe reservations within Hong Kong about the return of the territory to China in 1997 and the placement then of liberal educational reform high on the agenda (Morris 1992). Many attempts to make modern Confucianheritage classrooms more progressive currently derive from Hong Kong and seem to contain some progressive cognitive dissonance stemming from the contradiction between Confucian heritage emphasising the importance of learning revealed truths and Western scientific epistemologies emphasising the importance

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of individual enquiry. Time will tell whether these critiques forecast educational change or embody a rearguard political perspective. References Biggs, J. (1996). Western misperceptions of the Confucian-heritage learning culture. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 45-67). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Bol, K. (1997). Examinations and orthodoxies: 1070 and 1313 compared. In T. Huters, B. Wong, & P. Yu (Eds.), Culture and state in Chinese history: Conventions, accommodations, and critiques (pp. 29-57). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chan, C. (2001). Promoting learning and understanding through constructivist approaches for Chinese learners. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 181-203). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Chan, C. (2009). Classroom innovation for the Chinese learner: Transcending dichotomies and transforming pedagogy. In C. Chan, & N. Rao (Eds.), Revisiting the Chinese learner: Changing contexts, changing education (pp. 169-210). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Chan, C., & Rao, N. (Eds.). (2009). Revisiting the Chinese learner: Changing contexts, changing education. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Chang, J., & Halliday, J. (2005). Mao: The unknown story. London: Cape. Chang, W. (2000). In search of the Chinese in all the wrong places! Journal of Psychology in Chinese Societies, 1(1), 125-142. Cleary, T. (Trans.) (2005). The Taoist I Ching. Boston: Shambhala. Cleverley, J. (1991). The schooling of China: Tradition and modernity in Chinese education (2nd Ed.). Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (2001). Large classes in China: ‘Good’ teachers and interaction. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 115-134). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Dawson, R. (1972). Imperial China. London: Hutchinson. Dunkin, M.J., & Biddle, B.J. (1974). The study of teaching. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Fan, L., Wong, J., Cai, J., & Li, S. (Eds.). (2004). How Chinese learn mathematics: Perspectives from insiders. Singapore: World Scientific. Gao, L., & Watkins, D. (2001). Towards a model of teaching conceptions of Chinese secondary school teachers of physics. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 27-45). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Ginsberg, L., Nackerud, L., & Larrison, C. (2004). Human biology for social workers: Development, ecology, genetics, and health. Boston: Pearson. Gu, M. (2001). Education in China and abroad: Perspectives from a lifetime in comparative education. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Guo, Q. (2006). A history of Chinese educational thought. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

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Halstead, J.M., & Zhu. C. (2010). Autonomy as an element in Chinese educational reform: English lessons in a senior high school in Beijing. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 29(4), 443446. Hayhoe, R. (2001). Introduction. In M. Gu, Education in China and abroad: Perspectives from a lifetime in comparative education (pp. 5-23). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Ho, I. (2001). Are Chinese teachers authoritarian? In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 99-114). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Keay J. (2008). China: A history. London: Harper. Lee, W.O. (1996). The cultural context for Chinese learners: Conceptions of learning in the Confucian tradition. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 25-41). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Ma, Y., Lam, C., & Wong, N. (2006). Chinese primary school mathematics teachers working in a centralised curriculum system: A case study of two primary schools in north-east China. Compare, 36(2), 197-212. Ma, Y., Zhao, D., & Tuo, Z. (2004). Differences within communities: How is mathematics taught in rural and urban regions in mainland China. In L. Fan, J. Wong, J. Cai, & S. Li (Eds.), How Chinese learn mathematics: Perspectives from insiders (pp. 413-441). Singapore: World Scientific. Mok, I. (2006). Shedding light on the East Asian learner paradox: Reconstructing studentcentredness in a Shanghai classroom. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 26(2), 131142. Morris, P. (1992). Political expectations and educational reform: The case of Hong Kong prior to its return to the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Compare, 22(2), 153164. Needham, J. (1956). Science and civilization in China, Volume 2: History of thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Needham, J. (2004). Science and civilization in China, Volume 7 Part II: General conclusions and reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paine, L. (1990). The teacher as virtuoso: A Chinese model of teaching. Teachers College Record, 92, 49-81. Rao, N., Chi, J., & Cheng, K. (2009). Teaching mathematics: Observations from urban and rural schools in China. In C. Chan, & N. Rao (Eds.), Revisiting the Chinese learner: Changing contexts, changing education (pp. 211-231). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Ronan, C.A. (1978). The shorter science and civilization in China: An abridgement of Joseph Needham’s original text, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sachs, G., Candlin, C., & Rose, K. (2003). Developing cooperative learning in the Efl/Esl secondary classroom. RELC Journal, 34 (3), 338-369. Salili, F. (2001). Teacher-student interaction: Attributional implications and effectiveness of teachers’ evaluative feedback. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 77-98). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Tang, C. (1996). Collaborative learning: The latent dimension in Chinese students’ learning. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual

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Popper’s approach to the development of scientific knowledge involves a series of conjectures and refutations. Existing conjectures, propositions and hypotheses are analysed and either accepted, rejected or modified. New ones arise, and they too are subject to refutation. Section 3 completes a Popperian cycle with some conjectures and prognostications that arise from the old conjectures and their refutation. The Section’s theoretical and methodological conjectures are new in the sense that that they are replacements for older ones rather than new in time: some 30 years have passed since the first expression of some of their elements. Their essence is of the positive advantages of formalism. Others, like Beeby, have reluctantly conceded that formalism must be coped with; some like Tabulawa have pointed to its cultural roots as a paradigm: however, the conjecture here goes further in pointing to the positive aspects of formalism. Hopefully, this conjecture will lead to further academic and professional consideration where, like Beeby’s, it will rise or fall on its merits. First, Chapter 10 synthesises the analyses, evidence and findings from earlier in the book to present a cohesive account of formalism as an educational paradigm and why it can be relevant in developing country cultural contexts. To the extent that this material repeats key points from earlier in the book, I crave indulgence because, after all, repetition is part of the formalistic method. The chapter also contains a model of five teaching styles that removes the methodological objections to the stages model for research and considers some of the applications of the model within and between contexts. It also considers some of the more immediate technical issues for educational researchers, including options for classroom observation techniques. Given the inability of educational systems to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving the level of teaching in many developing countries lies in operating within the constraints of formalistic systems and in working to improve their levels of formalism. The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry teaching styles in developing countries, using them to apply theories that confuse process and product. Particularly to assist educational decision-making, Chapter 11 discusses some of the experimental design issues for consideration in field testing of curriculum innovations and in framing grounded classroom research. The critical issue is whether student learning actually benefits from changes to

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teaching styles, the hypothesis being that formalistic styles are more effective in revelatory cultures with the lower cognitive levels found in primary and secondary schools. Considerable caution is needed with prematurely optimistic findings from pilot projects and research into curriculum change that focusses on teaching styles as a dependent rather than independent variable. The chapter also clarifies issues to do with the adoption of innovation and suggests some paths for upgrading formalistic teaching. Given the conclusion from Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher education are highly specific to context, these ideas are not prescriptive, but indicate some of the more straightforward paths that are available. The cross-cultural implications of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages and the strength of other culturally-derived epistemologies have not received the widespread attention they deserve. The central issue in the failure of progressivism is not so much the methodological weaknesses of the stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the failure to address fully the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational values. Chapter 12 concludes the book in turning to far reaching and contentious issues. Are educational patterns universal? Is formalism emotionally destructive? Do Anglophone educational values have widespread relevance? Does neuroscanning research have implications for the introduction of progressive enquiry techniques in primary and secondary schools in developed as well as developing countries? Theoretically inelegant though it may be, educational solutions need to be grounded in local realities. The time has come to work with rather than against formalistic teaching.

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Section 3 completes a Popperian cycle with some conjectures and prognostications that arise from the old conjectures and their refutation. First, Chapter 10 synthesises the analyses, evidence and findings from earlier in the book to present a cohesive account of formalism as an educational paradigm and why it can be relevant in developing country cultural contexts. The chapter contains a model of five teaching styles that removes the methodological objections to the stages model for research and considers some of the applications of the model within and between contexts. It also considers some of the more immediate technical issues for educational researchers, including options for classroom observation techniques. Given the inability of educational systems to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving the level of teaching in many developing countries lies in operating within the constraints of formalistic systems and in working to improve their levels of formalism. An issue of fundamental importance to those involved in teaching, curriculum and teacher education in multicultural settings is which teaching styles should be promoted. Should teaching be formalistic or progressive, should it be teacher-centred or student-centred? Careful consideration needs to be given to such questions, not only where teacher trainers and curriculum developers are from other countries, but also when they have studied at overseas universities. In the first case, international contactors may not be fully aware of the significance of cultural differences affecting teaching and learning; in the second case, progressive international values may provide culturally inappropriate influences. A major reason for the prevalence of formalism is its compatibility with revelatory epistemologies in societies that value respect for knowledge and for authority, and that regard ritual as meaningful in itself. This book draws the conclusion that, despite the disapproval of many progressive educationists, formalism is appropriate in the many educational and cultural contexts where it has positive value in itself. Whole-class formalistic processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with its emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, is effective in revelatory cultures at promoting learning, particularly at the lower cognitive levels required in primary and secondary schools. Formalistic teaching is consistent with the formal-

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 197 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_10, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

istic examinations, teacher training and inspection systems that provide coherence in many educational systems, providing a base on which to build in the many situations where teachers and students feel comfortable with it. Rather than repeating the summary of the book in Chapter 1, now the primary aim is to provide a theoretical synthesis of elements from the earlier chapters, which draws out the positive elements of formalism. The second purpose of this chapter is to provide a macro-level model of teaching styles. The chapter also discusses some of the benefits from using a variety of classroom research methods. 10.1 Formalist Paradigms Teachers’ intuitive, culturally-derived assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the ways it ought to be transmitted, and their perceptions of the role of students and the goals of schooling, influence their teaching styles. Deep-rooted revelatory philosophies about the nature of truth and how it should be revealed often provide the basis for formalistic educational paradigms, providing long-term patterns for teachers’ and students’ behaviour, notably a didactic approach to revelation of knowledge to learners. In formalistic classrooms, the learner’s basic role is to memorise knowledge, preferably develop an understanding of it, and later act on it in an appropriate fashion and pass it on to others eligible to receive it. Even where teachers are not particularly conscious of the underlying epistemology, formalism provides a model for the classroom with assumptions that students can and do share with their teachers. Clearly, a major commonality in primary and secondary schools in many developing countries is the wide spread of formalism as a teaching style. The Kuhnian concept of paradigms – for which we can thank Tabulawa (1997) for bringing to this discussion – helps explain formalism’s on-going prevalence. Paradigms are systems of intellectual thought that provide social constructs that constitute ways of viewing reality. Two main paradigms have competed in the international educational arena over the last 50 years. Formalism and progressivism derive from opposed assumptions about the social world, the nature of reality and the learner. Both traditions have distinct views of what constitutes legitimate knowledge, how that knowledge should be transmitted, and how it is subsequently assessed. Formalism is not congruent with the basic tenets of learner-centred methods because the teacher is the centre of the classroom rather than the student, and knowledge is to be transmitted not discovered. In short, the two paradigms are based on incongruent epistemological assumptions and educational values. This discussion about paradigms is being held in the plural. Commonalities in formalistic paradigms are their base in revelatory epistemology and preferences for pedagogy rather than andragogy, but their particular natures vary from cultural

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context to cultural context. As Tabulawa pointed out in Botswana, the prevalence there of didactic, teacher-centred classrooms is underpinned by a philosophy of knowledge embedded in a wider culture. The same was true of tribal Papua New Guinea and Confucian China. The influence of the Confucian tradition in China suggests that any attempt to sustain progressive changes will have little impact on a formalistic tradition which has dominated for two millennia. That China should have a commonality with Botswana or Papua New Guinea is somewhat surprising, but may be explained by the level of abstraction with which we consider the concepts. The similarities in the principles underpinning their epistemologies (that knowledge is based on revealed truths from gods and ancestors), obviously should not be confused with any idea that the contents of their epistemologies (who revealed what, when, how, and to whom) or institutional manifestations (academies with written records or oral bush tradition) are similar. Equally, the reverse applies. The differences in the surface manifestations of these epistemologies should not blind us to their underlying commonalities. The formalist paradigm in Papua New Guinea, as the most detailed example in this book, saw revelatory knowledge passed on through ancient pedagogical tradition. As Lawrence (1964) and Carrier (1980) showed, in essence traditional knowledge had a unified epistemology going back to the ancestors and the deities. Sacred knowledge was finite, like the cosmic order from which it came. All important truth was invented by the deities and passed down through ancestral myths that provided secular and ritual procedures for exploiting them, and which were to be accepted not challenged. Independent human intellect and intellectual enquiry had little to do with this knowledge: it came into the world ready made and ready to use, and could be augmented not by human intellectual experiment but only by further revelations from new or old deities. Knowledge was thus revealed by the gods or through instruction from those who already possessed it. It was pragmatic and finite. Its purpose was human survival and transmittal of the culture, and it was controlled and regulated to these ends. Society’s aim was to transmit faithfully the accepted ways of life. Learners had to master esoteric, sacred knowledge; it could not be newly generated, but could only be passed on to initiates by those already in possession. The task of the learner was to locate knowledgeable people and to gain knowledge, not by asking questions, but by looking and listening to those who were known to be trustworthy. The institutionalised role of teachers was acknowledged and they played an important personal role in teaching initiates, whether individually or in groups. This formal education used formalistic methods, with its teachers often giving didactic verbal instruction based on a core curriculum of sacred knowledge. It was coincidental that the formalistic teaching brought by missionaries and other educators in colonial schools was culturally

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congruent with traditional epistemology and pedagogy that predated European colonisation. (In case anyone should think that this example is irrelevant to the rest of the world, I suggest rereading the previous paragraph and substituting the fundamentalist versions of any major religion for “Papua New Guinea”. For example, “Old Testament Christianity” and “Radical Islam” fit with remarkably little other adjustment. To complete the analogy, then consider how successful science-based atheism might be in communities where such religious traditions prevail.) For educators, improving teaching is a legitimate act. None of the above is intended as an argument for accepting formalism in its totalities. Nor is it intended to legitimise lack of effort to improve the level of formalistic teaching. However, the thrust of the argument is that incremental change within the formalistic teaching style may well succeed, but attempts to change to another style will not. Successful attempts to improve the level of formalistic teaching, it can be hypothesised, might occur where they focus on elements considered marginal to the core of formalism, but not where they appear in contradiction to its key cultural precepts. The tensions that these issues generate are indicated by Tabulawa’s research in Botswana, which added a dimension to formalism that might or might not apply elsewhere. There, Tabulawa found that learning was the responsibility of the student. The teacher’s job was to reveal knowledge; the pupil’s job was to learn it. Apparently, many teachers did not consider they actually had an obligation to assist the learning process. In a similar environment, O’Sullivan (2004) did find some teachers in Namibia able to reconsider such a view and, at least in the shortterm, to change their teaching. Whether or not this change would be sustained (and no evidence was presented either way) could well depend on the extent to which teachers perceived that helping students would violate cultural standards about self-reliance. If help were considered an appropriate act, in loco parentis for example, then the change might sustain. If such help were considered to lessen, for example, students’ self-reliance and their ability to survive in a harsh rural environment, perhaps the changes would not sustain. Teaching is a cultural act, and so is attempting to improve it. Formalism has been the subject of many failed progressive curriculum and teacher education reforms in developing countries for half a century or more. Regardless of any merits of progressive education reforms in the abstract, the evidence strongly suggests that formalistic paradigms prevail in countries with revelatory cultures. Pragmatically, one could argue, the high likelihood of failure is the only necessary reason to reject progressive reforms. However, in looking for explanations for such failures, the instigators often misdirect attention to the teachers themselves, to teacher training, inspections and the educational bureaucracy, rather than to the key underlying reason, which is the compatibility of formalism

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with revelatory cultures. Conversely, cultural incompatibility is a key explanation for why progressive reforms fail so freely. The introduction of Western progressive cultural precepts into societies with different value systems can be in conflict with revelatory values. Yes, parents might want modern schooling to help their children get jobs but, no, they might not understand or appreciate notions of intellectual enquiry that might also encourage the children to reject parental values and the authority of elders. Nor may they appreciate reform of the examination system that appears to provide one of the few real opportunities for their children to escape from poverty. Constructs and the educational paradigms in which they are embedded are not just individual perceptions, but are culturally framed and derived from the social environment. Equally, parents, teachers and children do not just passively and reflexively apply cultural tradition; their responses can represent purposeful, rational, thoughtful behaviour. The need is to understand how they perceive curriculum innovation and the extent to which innovations are consistent with their beliefs about schooling. Relevant here is Rogers’ (2003) analysis. Innovations perceived as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability and observability, and as having less complexity, are adopted more rapidly in organisations than innovations that do not have these attributes. The unwillingness of some formalistic teachers to adopt progressive innovations is understandable as a rational response to complex reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom, are not compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable outcomes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results – which explains why such innovations rarely survive the trial period. All this adds point to Vulliamy’s (1990, p. 230) rejection of the naïvety of the “blame the teacher” view of innovation failure where policy-makers and evaluators do not adequately address the socio-cultural milieu in which innovations take place. The value systems that formalism provides for both teachers and students contribute to the many failures to change didactic classroom practices. Papua New Guinea provides a detailed example, with the on-going failure in the classroom of many progressive innovations over a period of some 50 years, and no counterevidence to indicate any sustained successes at replacing formalism. This particular refutation of the progressive claim to universality is supported by many failures with similar reform attempts in Africa and Asia, including some of the more detailed examples in this book from Botswana, Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore and Zambia. Likewise, formalistic educational forms over 2000 years old make unlikely the adoption of far more recent Western models of a progressive education in China. Research into modern applications of the ancient Confucian educational paradigm has shown that apparently hierarchical and dominant formalistic teachers can and do have concerns for their students’ learning and that it

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is possible to improve their formalistic teaching to add more overt engagement of students through closed questions. The claim that this is generating a new studentcentred constructivism seems doubtful, but the Chinese example demonstrates that formalistic teachers can encourage deep understanding of underlying meaning rather than relying on surface recall, and that well-institutionalised formalistic inservice can support teachers along this path. One of formalism’s strengths is its functionality within the poorly resourced classroom settings that exist in many developing countries, where teachers often face large classes in rooms with very basic furniture and materials. The functionality of formalism in schools and classrooms with poor facilities is a considerable asset, although formalism is not just a response to lack of resources. While more resources are useful in schools, they will not necessarily be effective in changing teaching styles. Even were financing of education not highly limited by small budgets and even were working conditions in schools and classrooms improved, formalism would still prevail unless the cultural context were to change. Formalism is likely to remain embedded in many school systems for the foreseeable future because it is derived from paradigms symptomatic of pervasive cultural continuities compatible with traditional and on-going pedagogical practices. 10.2 Teaching Styles Model We need, however, to be more specific about formalism, especially for research purposes. Trying to better define educational stages is a false lead, given their theoretical and methodological invalidities. It is more sound methodologically to develop lower level models, use them to develop an appropriate data bank and then attempt more sophisticated cross-cultural analyses of classroom practice. One approach is a model focussed solely on classroom teaching styles rather than broadly using teachers as a surrogate for education systems, as did Beeby.17 The model presented in this section is designed to meet the theoretical and methodological objections to the stages approach found in Chapter 3.1. As an ideal-type model of teaching styles, the model lacks any pretension to sophistication, but it may be useful cross-culturally for initially identifying at a macro level variations in teaching style, an issue of considerable importance to educational professionals. Such research may become helpful in clarifying some of the conflicts about different types of teaching that are implicit in pre-service training, inspections, inservice training, curriculum design, and syllabus and textbook production in different countries. 17

Chapter 10.2 draws from Guthrie (1981) with permission of the Faculty of Education, now located at the University of Goroka.

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So far, this book has written about two predominant classroom styles, which essentially are teacher-centred and learner-centred, in large part because this is how the discussion has been couched for several decades now. Alexander (2001) and Barrett (2007) have stated that the debate on teaching in low-income countries has tended to assume this over-simplified conceptualisation, and that theory needed to move beyond a polarised view to allow for teachers to work with a mixed palate of techniques and ideas. In dealing with this issue, first we need to clarify some semantics because it seems that the meaning of pedagogy is migrating. Alexander (2001, p. 507) defined pedagogy as “both the act of teaching and the discourse in which it is embedded”. While central propositions of this book are fully in agreement with Alexander that pedagogy is contextually-based in values, collapsing the meaning of cultural context and teaching style into the one term removes a useful analytical distinction that I shall retain. Likewise, Barrett (2007) has broadly used pedagogy as a label for both teacher-centred and learner-centred classrooms. This usage loses another useful distinction, so I shall continue to use the meaning that treats pedagogy as a form centrally focussed on the teacher, in contrast to andragogy centrally focussed on the student. Nonetheless, the point about over-simplification of classrooms as either teacher-centred or learner-centred is valid. The Teaching Styles Model in Table 10.1 deals with this in part by positing five classroom teaching styles in a continuum from conservative to progressive. The five teaching styles have commonsense labels: Authoritarian, Formalistic, Flexible, Liberal and Democratic. The continuum is based on the four variables of Teacher Role (from authoritarian to democratic), Student Role (passive-active), Content Approach (teaching-learning), and Reinforcement (negative-positive). The styles are intended to apply to formal schooling at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, although in the descriptions that follow some flexibility is required in interpreting at each level terms such as classroom, teacher, student and reinforcement. The label Progressive has been used in this book to encompass both Liberal and Democratic styles, while proponents of progressivism often treat Authoritarianism and Formalism as synonyms. From a measurement perspective, the model is in the form of a continuum with five analytically distinct but empirically arbitrary divisions that represent differences of degree, rather than of kind. The typology represents for explanatory purposes continuous variables on ordinal scales. Such typologies are commonly used in education, but it is worth reiterating some of the measurement properties of ordinal scales to clarify what the table is and is not intended to represent (Guthrie 2010, pp. 150-151). Ordinal scales are based on continuous variables, with each category incorporating transitivity (i.e. if a>b, and b>c, then a>c). The categories measure in terms of more or less of the quality expressed by each variable, but without specifying the size of the interval. Labels are assigned to the categories for

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convenience, but other labels could be used or other categories added. Boundaries between the categories are drawn as broken lines, the implication being that they are arbitrary to a degree and capable of being redefined. Such redefinition, however, should be consistently transitive in relation to the underlying variables. Any teacher may combine categories at different parts of each variable to give a dominant style, and it is not intended to imply that the styles are discrete. The model is intended to remove Western education as the basis for predicting direction of change. The styles are represented ordinally as being more, or less, teacher-centred, but the model is intended to be taken at a purely nominal level as far as evaluation of the desirability or undesirability of teaching styles and their components is concerned, i.e. no one style is defined as ‘better’ than another. The evaluative judgement that styles are ‘better’ or ‘worse’ is deliberately excluded as a matter external to the model. My personal view is that the best teachers can use any or all of these styles, separately or in combination, as the occasion warrants. The basis of the model is the teacher, and this deliberately implies that the teacher is more important than the other variables in creating a classroom teaching style. The teacher has the most important organisational role whether the classroom is authoritarian and teacher-centred, with students not allowed to speak at will, or whether the classroom is democratic and student-centred, with active pupil participation in decision-making. Even where student-teacher relationships are based on a form of progressive ethical egalitarianism, the teacher wields considerably more direct and indirect authority as controller of time, knowledge resource, organiser of materials, arbiter in disputes and, especially, as the person usually responsible for allocating student grades. Furthermore, educational bureaucracies and school organisation place the teacher in a key hierarchical role as implementer of policy, whether progressive or conservative. The model is intended to represent classroom reality as understood by practising teachers. Deliberately, the model has not been made more complex, as is the practice in two other educational fields. The school effectiveness research reviewed in Chapter 5 typically collects data on a very wide range of variables of direct and often indirect influence on the classroom. Educational psychology literature also has an abundance of complex flow charts on teaching and learning (see examples on the Chinese learner in Chan & Rao 2009). Both school effectiveness and educational psychology fields clearly represent researchers’ complex attempts to provide holistic descriptions rather than the more bounded and action-orientated views of practitioners. Nonetheless, Barrett’s further points, that more nuance is needed in considering classroom practice than is provided by dichotomous views of teacher- or student-centred styles, and that teachers need a mixed palette of techniques and ideas, are taken into account in this model in three ways. One is the style labelled Flexible. Another is that improvements to Formalism or to any

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Formal and domineering, imposing rigid norms and sanctions.

Passive recipient of teacher-defined roles in behaviour and learning. Little overt interaction.

Teaching of prescriptive syllabus with closely defined content for rote learning.

Strict teacher control with strong negative sanctions (e.g. corporal punishment) enforcing obedience.

Teacher Role (authoritarian to democratic)

Student Role (passive to active)

Content Approach (teaching to learning)

Reinforcement (negative to positive)

Source: Guthrie (1981, p. 158).

AUTHORITARIAN | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Strong teacherbased negative sanctions, especially focussed on learning.

Organised processing of syllabus with emphasis on memorisation.

Passive, although some overt interaction.

Formal with well established routines and strict hierarchical control.

| FORMALISTIC

Classroom Teaching Styles Model

Variables

Table 10.1

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Greater attempts to use positive reinforcement, backed by strong negative sanctions.

Some flexibility in use of syllabus and textbooks, with attention to learning problems.

More active role within constraints defined by teacher.

Uses variety in methods and some relaxation of controls, but still dominant.

| FLEXIBLE | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Increased emphasis on positive reinforcement.

Wide degree of curricular choice. Emphasis on learning processes rather than content.

Works within fairly wide boundaries, especially in learning decisions.

Actively promotes student-centred class room. Encourages pupil participation in decisions.

| LIBERAL | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Positive response to internal motivation, although with latent teacher authority.

Strong emphasis on student learning at individual pace. Teacher a resource.

Actively participates in decisions. Increasingly responsible for own actions.

Leader of democratically based group. Coordinator of activities.

| DEMOCRATIC

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other style may involve more variation in classroom techniques, which proposition encompasses a third point, that Formalism is not defined as narrowly as Barrett assumed. As related in Chapter 2.4, any assumption that formalistic teachers never use variety in their methods and never involve students is misplaced. The definition of Formalism in Chapter 1.2 and in Table 10.1 allows for some overt teacherstudent and student-student interaction, as illustrated previously in Pfau’s Nepal research in Table 2.1. The five teaching styles in the model are: Authoritarian. The Authoritarian teacher is very formal and domineering; indeed, the prime role of the authoritarian teacher is to promote obedience to organisational requirements. This may be true, for example, of total institutions such as armies and some religious orders, where use of the style is a deliberate attempt to socialise recruits into following orders in strongly hierarchical authority systems. The Authoritarian teacher typically teaches a prescriptive syllabus and operates through rote learning of facts and principles, whether the 3Rs, recitation of religious tracts or the operation of a rifle. The teacher defines the norms of behaviour and of learning, while the student’s overt role is to be obedient and to respond to directions. In schools, a variety of reasons suggest themselves for teachers to organise classrooms in such a way. The predominant one is that this style may be compatible with the teachers’ and students’ culture (or at least the culture into which students are being inducted). Additionally, teachers may have authoritarian personality traits, or be insecure and use authoritarianism as a mask or, simply, large groups may necessitate rigid organisation. Reinforcement is essentially negative and frequently involves physical sanctions such as corporal punishment both for breaches of behaviour codes and failure to learn. Formalistic. The Formalistic teacher is also hierarchical, formal and dominant, but promotes formalism as a route to knowledge rather than promoting obedience as such. Students generally play a passive role in whole-class teaching, but limited overt teacher-student and student-student interaction (such as question and answer routines and paired work) may be permitted under conditions controlled by the teacher. Teaching is an organised processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, but there is less ready use of physical punishment as a negative reinforcement. Formalistic teaching is especially common in the many developing countries with revelatory cultures. Careful attention to terminology is required here, especially with current and sometimes ambiguous usage of the label ‘whole-class’. This label is sometimes used with both formalistic and progressive teaching, the distinction lying in the type of questioning that applies. The formalist will use closed questions to check

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student recall, whereas the progressive teacher will tend to ask open questions designed to promote student understanding, i.e. use ‘interactive whole-class’ methods. Flexible. The Flexible teacher uses a variety of methods to promote student learning; however, the different methods are often limited in scope and frequency of use and are teacher-dominated. The variety may serve as positive reinforcement of other forms of teaching, to increase interest and motivation, and to adapt to individual differences. Formal controls may be relaxed and more attempt made to explain norms to help students to internalise them and use them informally. However, the teacher retains and uses the authoritarian role and strong negative reinforcement is a backstop. Syllabuses and textbooks are used with some flexibility, and students are encouraged to think problems through and to apply knowledge to their own circumstances. Many teachers who are predominantly formalistic may use some flexibility in their methods, for example, the social studies teacher organising a debate on current affairs or the science teacher supervising student experiments in the laboratory are often doing so in the context of limited variation in methods of teaching. Even so, the teacher remains clearly in charge. Liberal. The Liberal teacher is essentially student-centred and works to base classroom activities around student needs. Students work within fairly wide boundaries established by the teacher and take an active role in decision-making about learning. Teachers have a wide range of choice in adapting the curriculum to class needs and students have a wide range of options between and within curriculums. Syllabuses are based around learning processes rather than cognitive content and encourage problem-solving. Learning resources are wide ranging. Many primary classrooms, especially in the ‘developed’ world, operate in this fashion and secondary and tertiary classes often have similar emphases. Democratic. The Democratic teacher’s role is to coordinate activities that promote students’ self concepts, especially through their own decision-making and encouragement of taking responsibility for their own actions. Students actively participate in democratic decision-making at all levels, although the teacher, backed by the school, has considerable latent powers. A major focus is on having students decide what they want to learn, when and at what individual pace. Internal motivation is promoted and teacher reinforcement is generally a positive response to success. A wide range of study options is available and there is access to a wide variety of resources and materials. Thus there may be no official curriculum at all. The free school movement in the 1970s had primary schools operating in this fashion, and postgraduate university studies have many similarities, but

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secondary level Democratic classrooms are more uncommon if for no other reason than the higher levels of secondary systems generally become driven by the selection function of external examinations. 10.3 Applications of the Model Models of teaching styles can have several uses. They may give clarity for taxonomic use in identifying classroom styles, for analysis of educational processes producing different types of classroom practice, and for helping separate the ethical issue of values from the empirical issue of whether changes in teacher education result in changes in teacher style. The first function of the model is to provide a basis for development education research within particular contexts. The model is intended primarily for systematic within-country classroom research focussed on teaching styles and learning results, whether comparative qualitative case studies, sample surveys, or experimental designs to analyse what teaching styles and methods are actually used in different school types and levels. Such classroom research can provide a focus for analysis of processes that keep styles static, upgrade them, or move them in either direction along the continuum. The model also has a second function highly compatible with Alexander’s (2001) call for comparative international pedagogy, by allowing between-country comparisons of like data with like. Analysis of classroom learning can contribute to decisions about teaching styles by helping separate the empirical issues (the scientific study of what is) from the ethical issues (the rational analysis of what should be). The model of teaching styles itself excludes any judgements about direction of change. However, it can contribute to informed ethical judgements about what teachers should be doing in any particular context in light of systematic knowledge about what they are doing. Which approaches create greater student learning in particular cultures? Which approaches develop more skilled workers? Which approaches develop individuals who are constructive citizens? These questions can involve empirical research, preferably with experimental designs if cause and effect is to be established clearly in the field. The distinction between empirical and ethical analysis is also important in making judgements about the likelihood of success of change strategies. Attempts to promote teaching styles too far removed from empirical reality will usually fail. There is little merit in attempting them if their most likely effect is to show teachers more things that they cannot implement. Broad though the teaching styles model is, it does help delineate the basic policy question for many countries: Formalistic or Progressive teaching? Answers to this question should not be the type of self-fulfilling prophecy of Beeby’s stages, but should be based on independent criteria relevant to each country. Progress is

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thus not necessarily a case of moving to the right of the continuum (e.g. to the Democratic style) but can well be a case of improving within a style (e.g. improving the level of Formalism) (Guthrie 1981, p. 166). Removal of an evaluative dimension from the model carries the implication that conscious, independent choices should be made on what teaching style or styles are appropriate, and these choices should be based on country-specific criteria. Firm policies on teaching styles and consistent efforts to implement them would do much to improve teaching in many places, as appears to be happening in China. When might alterations within Formalism actually constitute a change of style? This issue was raised by the research of O’Sullivan (2004) and Barrett (2007) presented in Chapter 2.4. In both cases, teacher change was observed in the direction of the Flexible style. Barrett (2007, p. 288) asserted that the variation she found in primary classrooms in Tanzania challenged assumptions in stereotypes of teaching in sub-Saharan Africa. She considered that the belief by some teachers in the importance of understanding pupils’ conceptualisation of subject matter meant that they had some values consistent with Bernstein’s (2000) learner-centred “competence mode”, but they operated predominantly within his teacher-centred “performance mode”, which Barrett equated with poor quality, authoritarian, inequitable and teacher dominated classrooms. This was a somewhat similar view to Gao and Watkins’ (2001, pp. 37-38) distinction between teachers’ “ideal” constructs of teaching and competing “practical” constructs that dominate in the classroom. However, Barrett’s (2007, p. 290) view that, “It is possible to recognise and build on learners’ prior knowledge; to recognise and cater for different learning styles; to value individuals’ contributions and celebrate individuals’ achievements within whole-class ‘teacher-centred’ practice”, is not necessarily inconsistent with the definition of Formalistic teaching used in this book. An alternative explanation is that Formalistic teachers may not always ignore student learning, but can try to understand students’ conceptualisation of subject matter in order to shape their own preparation and presentation of material, even though in class they apparently demonstrate little attention to student understanding in asking few if any open questions when delivering the material. O’Sullivan’s research in Namibia did find that some basic classroom techniques for checking on student understanding had success in introducing variety into lessons and considerable improvement in student reading skills. On the basis of this finding, she reconceptualised the official student-centred policy approach to indicate the effectiveness of an adaptive strategy examining the realities within which teachers work. The strategy would use whichever approaches, methods and skills that best brought about learning-centred teaching rather than a learnercentred approach. The learning-centred approach, she claimed, challenged my own 1990 views on the appropriateness of formalism. However, four caveats need

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to be entered into her finding that teachers did change their approach: the new techniques introduced were very limited in range (e.g. they involved teachers asking student opinions, checking students’ understanding by asking questions, and using time efficiently); the changes were achieved under non-experimental conditions without tight controls; aid funding provided outside support for three years; and there was no indication that the changes outlasted the INSET programme. Whether the new techniques thus represented a sufficient change so that the new label of learning-centred had substance, or whether the label was merely a semantic device for appearing to meet the requirements of a non-functional progressive policy, seems a moot point. The likelihood is that formalism was being upgraded with a very limited range of skills. Indeed, on later reflection, O’Sullivan found that the approach was probably closer to direct instruction techniques than any others, quoting Rosenshine (1979) on direct instruction as having academically focussed, teacher-directed classrooms using sequenced and structured materials, teaching activities where goals are clear to students, time allocated for instruction that is sufficient and continuous, coverage of content is extensive, the performance of students is monitored, questions are at a low cognitive level so that students may produce many correct responses, and feedback to students is immediate and academically oriented; the goal being to move students through a sequenced set of material or tasks. This description of structured direct instruction seems predominantly to be of high level of Formalism close to the borderline with the Flexible style. The extent to which it falls into Formalism depends on assumptions about the extent to which formalistic teachers only lecture. My definition is not based solely on lecturing in that it permits some overt student interaction, which is well within the range of O’Sullivan’s (and Pfau’s Nepal) examples of teachers checking students’ understanding by asking them questions. This is also consistent with the efforts to increase teacher questioning through INSET in China in the 2000s. The effect of this discussion is to illustrate three matters. One is that the Formalistic style should not be confused with the Authoritarian one. The second is that Formalism is not as narrow as sometimes assumed. The third is that none of the styles is intended to be discrete, i.e. the model does not require that teachers’ behaviour be forced entirely into one category. A teacher might have a teacher role with well established routines and strict control, a content approach emphasising memorisation shaped by some understanding of students’ own conceptualisations, and use negative sanctions such as low marks, but on occasion broaden the student role to become more active (such as choice of assignment topics). In this example, three of the four categories are formalistic, with the student role on occasion, but not always, flexible. Overall, the teacher might be rated in an observation study as a Formalist, perhaps with the addition of a high inference judgement that the teaching is higher level on the grounds that corporal punishment is not used,

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the teacher is conscious of learning outcomes, and students are sometimes allowed to exercise learning choices. 10.4 Classroom Observation Techniques A great deal of research needs to be carried out if theoretical propositions are to be useful in improving education systems. Collection of data on teaching styles using the model would allow it to be tested for its descriptive utility and to help to identify conditions and processes affecting changes within and between styles. The range of potential data collection techniques on teaching styles is wide, for the methodology of education research on this topic is in advance of the theory, as was shown in the Chapter 5 review of the school effectiveness field, the exception being invalid use of indirect questionnaire and interview methods for reporting classroom behaviour. For direct observation, classroom interaction analysis and ethnographic research provide major research stimuli, but observational data is also available from other sources such as the inspection reports in Chapter 6. Underlying collection of data on teaching styles is a basic and long-standing issue in the study of psychology. The most valid data on teaching styles comes from observation of classroom behaviour. Structured observation schedules usually attempt to remove judgements about mental processes and require the researcher to make low inference categorisations of demonstrated teacher and student behaviours. This provides externally observable, verifiable and therefore potentially reliable (i.e. replicable) data on classroom interaction. It does not, however, provide data on the mental processes at play among teachers and students, observation of which requires less reliable high inference judgements by the researcher (Guthrie 2010, pp. 108-117). Is a student who is wriggling paying attention, while another who is still and apparently attentive actually daydreaming or otherwise disengaged? This question is at the centre of the Chinese Learner Paradox, where formalistic teachers’ behaviour in apparently teacher-dominated classes is used to encourage active mental engagement with the deep meaning of the knowledge being taught. Three studies, in Nepal, Namibia and Papua New Guinea (which were outlined in Chapters 2.4 and 6) allow contrast of methodological approaches for actual classroom observation. Pfau (1980) provided particularly helpful methodological comment on the use of low inference quantitative instruments for direct observation of classrooms based on his research in Nepal. Highly consistent with one of the purposes of the teaching styles model, he pointed out that such research can allow comparisons across cultures, nations or time to determine the generalisability of classroom-based theory, identification of variability across cultures to obtain otherwise unattainable experimental treatments, and provision of information to

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educational planners and evaluators. Pfau’s discussion identified a variety of types of data-gathering instrumentation. Indirect methods, such as questionnaires, he pointed out, also have cross-cultural validity issues. Direct ethnographic observation provides high inference narrative descriptions that can be high on validity, but lack precision and be unreliable because they are not standardised. Classroom rating can either use high inference ratings systems (a risk being a tendency for observers to regress to the mean, which was true of the global school inspection reports used in Papua New Guinea) or low inference category systems, such as quantified observation schedules (e.g. Pfau’s use of Caldwell’s Activity Rating Instrument using 11 categories to code behaviour every 5 seconds). Category systems require training to ensure high inter-rater reliability in recording behaviours continuously while lessons are in progress. The percentage of time found on each activity can be used to provide the type of data in Table 2.1 to allow reliable comparison of teaching styles over time, within and between countries. Such procedures allowed identification with some precision of aspects of behaviour that are specific to particular contexts, differences in the extent to which behaviours occur within different systems, the degree to which behaviours are related to other variables found in the systems being studied, and behaviours that are more universal in nature (Pfau 1980, p. 407). Pfau (1983-84) also reviewed studies that had measured and compared classroom and other behaviours occurring in different cultures and nations, pointing out a number of problems, as well as procedures that can be used to help standardise measurement using systematic observation instruments. Further very solid analysis of types of validity is found in Kerlinger (1977, pp. 456-476), while existing videos of lessons from different countries can provide a very useful and non-disruptive basis for analysis. In contrast, O’Sullivan’s (2004) mixed methods study in Namibia used high inference semi-structured observation, which was very useful in identifying that teachers normally used formalistic methods, but that they would adopt, at least in the short-term, a few other skills. However, the methods did not provide data to quantify teacher behaviours, their adoption of new techniques, or measure the extent to which the patterns varied over time, within Namibia or compared with other countries. This demonstrates the reliability issues that go with high inference observation techniques, but this type of qualitative data can have an overriding value in identifying behaviours consistent with cultural constructs that can provide insights into the meaning of quantitative data. Vulliamy et al. (1990) have written at length about the value of qualitative case studies and ethnographic research into the classroom. Bray and colleagues’ (2007) book on comparative education research contains several discussions about issues in the study of cultures, while anthropology specialises in the ethnographic research necessary to gain deep understanding of cultural context.

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The lesson is not that one approach is more correct than another. Rather, highly structured low inference observation schedules and less structured high inference ethnographic observation have complementary uses. Quantitative data from structured observation can provide greater precision and allow systematic comparisons. Qualitative observation is much more likely to provide valid understanding of the constructs that explain classroom behaviour. Without such constructs the percentages of classroom time allocated to various activities have little explanatory power. Only with such constructs can we begin to understand the significance of the time allocations. However, without quantification of those allocations we cannot have reliable measurement of similarities and differences. One approach to optimising methodological benefits is triangulation, the process of bringing multiple types of data to bear on the one problem. For example, my own mixed methods analyses of the secondary teacher training and inspection systems in Papua New Guinea in Chapter 6 found that using questionnaires and interviews with the inspectors to delve behind the statistical results from coding the inspection reports showed that, in their professional opinion, there were differences between programme graduates’ performance, in part according to criteria not included in their formal inspection reports. This process progressively revealed issues to do with the content validity of the reports. Similarly, rating, coding and statistical testing of the inspection reports resulted in no significant difference between the performance of the graduates of four teacher training programmes despite the programmes’ different lengths, types, and costs. Was this an artefact of the method, or was the finding consistent with the education system’s own treatment of the graduates? A cross-check against the “stamps” given by the inspection conferences found that there were no significant differences in inspectors’ promotional decisions about the graduates of the different programmes. The result of the triangulation implied that the differences between the programmes were neither statistically nor professionally significant and that the research was grounded in professional reality. These findings indicate a need for caution in interpreting results from educational studies that use a single basis for evaluation. 10.5 Conclusion The formalistic teaching that is prevalent in the classrooms of many developing countries is not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. Formalism is not an aberration distorting the goals of education systems, but is frequently part of and highly compatible with a symbiotic whole. Nor is formalism an intermediary stage on the path to educational development represented by some progressive educational utopia. Strong theoretical and practical reasons exist for modifying formal-

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ism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with progressivism. Formalism should not be regarded as a classroom problem readily subject to educational remediation – it is remarkably difficult to change – but as a deep-rooted cultural behaviour capable of adaptation and of performing important educational functions now and in the foreseeable future. Given the inability of educational systems to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving the level of teaching in many developing countries lies in operating within the constraints of formalistic systems and in working to improve formalism. The Progressive Education Fallacy, exemplified by but not restricted to Beeby’s stages, contains an assumption that development of the enquiring mind needs enquiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools. This assumption has rarely been treated as a proposition to be systematically debated or as a hypothesis to be tested experimentally in non-Western cultures. Instead, formalism either (from the perspective of progressive curriculum innovators) has been blamed for warping teacher education, or (from the perspective of progressive teacher educators) warping schools. These excuses were often used to explain away the failure of the progressive curriculum reforms in Papua New Guinea that were reviewed in Chapter 7. From such a mind-set, the issue is the availability of time, effort and money, more of which could generate the desired change in teacher education or schools so that teaching styles could become more progressive, to the alleged advantage of pupils. This attitude largely overlooks cultural precursors and has ignored research evidence that suggests that progressive education reforms will generally fail in countries with revelatory cultures. Cultural myopia is a particularly weak foundation for educational reform. References Alexander: R. (2001). Border crossings: Towards a comparative pedagogy. Comparative Education, 37(4), 507-523. Barrett, A. (2007). Beyond the polarization of pedagogy: Models of classroom practice in Tanzanian primary schools. Comparative Education, 43(2), 273-294. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Bray, M., Adamson, B., & Mason, M. (2007). Comparative education research: Approaches and methods. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Carrier, J. (1980). Knowledge and its use: Constraints upon the application of new knowledge in Ponam society. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(2), 102-126. Chan, C., & Rao, N. (Eds.). (2009). Revisiting the Chinese learner: Changing contexts, changing education. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Gao, L., & Watkins, D. (2001). Towards a model of teaching conceptions of Chinese secondary school teachers of physics. In D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 27-45). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong.

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Guthrie, G. (1981). Teaching styles. In P. Smith, & S. Weeks (Eds.), Teachers and teaching: Proceedings of the 1980 Extraordinary Meeting of the Faculty of Education (pp. 154-168). Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V. Rust & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. Kerlinger, F.N. (1977). Foundations of behavioural research (2nd Ed.). London: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Lawrence, P. (1964). Road belong cargo. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. O’Sullivan, M. (2004). The reconceptualisation of learner-centred approaches: A Namibia case study. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(6), 585-602. Pfau, R. (1980). The comparative study of classroom behaviours. Comparative Education Review, 24(3), 400-414. Pfau, R. (1983-84). Standardizing behavioral measurements across cultures, nations, and time. World Education Monograph Series No.1. Stoors: School of Education, University of Connecticut. Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of innovation (5th Ed.). New York: Free Press. Rosenshine, B. (1979). Content, time and direct instruction. In P. Peterson, & H. Walberg (Eds.), Research on teaching: Concepts, findings and implications (pp. 28-56). Berkeley: McCutchan. Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Botswana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194. Vulliamy, G. (1990). Research outcomes: Postscript. In G. Vulliamy, K. Lewin, & D. Stephens, Doing educational research in developing countries: Qualitative strategies (pp. 228-233). London: Falmer. Vulliamy, G., Lewin, K., & Stephens, D., (1990). Doing educational research in developing countries: Qualitative strategies. London: Falmer.

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The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry teaching styles in developing countries, using them to apply theories that confuse process and product. Particularly to assist educational decisionmaking, Chapter 11 discusses some of the experimental design issues for consideration in field testing of curriculum innovations and in framing grounded classroom research. The critical issue is whether student learning actually benefits from changes to teaching styles, the hypothesis being that formalistic styles are more effective in revelatory cultures with the lower cognitive levels found in primary and secondary schools. Considerable caution is needed with prematurely optimistic findings from pilot projects and research into curriculum change that focusses on teaching styles as a dependent rather than independent variable. The chapter also clarifies issues to do with the adoption of innovation and suggests some paths for upgrading formalistic teaching. Given the conclusion from Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher education are highly specific to context, these ideas are not prescriptive, but indicate some of the more straightforward paths that are available. In the absence of research testing systematically whether enquiry learning requires enquiry teaching methods, the Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry teaching styles in developing countries that are wide open to the criticism that the countries are being used naïvely as testing grounds for untried theories. A damning professional criticism of the Progressive Education Fallacy is that it has resulted in many progressive curriculum reforms worldwide that confuse process and product. A desired product of many of the attempted reforms has been the acceleration of learning of enquiry skills. However, the adoption by teachers of a meaning or progressive teaching style has rarely been tested experimentally to investigate whether such a teaching process actually accelerates the learning of higher level cognitive skills among students in different contexts.

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 217 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_11, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the relationships among variables when considering choices about changes to curriculum and teaching styles. This material is particularly intended to assist educational authorities with the design principles underlying decisions on whether to proceed with a particular reform or not. The chapter also outlines some of the types of approach that can be used to improve the level of formalistic teaching. Given the finding in Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher education are highly specific to context, these ideas are by no means intended to be prescriptive, but indicate some of the more straightforward paths that are available. Not many elements of praxis will be found here. Indeed, the approach is the opposite of praxis, aiming to go from practice to theory rather than theory to practice. This is a grounded approach based on deriving educational strategies from analysis of local conditions. 11.1 Framing Pilot Projects Many proposals for classroom educational reform involve some form of pilot study. These can range from ‘quick and dirty’ surveys using opinionnaires to large-scale systematic pilot projects. A widespread and persistent gap in the literature is experimental and survey research analysing the impact of teaching styles on classroom learning in developing countries. The following discussion focusses on formal designs for field experiments intended to assess cause and effect carefully. The assumed relationship between variables also needs careful consideration in other types of research, including qualitative classroom studies, where often such relationships are implied rather than stated. The discussion covers familiar ground for researchers but is presented here as clearly as possible to assist decision-makers who are consumers of educational research, who may not be familiar with experimental design, or who would like some perspective on qualitative research that has not delineated variables clearly. One effect is that considerable caution is needed with premature findings from pilot projects. The many different types of variables and the relationships between them that come into play in classroom change are illustrated in Figure 11.1. Experiments measure two key ones: the independent variable (which is the presumed cause) and the dependent variable (the presumed effect). However, other variables can also influence the results. Background variables are antecedents that affect the situation prior to the study, which we can observe but not usually change directly. Intervening variables are measurable variables that we can anticipate will affect implementation. Extraneous variables are haphazard occurrences that can be observed and might affect the outcome during the study, but which cannot be

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manipulated. Alternative independent variables suggest different causes from the presumed one (Guthrie 2010, pp. 86-95). A hypothetical example, but typical of the logic implied in much of the curriculum literature, is illustrated within the brackets in Figure 11.1 with a new student-centred syllabus tested as an independent variable in an experimental school trial. The syllabus is hypothesised to generate change from formalistic to progressive teaching. In a true experimental design, some teachers use the new syllabus, some the old one, and the results are compared (although few curriculum reforms are tested this formally). Typically, the dependent variable is teaching style. An intervening variable is conceptualised as the type of pre-service training previously undergone by teachers. A background variable is the education system and any formalistic requirements that it might impose through inspections. An extraneous variable might be changes in teachers during the trial (some might become sick, for example, requiring use of substitute teachers). Alternative variables are considered rarely but, hypothetically, one might be a high level of media attention to an issue related to the new syllabus, for example media coverage of global warming influencing outcomes from a new syllabus topic on the environment. Figure 11.1

Invalid Curriculum Experiment INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (new syllabus) Alternative Independent Variable (media coverage) Intervening Variable (teacher training)

Background Variables (cultural context, education system)

Extraneous Variable (teacher availability) DEPENDENT VARIABLE (teaching style)

Source: Author.

This particular experimental design is invalid. The most important outcome from the new syllabus should be improved student learning but the dependent variable is changes in teaching style, so that the design does not test the assumption that changes in teaching style will increase student achievement. Often, failure to achieve the predicted change in teaching style is not attributed to an inappropriate reform but to inadequate technical inputs and conservative 219

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educational forces, such as formalistic inspections embedded in the education system, or on the prevalence of a formalistic mentality from the previous syllabus, or on previous formalistic teacher training as an intervening variable limiting the ability of teachers to implement the new syllabus. In effect, these variables are now posited as alternative independent variables to explain negative results. Rarely do we see deep consideration given to cultural context as a key background variable that provides a subtle but powerful influence that can override the experimental trial to the extent that it is really an alternative independent variable. As Chapter 5 found, culture is an often-recognised element of educational change, but it has generally received only token study in the search for international generalisations. In focussing on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations, curriculum and school effectiveness research have lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological validity or context. We do not very often find empirical consideration of whether a new syllabus approach is justified by student learning that gains from changes to teaching styles. The preferred scenario when considering a new syllabus is therefore Figure 11.2. Now the critical dependent variable is student learning. The independent variable is teaching style, with a control group of teachers using a formalistic style and an experimental group using a progressive style. The research hypothesis is that progressive teaching will result in greater student learning. An intervening variable is student cognitive level (given the indication that progressive teaching might operate more effectively at higher cognitive levels). Extraneous variables remain the same. The education system remains a background variable embedded in cultural context, which can be delineated separately through ethnographic research. Whether progressive teaching does result in increased student learning, or whether formalistic teaching does, a key explanation lies in the epistemological and pedagogical patterns in teachers’ and students’ cultural frames. In particular, should the progressive educational hypothesis be rejected and formalism prevail, cultural context now comes into consideration as an alternative independent variable, i.e. as one whose pervasive influence has overwhelmed the progressive experimental treatment such that culture is the underlying explanation for the success of formalism and the failure of progressivism (as we have seen with cases in Chapters 3.4, 8 and 9). In this logic, there is no assumption that changes to teaching style will improve student learning: the point of the trial is to actually test this hypothesis.

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Figure 11.2

Valid Curriculum Experiment

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (teaching style) Alternative Independent Variable (cultural context) Intervening Variable (student cognitive level)

Background Variables (cultural context, education system)

Extraneous Variable (teacher availability) DEPENDENT VARIABLE (student learning)

Source: Author.

A very clear example of research following this approach is the Zambian high school study by Mulopo and Fowler (1987) in Chapter 5.2, which found that a traditional, formalistic approach was efficient for teaching scientific facts and principles, while the progressive discovery approach tended to be more effective among formal reasoners in promoting scientific attitudes and understandings. The effect of such research, as Sternberg (2007, p. 17) put it, “means first understanding … cultural context, and then tailoring instruction and assessment so that they are appropriate for the context.” Only after this knowledge is gained should the new syllabus be written. If the results favour formalism, a formalistic syllabus can be written. If the results favour progressivism, such a syllabus can be written instead. Nonetheless, premature optimism from pilot studies provides a major trap. Many reports on curriculum innovations use superficial questionnaire studies to claim inappropriate reforms are being implemented successfully. When formative research relies on indirect techniques such as questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, it can misrepresent what is actually occurring in the classroom (Chapter 5.4), direct observation being the valid technique for identifying actual teacher and student behaviour (Chapter 10.4). As we saw in Chapter 8 with SSCEP and CRIP in Papua New Guinea, this is especially an issue with well-funded aid pilot projects that provide high but unsustainable levels of professional support. The sensible, albeit somewhat sceptical, administrator also needs to be aware that regardless of the actual intentions of aid agencies, consultants and commercial

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aid project management companies may have vested financial interests in recommending continuance of pilot projects. A salutary warning comes from a recent parliament-driven enquiry into over-servicing in the Australian aid programme, which noted that “the use of advisers has also been criticised as being high cost and supply driven, with weak or unsustainable impacts … long term growth in the use of advisers to deliver Australia’s aid program … has not been based on clear evidence of its effectiveness, nor underpinned by robust management systems to ensure value for money” (AusAID 2011, p. 6). In generalist aid agencies where the role of desk officers is to act as professional project managers rather than sectoral specialists, the coded language contained in project design, monitoring and evaluation documents may not be understood, let alone questioned for its cultural appropriateness. Recipient educational administrators, short of funding and professional support, may find the collective aid pressures hard to resist, but the question to ask is whether the pressures serve children’s interests as well as vested ones. 11.2 Cognitive Levels The levels of education at which formalistic and progressive methods are appropriate may be judged in relation to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Table 11.1 shows its cognitive domain, which has six levels from lower to higher order thinking. The typical actions indicate some of what is expected of learners at each level. The review of research on the effectiveness of teaching styles in Chapter 5.2, supported by some experimental findings, provided support for the hypothesis that formalistic styles are more effective with the lower cognitive levels found in primary and secondary schools and, conversely, some mixed support for the hypothesis that progressive teaching styles are more effective with higher cognitive levels and some affective aspects of learning. However, where these findings might apply is highly dependent on context. The geographic extent of studies with positive findings about progressive methods at higher cognitive levels has not yet been mapped. Essentially Beeby’s discussion focussed on the cognitive domain, with Formalism and Meaning, in particular, relating to different styles of student processing of intellectual data in the classroom. In essence, Formalism seems appropriate to the lower three levels of remembering (e.g. defining, listing, stating), understanding (describing, paraphrasing, summarising) and applying (calculating, showing, using). These levels provide building blocks in primary and secondary school for later intellectual endeavour focussed on enquiry skills, when they become components of the three higher levels of analysing (classifying, comparing, contrasting), evaluating (assessing, critiquing, justifying) and creating (designing, formulating,

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synthesising). The lower levels are the most appropriate for students in primary schools and for those in secondary schools whose intellectual abilities currently lie at those levels. Table 11.1

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Cognitive Levels Creating: generating new ideas and patterns. Evaluating: making judgements. Analysing: breaking material into parts to explore understandings and relationships. Applying: using information in another situation. Understanding: explaining ideas or concepts. Remembering: recalling relevant knowledge.

Typical Actions Construct Design Devise Assess Critique Interpret Classify Compare Contrast Calculate Construct Illustrate Compare Describe Explain Define List Present

Formulate Propose Synthesise Judge Justify Rate Distinguish Illustrate Investigate Practice Show Use Outline Paraphrase Summarise Quote State Tell

Source: Adapted from Anderson and Krathwohl (2001).

When transition from lower, concrete operational levels to higher, formal operational levels is appropriate is an issue that is in part context-based and in part biological. The type of Piagetian evidence from second language students in the South Pacific in Chapter 8.6 suggests that formal operations generally started developing in the later teen years in upper secondary (especially with advanced students) and in tertiary education. Why they lie there seems a developmental consequence of human growth. Unlike earlier suppositions when progressive theories came forth, only in the 20s does the prefrontal cortex, which is the home of the higher cognitive levels, complete its growth (Chapter 12.5). However, Lancy (1983) made a case that the nature of higher operations is actually culturally defined, i.e. they develop in interaction with the social environment, so it should not be assumed automatically that Piaget’s Western intellectual styles will be followed in other cultures or be an objective in them. Whether progressive methods are necessary for learning of higher cognitive knowledge is not demonstrated by this analysis, but the indication is that they

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would best be adopted in tertiary education not primary or secondary. This hypothesis requires experimental research, however, to investigate whether higher cognitive skills among students do require progressive teaching styles (Chapter 5.2). So far, I have put to one side the question of what educational objectives should be, other than a focus on student learning as the key dependent variable in schooling. There are no universal answers to this question. Essentially, educational objectives are context-specific and, that being the case, they should be chosen by appropriate authorities within each country. Such authorities may or may not benefit from outside advice. My personal view is that the primary and secondary curriculums are often overloaded, with schools not uncommonly being expected to teach about everything from drugs to driving. Essentially, the core business of primary schools is to teach literacy, numeracy, and basic health and hygiene. Secondary schooling provides more scope for including physical, biological and social science, and foreign languages, as appropriate. The standard taxonomy of cognitive, affective and skills domains provides a convenient tool for development and analysis of objectives so that curriculum writers and teachers have a clear targets for their work. However, it should not be assumed that the domains are entirely separate, merely requiring lists for each type of objective. As we have seen with the extensive discussion of epistemology and paradigms in this book, teaching skills not only convey particular knowledge, they also have affective elements buried deep within, particularly on the nature of intellectual and educational authority. The teaching styles that teachers adopt carry implicit messages about which educational authorities should be conscious. The teaching medium is a cultural message. 11.3 Adoption of Innovation Educational administrators cannot control residual factors, as Husen et al. (1978) correctly noted. However, when the cultural component of residual factors is known from contextual research, researchers and educational authorities ignore it at their peril. If contextual research does demonstrate deep-seated cultural paradigms with revelatory epistemologies, progressive classroom interventions are highly unlikely to survive the pilot period. Improvements to formalism are likely to survive because they are congruent with the pervasive cultural setting. Cultural context cannot be controlled scientifically or administratively, but it does exist. Researchers are used to thinking of very high levels of probability – 95% or 99% in the social sciences – as being required before accepting a conclusion, let alone acting upon it in the real world where it might affect people’s lives. Bureaucratic systems operate at far lower levels of probability, if they even consider

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probability at all. A decision-maker can reduce all decisions to a binary choice (Act / Do Not Act, Implement the curriculum reform / Do Not Implement it), toss a coin, and make the ‘right’ decision 50% of the time with the superficial appearance of some success, but few decision-makers can hope to achieve anything near the probabilities of success acceptable in the sciences (Guthrie 2010, pp. 196-203). Research can act to increase the likelihood of success: good judgement plus increased knowledge increases the probability of correct decisions. Equally, bad judgement can lower the probability of success. The poor progressive judgement behind the Papua New Guinea curriculum reforms in Chapter 7 resulted in seven failures and no long-term successes. Perhaps half of these failures could have been turned into formalistic successes had the Education Ministers making the final decisions merely tossed coins. Similarly, the teacher education reviews in Chapter 5 found that 55% of research results showed that investment in teacher education is beneficial. Tossing coins would only be 5% less useful on average in any particular country, and considerably cheaper than research. When cultural commonalities basically occur in whole rather than in part, they effectively provide binary data, as noted in Chapter 5.4. This is because cultural context is not so much a correlate of educational success as a prior condition. Figure 11.3 presents the consequences of this binary logic in a simplified flow diagram. The starting point is research reviewing the epistemological nature of the cultural context. 1.

2.

If the cultural paradigm is revelatory (as in Botswana, China and Papua New Guinea, for example), then the next question is whether traditional teaching styles are inherently formalistic. If they are (as is the case in the same three countries), then a syllabus change is much more likely to be successful if it is based on a formalistic teaching style and confines its attention to improving formalism rather than trying to change it to progressive teaching. a) If the paradigm is not revelatory but scientific, then the next question is still whether teaching styles are inherently formalistic. If they are (as was the case even in scientific Anglophone cultures until half a century ago, and is the case in much of non-Anglophone Europe), then a syllabus change is more likely to be successful if it develops the formalistic teaching style. b) If the culture is scientific and teaching styles are progressive, the syllabus could adopt a progressive classroom style.

The discussion so far is about the effectiveness of different teaching styles in improving student learning. If there is no difference between teaching styles, the

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issue comes down to efficiency. In this case there is no point in spending scarce financial and personnel resources on changing to a new style: the existing style (whatever it may be) is satisfactory and a new one will not improve student outcomes. Improving the existing style will be more cost-effective. Figure 11.3 1.

Simplified Flow Chart for Decisions on Teaching Styles

Is culture revelatory?

YES

Is teaching style formalistic?

NO

YES

USE FORMALISTIC STYLE

a. 2.

Is culture scientific?

YES

YES

Is teaching style formalistic? b.

NO

USE PROGRESSIVE STYLE Source: Author.

The effectiveness and efficiency issues are shown in Figure 11.4. Situation A in Column 1 is the default no change, control situation in most experimental designs. Essentially, it accepts the existing style and makes no effort to change it. In fact, this is the real situation for most teachers in poor developing countries who are mainly left to their own devices, and it may be that a valid experiment finds support for it. Leaving matters thus has a high probability of success in that change is not intended and little will occur except as a result of individual decisions by teachers within schools. Counter-intuitive to progressive sensibilities, this may nonetheless be rational behaviour if the decision is based on judgements that the present situation is indeed satisfactory (the religious message is being purveyed successfully, nobody is complaining about examination results, or the field experiment has found it effective, for example). This is also rational behaviour if the present situation is unsatisfactory, but resources are not available to initiate change

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or will not be available to sustain change after the withdrawal of pilot funding. The default Situation A is only likely to change when there is a high level of external pressure and a high level of acceptance by teachers themselves that change is needed (e.g. the community demands and teachers believe in changes to their school, perhaps over vernacular teaching). In this case, there may be innovative change (e.g. attempts to introduce the vernacular, in which case Columns 2 and 3 come into play), or conservative change (e.g. rejection of the vernacular and reinforcement of an existing practice, such as keeping the existing national language of instruction, in which case Column 1 remains in play). In Situation B, a moderate degree of change is sought (for example, a valid experiment showed that formalistic teaching was the most effective; now we want an INSET programme to encourage improvements within the existing formalistic teaching style). Most teachers will accept such change because it does not threaten their basic professional identity. Although this approach encourages only a moderate level of change, it is the situation with the highest likelihood of actually achieving any change at all. In effect, the approach pragmatically accepts that evolutionary change, as discussed in Chapter 2.5, is the most likely outcome of change efforts. Situation C represents the seeking of major change, e.g. to a new teaching style (for example, in the many attempts at progressive reform of formalistic systems reported in this book). The evidence is that such reform efforts are highly unlikely to succeed beyond well-funded trials. These changes should not be attempted because in the long-term they are a waste of time, effort and resources, and are likely to be counterproductive for morale. Figure 11.4

Relationships between Amount and Likelihood of Change

Amount of Classroom Change

Likelihood of Success High Medium Low

No Change

Moderate Change

Major Change

A B C

Source: Author.

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Assuming blanket acceptance or rejection of change by teachers is far too crude, however. An application of Rogers’ schema of adopters of innovation (outlined in Chapter 4.2 could distribute teachers hypothetically along a continuum based on their different integration as professional groups into an education system’s structure: i.

Innovators might be the designers of a new syllabus, usually located in headquarters and closely tied into official policy concerns. ii. Early adopters of innovation might be head teachers, deputies and subject heads in schools who are required officially to support the new syllabus and who will often be expected to generate in-service training of teachers, but who operate under field conditions often inadequately accounted for in official policy. iii. The early majority are, perhaps, younger teachers with something to gain from adoption of the syllabus, especially during a trial phase, perhaps because this may benefit their professional opportunities. iv. The late majority might be teachers who have reached their ceiling and for whom professional life is incidental to their personal life external to the school, and who are cautious about the time and effort required for the new syllabus, especially during the extension phase when there is less outside support. Should most of this group adopt a change, it can be considered successful. v. Laggards may be teachers overlooked for promotion, alienated from the system, feeling undervalued, and unwilling to invest time and effort in change. Because the underlying variable of professional integration is multidimensional, the schema would best be tested using mixed methods (such as observation, interviews and questionnaires) to investigate its appropriateness in any particular context. If valid, the implication is that these professional groups will approach adoption of a curriculum innovation quite differently. Many progressive curriculum projects do not diffuse far into the third group (let alone the fourth), often receive only lip service, and are not maintained if the changes offer no relative advantage once pilot support ceases. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum change does become accepted by both early and late majorities essentially depends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs, a school’s professional climate, structural inducements, and on countervailing work and social pressures. Even if many of these factors are positive, the influence of cultural context on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive reform.

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11.4 Improving Formalistic Teaching Regardless of the presence or absence of evidence from a field experiment, improving teaching is a professional responsibility and an end in itself that need not be embedded in curriculum change. Teachers need on-going professional support through pre-service and in-service teacher training to upgrade their performance, whether or not new syllabuses are on the horizon.10 If professional opinion does indicate the prevalence of particular styles, pragmatic preference indicates that there is no reason to await the outcomes of curriculum experiments. Despite my concerns about lack of testing of curriculum innovations, the absence of experimental research is not a reason to ignore upgrading existing classroom practices; it does, however, provide reason not to attempt to change teachers to other styles. One of the characteristics of educational innovations is their high cost and, given some of the evidence referred to in this book, their apparent lack of costeffectiveness. What does the research literature indicate about cost-effective alternatives to current practice that are nonetheless compatible with the predominant formalism in the classrooms of developing countries? The possibilities include: a) increase time on task; b) increase class size; c) provide textbooks; d) provide supplementary language readers; e) use distance education for in-service programmes; and f) practise moderate versions of reflection. These approaches illustrate some evidence-based paths that are available to educational planners, curriculum designers and teacher trainers. Two caveats are necessary, however. One is that there is an abundant literature on all of these approaches, including many warnings that implementation can be difficult and that they require persistence. The other is that the approaches are not prescriptive given the conclusion from Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher education are highly specific to context. a) Increase Time on Task. Increased time on task has long been observed to correlate with increased student achievement. Montero-Sieburth (1989) examined literature in developing nations on classroom use of instructional materials and teacher-managed time to promote learning. For learning to occur, the indications included that stable teacher and student attendance patterns must exist; the teacher as classroom manager has the greatest influence on learning; and the use of classroom time and instructional materials depends on the teacher’s ability to organise, pace, monitor, and provide feedback to students. Similarly, Abadzi (2009) found that since the 1970s, studies in schools in developing countries on the use of instructional time and its impact on student achievement have consistently shown 10

Chapter 11.4 updates parts of Guthrie (1990) with permission from Elsevier.

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that the amount of time spent in learning tasks is related to student performance, but that significant amounts of time are often wasted due to informal school closures, teacher absenteeism, delays, early departures, and poor use of classroom time. These and other studies show that improved classoom management, including use of appropriate materials such as textbooks and workbooks, can allow students to stay on task even when the teacher is otherwise occupied. Teacher time on task can be increased by reducing absenteeism and time on nonacademic activities, and increasing time on the formal curriculum. Essentially, all these improvements can be brought about by improved school and classroom management without requiring complex changes to teaching styles or the curriculum. b) Increase Class Size. Contrary to conventional progressive wisdom, smaller classes do not necessarily increase student learning, at least above a class size of about 20, as discussed in Chapter 4.3. The apparent reason is that below 20 teachers do have a chance of providing individual attention within a typical 40 minute lesson, but much over 20 and they do not. In a formalistic situation with teachers dominating the classroom and students either listening or doing individual work, it does not seem to matter much whether the class size is 20 or 50. The indication is that increasing student:staff ratios could improve educational efficiency and liberate funds from relatively well staffed educational sub-sectors, such as tertiary education, for upgrading teachers’ work in other sub-sectors. Increasing class size was a role recommended for Papua New Guinea by a high-level sectorwide planning committee in the mid-1980s (Guthrie 1985). While this was educational policy during the late 1980s, it was never implemented, in part because of the resistance of entrenched university interests and partly because an economic downturn in the late 1980s meant that any savings were deployed outside the education sector. Even reform proposals that are simple in principle may be difficult to implement because of educational politics. c) Provide Textbooks. The provision of textbooks is cost-effective, especially in large-scale systems. In the late 1970s, studies generally revealed positive associations between textbook provision and student achievement (Heyneman et al. 1978). In light of this, the World Bank was notable for funding a considerable number of textbook projects. While school texts will be more effective if carefully written in relation to integrated performance objectives, it is possible to do so without rewriting the original syllabuses or renovating examination systems. Once written, large-scale production rapidly reduces unit costs, although the design and logistical problems have been considerable and persistent (Crossley & Murby 1994; Askerud 1997).

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The relevance of textbooks to the classroom was shown by Kumar (1988), who described two approaches to textbook use in India. The first type had textbooks recommended by the authorities and gave the teacher the freedom to decide what materials to use. The other type required the teacher to follow textbooks prescriptively. In both situations, textbooks can be appropriate for formalistic teachers to set practice tasks, class reading and homework. Where teachers have the freedom, the ability and supplementary materials to adapt to the classroom, the result may turn out to be a higher level of formalism; where they do not, the result may be low level formalism. Although Glewwe et al. (2009) recently found in a study in Kenya that textbook provision benefited students with a strong initial academic background, the bottom line is that a student with some reading skill but a teacher ill-trained in a particular subject can at least continue to learn independently from a textbook. However, Fuller and Clarke (1994, pp. 139-142) cautioned that even textbook provision has cultural implications related to teaching styles, in particular. d) Provide Supplementary Language Readers. One simple innovation to do with book supply has been tested with considerable success in a number of countries. Elley (2000) reported that it is possible to double the rate of reading acquisition in developing-country primary schools with a “Book Flood” of about 100 high interest books per class and short teacher training sessions. Studies in Niue (1979), Fiji (1980-81), Singapore (1985-89), Sri Lanka (1995), Solomon Islands (1995-98) and South Africa (1997) found that the benefits for reading skill and enthusiasm were consistent across diverse cultures, languages and age levels, and appeared to generate corresponding improvements in writing, listening comprehension and related language skills. One interesting thing about an early experimental study in Fiji was that INSET was not necessary to improve student achievement. With grades 3 and 5 of 12 rural primary schools, classes taught by teachers who had undergone in-service training in a shared book method did not perform significantly better than those where teachers were not provided with assistance other than instruction to provide 20 to 30 minutes a day for silent reading. Both groups had much higher proportions of students passing the grade 6 examinations than a control group, with the benefit of the programme accruing to all examined subjects (Elley & Mangubhai 1981a; 1981b). Classes where teachers did little other than provide silent reading time for students to read books of their own choice had twice the expected gains in reading comprehension and grammatical structures. They also had smaller but considerable gains on tests of writing, word recognition and oral language, but not on a test of writing skills. Here is a simple method for improving student

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achievement involving low costs, little support, and easy for even the most lacklustre teacher to implement. e) Use Distance Education for INSET. Distance education can be a costeffective alternative to other types of in-service. This need not be complicated or credentialled. For example, in a simple experimental study in Zaire, Biniakunu (1982) found improved student performance in French reading was associated with a correspondence in-service course for teachers untrained in teaching the language. The in-service course consisted of instruction in types of reading, purposes of reading, the identification of general ideas and specific information, practical application and critical evaluation. No other assistance was given to the teachers. Distance education in subject content and teaching methods thus bears consideration, although it should be noted that the economics are such that it is better reserved for courses with large-scale enrolments (Guthrie 1990 & 1991). The costs of physical and administrative establishment can be high, course development costs are high regardless of the number of students, and costs are heavily dependent on the type of media used. However, unit costs decrease rapidly as enrolments increase, which is a major potential economic advantage over school- or collegebased INSET. In some situations, a major area of potential cost savings lies in opportunity costs because savings may accrue both to teachers who do not have to face loss of income during full-time study, and to schools not required to find substitute teachers. f) Practise Reflective Formalism. In its more radical forms as a particular teaching style, reflection is open to the criticism that it represents a naïve transfer of fashionable ideas. In its more moderate forms, as a process of self-reflection, it may have the potential to become an active tool for improvement by formalists of their own formalistic teaching.11 Moderate reflection has the potential to upgrade teaching without necessarily threatening cultural identity. The role for this form of reflection is more from the point of view of teachers being encouraged in preservice and in-service education to cogitate on and develop their own professional processes in teaching. The moderate approach can be consistent with undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education courses, as the following course description from the University of Goroka illustrates: “The emphasis of this course is on the improvement of the processes of conceptualisation, planning, and practice of teaching and learning through critical reflection. The course will equip the stu11

I would like to acknowledge the role that my University of Goroka 2003 BEd Honours class (Wata Apingi, Sakaya Botu, Lawrence Gerry, Tom Monemone, Wayne Powae, Cecelia Tuo and Gordon Wallangas) played in stimulating my thinking in this area.

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dents with the essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes to systematically plan, implement, and evaluate their own performances” (University of Goroka 2003, p. 26). Nonetheless, even moderate reflective practice can be incompatible with cultural values, as Minnis (1999) found in Brunei Darussalam. Other possibilites for upgrading formalistic schools are deliberately excluded for reasons similar to Gannicott and Throsby (1992), who presented ten similar propositions from the literature for improving schooling in five South Pacific countries, but found that small class size, lavish facilities and curriculum reform were not effective. As shown in Chapter 6, in particular, formalistic teaching is often embedded in formalistic teacher training, examination, inspection and administrative systems. These are often parts of a symbiotic, mutually reinforcing whole – but elements can be dysfunctional, for example in parent- and teacher-generated examination stress for children in Confucian education systems. Progressive or radical attempts to replace them are unlikely to succeed, but, like teaching within the classroom, they are open to evolutionary improvement (see also Chapter 4.3). However, even simple changes can face major implementation problems, which is a reason to persist with recurrent funding rather than to search continually for new projects. Nonetheless, there is plenty of scope for upgrading formalistic teachers’ skills within the classroom and its school setting. Improving professional skills does not require rocket science, and plenty of textbooks provide tips on techniques. One written for Melanesia abounds with constructive ideas that are neither overburdened with angst about the formalism of schools nor unapologetically accepting of it (Kubul 2001). 11.5 Conclusion The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry teaching styles in developing countries, using them, in effect, to test theories that confuse process and product. To echo Le Fanu (2010), such reforms require educationalists to work against formalistic teaching rather than with it. Yet, progressive teaching styles have rarely been tested experimentally in developing countries to investigate whether they accelerate learning. Traps for which administrators should be alert include premature optimism from pilot studies based on superficial questionnaire studies rather than direct observation in the classroom. Another area for alertness is lightweight research into curriculum change that focusses on teaching styles as dependent rather than independent variable. The critical issue is whether student learning actually benefits from changes to teaching styles, the current hypothesis being that formalistic styles are more effective with the lower cognitive levels found in primary and secondary schools and, conversely, some mixed sup-

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port for the hypothesis that progressive teaching styles are more effective with higher cognitive levels and some affective aspects of learning. However, where findings consistent with these hypotheses might apply is highly dependent on context and their geographic extent has not been mapped. Even where curriculum change is appropriate, various groups within schools have different incentives to adopt or reject change. The outcome is that there are strong reasons for modifying formalism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. It is also well to be alert in hard-to-resist aid projects to project managers who may have vested commercial interests. Their interests can lie in profiting from more financial inputs to promote progressive change when the real issue is the pervasive cultural context that makes incremental change to formalism the more constructive path. There are examples of cost-effective innovations compatible with formalistic teaching, but the intention is not to recommend their uncritical adoption. Borrowing innovations from other developing countries can be as questionable as from developed countries (Chapter 7.4). Educational effectiveness is so dependent on context that sweeping solutions are unusual. However, the types of innovation summarised in this chapter indicate that there are alternatives in improving teaching that do not involve complex curriculum development projects and which need not threaten the competence of classroom teachers. The tendency is to look for complex solutions to complex problems, but on occasion simple solutions may suffice. References Abadzi, K. (2009). Instructional time loss in developing countries: Concepts, measurement, and implications. World Bank Research Observer, 24(2), 267-290. Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. Askerud, P. (1997). A guide to sustainable textbook provision. Paris: UNECSO. Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). (2011). Joint Adviser Review Rport. Canberra. Biniakunu , D.D. (1982). In-service teacher training improves eighth graders’ reading ability in Zaire. Journal of Reading, 25, 662-665. Crossley, M., & Murby, M. (1994). Textbook provision and the quality of the school curriculum in developing countries: Issues and policy options. Comparative Education, 30(2), 99-104. Elley, W.B. (2000). The potential of book floods for raising literacy levels. International Review of Education, 46(3-4), 233-255. Elley, W.B., & Mangubhai. F. (1981a). The long-term effects of a book flood on children’s language growth. Directions, 7, 15-21. Elley, W.B., & Mangubhai. F. (198lb). The impact of a book flood in Fiji primary schools. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Education Research.

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Fuller, B., & Clarke, P. (1994). Raising school effects while ignoring culture – Local conditions and the influence of classroom tools, rules, and pedagogy. Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 119-157. Gannicott, K., & Throsby, D. (1992). Educational quality in economic development: Ten propositions and an application in the South Pacific. International Review of Education, 38(3), 223239. Glewwe, P., Kremer, M., & Moulin, S. (2009). Many children left behind? Textbooks and test scores in Kenya. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(1), 112-135. Guthrie, G. (1985). The role of teachers in national development. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 21(2), 265-281. Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V. Rust, & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New York: Garland. Guthrie, G. (1990 & 1991). The economics of distance education. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 26(2) & 27(1), 189-200. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. Heyneman, S.P., Farrell, J.P., & Sepulveda-Stuardo, M.A. (1978). Textbooks and achievement: What we know. Staff Working Paper No.298. Washington: World Bank. Husen, T., Saha, L.J., & Noonan, R. (1978). Teacher training and student achievement in less developed countries. Staff Working Paper No.310. Washington: World Bank. Kubul, G. (2001). Practical tips for teachers in Melanesia: A survival guide for student teachers and beginner teachers. Sydney: Longman. Kumar, K. (1988). Origins of India’s ‘textbook culture’. Comparative Education Review, 32(4), 452-464. Lancy, D.F. (1983). Cross-cultural studies in cognition and mathematics. New York: Academic Press. Le Fanu, G. (2010). Promoting inclusive education in Papua New Guinea. EdQual Quality Brief No.7. Bristol: University of Bristol. Minnis, P. (1999). Is reflective practice compatible with Malay-Islamic values? Some thoughts on teacher education in Brunei Darussalam. Australian Journal of Education, 43(2), 172-185. Montero-Sieburth, M. (1989). Classroom management, instructional strategies and the allocation of learning resources. BRIDGES Research Report Series No.4. Cambridge: Institute for International Development, Harvard University. Mulopo, M., & Fowler, H. (1987). Effects of traditional and discovery instructional approaches on learning outcomes for learners of different intellectual developments: A study of chemistry students in Zambia. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24(3), 217-227. Sternberg, R.J. (2007). Culture, instruction, and assessment. Comparative Education, 43(1), 522. University of Goroka. (2003). Handbook of postgraduate studies in education, 2003-2004. Goroka.

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The cross-cultural implications of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages and the strength of other culturally-derived epistemologies have not received the widespread attention they deserve. The central issue in the failure of progressivism is not so much the methodological weaknesses of the stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the failure to address fully the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational values. Chapter 12 concludes the book by turning to far-reaching and contentious issues. Are educational patterns universal? Is formalism emotionally destructive? Do Anglophone educational values have widespread relevance? Does neuroscanning research have implications for the introduction of progressive enquiry techniques in primary and secondary schools in developed as well as developing countries? The conclusion is that, theoretically inelegant though it may be, educational solutions need to be grounded in local realities. The time has come to work with rather than against formalistic teaching. Analysis of teaching styles has gone through three overlapping phases in the last 50 years. The first phase, typified by Beeby, was to blame teachers for inability to change away from formalism to more progressive teaching styles, with more preservice and in-service teacher education as the perceived remedies. The second phase was to blame lack of change on teacher training and curriculum, and therefore to attempt to alter either or both. Both of these phases were widespread failures. The third phase has been a growing concern for context, for identifying teaching styles that are culturally appropriate. A consequence of the contextual approach is provision of teacher training and syllabuses that aim to upgrade the level of the relevant style rather than to repeat earlier failures, for example by improving the level of formalism rather than failing yet again to replace it with progressivism.

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 237 of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_12, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism Gerard Guthrie

Key issues currently lie in the legacy of the first two phases (i.e. with the false association of improvement in the quality of education with change to teaching styles) and with the Anglophone cultural values often found in attempts to change teaching in a progressive direction. Such literature still strongly influences aid agencies and developing country practitioners. Professional educators, especially in internationally funded teacher education and curriculum projects, frequently make ill-considered and unnecessary attempts to transform classroom teaching by replacing formalistic teaching with inappropriate teaching styles. Recipient countries and aid donors continue to waste considerable efforts on changing teaching styles on the unverified assumption that student learning will somehow improve as a result. The central issue in the failure of progressivism is not so much the measurement weaknesses of the stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the failure to address fully the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational values. In extensive reading for this book, I found little analysis of the extent to which progressive values are culture-bound. Beeby was just one of many educationalists who have not understood fully that teaching could be based on different paradigms that constitute other ways of knowing. The cross-cultural implications of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages and the strength of other culturally-derived epistemologies (as seen in the Papua New Guinean and Chinese formalistic traditions) have not received the widespread attention they deserve. Yet, as we saw with the case of the Goroka diplomates in Chapter 6, formalism can be effective professionally. The aim of this concluding chapter is to present a commentary on the theoretical perspectives that the book has generated, and some hopefully contentious implications of language groups and recent neurobiology. 12.1 Universal Patterns? Three terms need clarification. In this chapter, universality is used in the positivist sense as the objective of research to find univeral laws, to which Popperian methodological principles apply. Generalisations are findings from research samples that may apply in whole or in specified part to the populations from which the samples were drawn. Commonalities are elements that may be found in many settings, but whose extent cannot be defined accurately. The paradox that underlies this concluding chapter is that the only universal law in education is that there are no universal laws. The resolution to the paradox is that the hypothetical presence of something also implies its absence. The positivist quest for universal laws that might give theoretically elegant predictions about the educational future, as attempted in Beeby’s progressive model of educational stages, will not be found

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here. Nor will any universalistic psychological or cultural assumptions be found, or ill-considered learning theories and practices from education in developed countries. Any universality is in an eclectic use of methodology to seek local solutions to local problems. Beeby’s attempt to develop a progressive model of education with universal application has been formally refuted. The stages model is invalid and unreliable methodologically, and the progressive values embedded in it are of marginal relevance to many developing countries and of limited generalisability to them. As Barrett et al. (2006, p. 4) commented, “Beeby’s fourth and final stage of meaning represents the notions of quality education and characteristics of [an] education system that predominated during the sixties in high income Commonwealth countries. More accurately, they represent a certain view that was popular amongst educationalists in English-speaking Western countries.” The failure of some educationalists associated with the World Bank to distinguish Beeby’s quality concerns from the methodological issues associated with stages teleology remains a surprising exception to the economic literacy of the Bank, given rigorous rebuttal of Rostow’s methodologically similar stages of economic growth (Chapter 2.3). More limited in its claims, some of the empirical school effectiveness research that has been conducted using international data sets has provided sound generalisations. The main finding from the analysis in Chapter 5 was that the impacts of teacher education are context-based. Effectively, such a generalisation is to the presence of a null pattern rather than a positive one. Put another way, any apparent patterns are quite possibly random ones. This is a trap because random distributions always contain clusters that can give the illusion of possible systematic patterns and of potential generalisability. We saw the effects in the teacher education reviews in Chapter 5.1, where reviews with small numbers of studies chased illusory generalisations, such as the premature finding from the earliest review of nine studies by Alexander and Simmons (1975) that teacher education made no difference. Only with larger numbers of studies did reliable patterns appear to occur, in this case that teacher education does, in general, make a difference. But, as we saw in Table 5.1, some 45% of results were null or negative. The maze of complex findings in the various studies actually demonstrated that the findings were highly oriented to context. The Papua New Guinea secondary teacher study summarised in Chapter 6.2 gave a particular example, showing that teacher education did make a difference in that context, but in the opposite direction to that predicted from Beeby’s progressive theory. With few current meta-analyses of classroom teaching in developing countries, the state of the art, if so it can be called, is very much at the level of educational commonalities such as formalism, which may be found in many cultural contexts. Essentially, in the absence of useful work on teaching styles in the school effec-

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tiveness field, the available classroom research in developing countries is an accumulation of ad hoc case studies and surveys. Taken together, they could provide a basis for wider literature reviews to take the analysis of teaching style research a step further than undertaken in this book. At this time, accurate definition of formalism’s extent is not possible, and this book is as much bounded by that as any other in the field. While my searches of the international journal literature were thorough, they were not randomly drawn or complete, nor have I been able to delve into locally-published work except in the case of Papua New Guinea. Even the claims about formalism, based as they are on consistent research evidence that shows many similarities in various parts of the developing world, are conditional methodologically. The original choices about research sites were essentially haphazard or purposive rather than random, and the English-language comparative education journals publish papers predominantly on Commonwealth and lesser developed countries in Africa and Asia. To develop methodologically sounder generalisations from commonalities, formal meta-analyses of the research literature are needed. Context-specific reviews of the local literature can show the limits of international generalisations and generate policy-oriented findings for decision-makers operating within those contexts (Avalos & Haddad 1981; Guthrie 1989). Numerous studies in comparative education, often of high quality, bear on the issues, but they have varying methodologies and need careful analysis. Meta-analyses need classification of studies by distribution (by first language group as well as geography), methodology (positivist, post-positivist), research design (case study, survey, experimental and mixed method), and data analysis techniques (qualitative and quantitative, and in the latter case, non-parametric, univariate and multivariate). The sampling distributions for positive, null and negative findings in relation to any given hypothesis would give further evidence about the generalisability of the findings in international analyses, but careful attention to their limits is also needed to indicate the many occurrences where context outweighs generalisation. Academics, especially in the school effectiveness field, may find the concern for context confusing or counter-intuitive, but administrators rarely need any concern other than for their own situation, so context is not a practical administrative problem within educational systems. Methodological limitations are also of reduced concern in the real world of educational decision-making. Case studies can be appropriate for use by context-based decision-makers, which is highly relevant to the promotion of grounded educational change. Of great relevance here is Popper’s (1979, pp. 13-23) distinction between “theoretical preference” and “pragmatic preference”. One is the scientific quest for truth, especially true explanatory theories; the other is a policy concern for practical action. One proceeds through the process of falsifiability; the other proceeds through use of the best-tested alter-

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native, i.e. the option that has the most information available to support it at the time when action has to be taken. A decision-maker with a deadline cannot wait years for authoritative scientific evidence. From a pragmatic point of view, incomplete research results may have to be used because they are the only data available. Administrators and politicians must rely on their professional judgement (Guthrie 2004; 2010, pp. 196-203). In all, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD lists some 155 developing countries and territories. Country-by-country reviews of their literature, initially along the lines of Chapters 8 and 9, could provide enough evidence to allow aggregation beyond imprecisely scoped commonalities to some useful generalisations about the distribution of formalistic teaching. Were a dozen postgraduate students in each of a dozen universities to tackle the task, and allowing for the inevitable disputations over review findings, a considerable coverage of developing countries could readily provide meaningful generalisations within five or ten years. Compared with the 40 years it has taken school effectiveness research to achieve next to nothing about classroom methods in developing countries, this would be rapid indeed. 12.2 Emotional Atmosphere One of the main barriers to an acceptance of formalism as having desirable properties is its connotation to westerners of a domineering authoritarianism, indeed even as a contributor to the notion of schooling as violence (Harber 2002). Rather, not atypical perhaps is a benevolent paternalism, as found in a classroom observation study in Papua New Guinea. The study found teachers did nearly all the structuring, soliciting and reacting; pupils did almost none of these but did all the responding. While critical of such an approach, Dunkin (1977, p. 10) found it appropriate to comment that, “the teachers were warm and supportive in their dealings with the children and the atmosphere in all classes was one of enthusiasm and interest.” One of the findings from the Confucian-heritage research in Chapter 9 was that Western perceptions of formalistic teaching as authoritarian are not shared in Chinese culture, where the teacher-student relationship is hierarchical and the teacher is dominant but not necessarily authoritarian. The two country cases used as the basis of refutation in this book thus question the view that formalistic teaching is necessarily seen as authoritarian. If such findings are common, then the affective consequence of formalistic teaching may indeed be rather less negative than is commonly assumed. The complexity underlying apparently authoritarian behaviours was demonstrated in Tabulawa’s study in Botswana reported in Chapter 2.4. It found that teacher-student relationships were paternalistic and formal, and that corporal pun-

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ishment was common in the case study school. Teachers emphasised attentiveness, formality and orderliness in their lessons, expected traditional respect and deference from students, and maintained a social distance. However, in many instances teachers were “forced” into a dominant position by the students themselves, who had a measure of informal countervailing power through their contribution to the teachers’ reputations, so that teachers actively avoided teaching acts that might lead to them being labelled as incompetent by students. If they knew the required syllabus knowledge and explained it well, they could gain students’ respect, and not need to attempt to maintain control by resorting to corporal punishment, which in effect was a sign of failure. The teachers’ apparent dominance was not so much imposed as co-constructed, a negotiated authority that was a product of teachers’ and students’ mutual expectations of schooling derived from their cultural context. Caution is needed, nonetheless, with any assumption that Formalism necessarily involves corporal punishment. Boorer (2003), for example, raised this concern about teaching in Papua New Guinea. The most teacher-centred style in the teaching styles continuum in Table 10.1 is defined as Authoritarian and described as frequently involving physical sanctions such as corporal punishment, essentially because it is most commonly found in total institutions whose role is to induct recruits into total obedience to organisational norms. Formalism is the next most teacher-centred style and is described as involving strong negative sanctions focussed on failure to learn. From a technical perspective, the model is intended to present modal characteristics of teaching styles, common among their practitioners but not necessarily universal. Not all formalistic teachers use violence; nor is the definition tied to this. Some formalistic teachers do use physical punishment (which I regard as a sign of low-level formalism) and others do not (which can be considered a necessary but not sufficient condition to be a high-level formalist). Other types of weak teacher may use corporal punishment too – it seems more an issue of personality than teaching style and, no doubt, these teachers need help to reduce the worst aspects of authoritarianism involved in physical and psychological abuse (Boorer & Pat 1992). As Larking (1974) observed, the authoritarian personality is common and changes from this may only occur with changes in the social personality of society itself. 12.3 Cultural Context The methodological principles put in previous chapters are expressed as clearly as possible, but care needs to be taken not to oversimplify the issues. This is especially so in coming to an understanding of the background variable of cultural context and its many potential impacts. A deep-reaching review by Sternberg (2007) of experimental cross-cultural research found ten lessons learned about cul-

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ture, instruction and assessment. The findings show the complexities that can be involved with finding evidence about some of the experimental variables discussed in Chapter 11.1: 1.

The very act of assessing cognitive and educational performance affects that performance differentially across cultures (e.g. with static rather than dynamic testing). 2. Individuals in cultures may think about concepts and problems in different ways, so that teachers of one culture teaching students of another culture may not understand how they think (e.g. linear Western teachers may not comprehend dialectical Asian students). 3. Behaviour that is viewed as smart in one culture may be viewed as not smart or even stupid in another (e.g. classifying hierarchically rather than functionally). 4. Students do better on assessments with familiar and meaningful material. 5. Children may develop contextually important skills at the expense of academic ones (perhaps having adaptive skills that matter in their own environment but that teachers do not view as part of ‘intelligence’). 6. Children may have substantial practical skills that go unrecognised in academic tests. 7. Failure in school may reflect children’s ill health not lack of ability. 8. Children may do poorly in school not because they do not understand the material, but because they do not understand the instructions about what to do with the material. 9. When children are taught in culturally appropriate ways, their achievement increases (although this finding did relate to data on teaching content rather than teaching method). 10. What it means to be smart may vary from one culture to the next (students in different cultures may have different views about the meaning of intelligence). In sum, Sternberg concluded, when cultural context is taken into account, individuals are better recognised for and are better able to make use of their talents, schools teach and assess children better, and society uses rather than wastes the talents of its members. “We need to teach to who the students are, not some idealization of who we might want them to be. In that way, we make instruction culturally relevant rather than culturally blind, deaf, and dumb” (Sternberg 2007, p. 17). In all this, I am not making a case for culturalisation of content; rather the case is for culturalisation of method. I do not doubt that using relevant examples from

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students’ own communities will help them understand what a teacher is talking about inside the classroom, but the basic role of primary schools, in particular, is to teach ‘modern’ knowledge, especially numeracy and literacy. Learning folk dances in school may be good fun and show respect for local customs, but it is not culture in the sense being written about in this book, which is as “a set of unspoken, implicit rules of behaviour and thought that controls everything we do … [it] defines the ways in which people view the world, determines their values, and establishes the basic tempo and rhythms of life” (Hall 1983, pp. 6-7). Such values are part of our sociolinguistic cultural identities, initially defined by our mother tongues, and principally learned informally through socialisation in the family. The family embedded in the community remains the appropriate place to learn them. Using the classroom to teach about local cultural values seems dubious as a curriculum strategy. Practically as well, teacher mobility is common in school systems, one practical consequence being that many teachers simply do not know a great deal about local cultures. Even when teachers do have this knowledge, it is faintly ridiculous to suggest that the school should supplant the family in such matters. 12.4 Values and Language Groups Values are a deep-seated linguistically embedded element of culture as defined in this book. As Alexander’s (2001) case studies of progressive thinking showed, the values encoded in progressivism are essentially Eurocentric, especially Anglophone. A major pedagogical divide between English and non-English speaking countries reflects different sets of values whose influence is commonly underestimated: Values … spill out untidily at every point in the analysis of pedagogy, and it is one of the abiding weaknesses of much mainstream research on teaching, including the rare accounts that appear in the comparative education literature, that it tends to play down their significance in shaping and explaining observable practice (Alexander 2001, p. 517). Progressive Anglophone values have especially influenced quite different schools of thought about educational quality in non-Western countries, while countervailing formalistic values have been widely underestimated by educational reformers. Alexander (2000, summarised in 2001, p. 520) identified three basic sets of values that are highly pervasive at both school and classroom levels. Individualism emphasises choice, freedom of expression, self-actualisation, rights over responsibilities, personal knowledge, differentiated learning, divergent outcomes, and the in-

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dividual. Community emphasises respect for others, sharing, caring, the balance of responsibilities and rights, collaborative learning, and the group. Collectivism identifies social cohesion, common ownership, shared values and norms, responsibilities before rights, joint learning, convergent outcomes, and the class. Clearly enough, progressivism most supports the values of individualism, the widespread examples of formalism from Africa and Papua New Guinea that illustrate the present book relate most clearly to the values of community, while the China example relates most clearly to collectivism. Alexander illustrated the competing role of these value sets with a dismissal by the World Bank and the OECD in the 1990s of Russian teaching as old-fashioned and authoritarian and pressure for more democratic student-centred approaches, yet Russian children were outperforming American ones in mathematics and science. The implication is that in the World Bank and the OECD, the democratic values of individualism outweighed the academic achievement valued in a particular collective culture. Barrett further observed that individualism, personalised discourse and diffuse interaction are characteristics of North American and British practice, but “if constructivism, personalized learning and celebration of learner creativity do not necessarily come bundled together as a package in East Asian or central European countries, where value is placed on collectivism, objectified discourse and effort … it should not be assumed that they must in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia” (Barrett 2007, p. 290). A key element in the widespread and persistent influence of the progressive paradigm has been the role of English language universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. They continue to provide the bulk of overseas university study for developing country teachers, researchers and aid professionals, who often imbibe individualistic progressive educational values as international students. These theories can be superficially attractive in that they implicitly attack old-fashioned Western educational values commonly associated with colonialism, but if paradigms about modern education are not deconstructed, culturally-based and possibly false assumptions about teaching styles remain unexamined and untested. This book, too, reflects the role of the English language as an international academic medium. It is biased towards Africa, Asia and the South Pacific by the available English language literature and has little to report that draws directly on research from those parts of the developing world with colonial inheritances from French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish traditions, in particular. Hopefully, these gaps may encourage others more linguistically competent than I to analyse their research literatures on progressivism and formalism. The modesty with which claims for universal predominance of Anglophone progressive educational values should be exercised is indicated by the numbers of

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speakers for whom English is the first language, and therefore the initial vehicle for transmission of sociolinguistic cultural identities. While numerical estimates vary among sources, Chinese is always placed well ahead of any other language, while English has a relatively small proportion of first language users worldwide. The Summer Institute of Linguistics recently estimated that Chinese is spoken by more first speakers than any of 6,909 known languages (Lewis 2009). These estimates had Chinese spoken by some 1.213 billion people in 31 countries, 20.4% of the world figure of 5.960 billion. Next at 5.5% was Spanish, at 329 million first speakers in 44 countries, and English virtually the same at 328 million, but in 112 countries. They were followed by Arabic (221 million first language speakers in 57 countries), Hindi (182 million in 20 countries) and Bengali (181 million in 10 countries). Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and German rounded out the top ten. Five of the 10 languages were European, but the most widespread of these, English, had only 5.5% of the world’s population using it as a first language, and therefore likely to have it as the vehicle for culture in the sense used in this book. The clue to the international influence of English as a global language is the high number of countries with first language speakers and the fact that it is the world’s premier trade, scientific and diplomatic language (Crystal 2003). Estimates of the numbers of second language users vary widely, from around half a billion to over one billion, depending on how language competence is defined. However, use of English as a second language indicates its practical global utility, not the distribution of deep Anglophone, progressive educational values. Children do indeed appear to be valued in all cultures, but the ways in which they are valued and the expectations of appropriate intellectual and emotional development, and of appropriate behaviours, vary hugely around the world. The notion that Englishlanguage educational values should be a universal model merits little short of ridicule. 12.5 Growth of the Brain The Progressive Education Fallacy in developing countries is based on the dubious premise that teaching variously labelled as student- or learner-centred, enquiry, problem-solving or democratic is necessary in primary and secondary schools to develop student cognitive abilities that are consistent with intellectual enquiry skills. The central focus in this book about the failures of progressive reforms has been cultural issues. Yet neurobiological brain scanning research, briefly reviewed here, has emerged this century to suggest that underlying the cultural issues may be one of physical maturation. This finding could have worldwide implications.

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A considerable part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex is the prefrontal cortex, which is one of the last parts of the brain to develop. The entire prefrontal cortex is dedicated to the memory, planning or execution of actions in goaldirected behaviour. It has the central executive role of problem-solving in intellectual enquiry, such as forming goals and objectives, and then in devising plans of action required to attain these goals. “It selects the cognitive skills required to implement the plans, coordinates these skills, and applies them in a correct order. Finally, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for evaluating our actions as success or failure relative to our intentions” (Goldberg 2001, p. 23). The lateral aspects relate to cognitive functions such as analysis, judgement, planning, problem-solving and fluid intelligence (Waltz et al. 1999; Fuster 2001; Ellis 2006, pp. 349-353). In the 2000s, considerable evidence from brain imaging has showed that complex reasoning functions localise within the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (Burgess et al. 2007). Another important finding from neuroimaging is that the brain’s growth may not finish until the mid-20s, unlike earlier progressive suppositions that it was formed fully by the early teens. Based on 829 magnetic resonance scans of 387 healthy people aged between 3 and 27, Giedd (2008) reported a general pattern of childhood peaks of gray matter followed by adolescent declines, functional and structural increases in connectivity and integrative processing, and a changing balance between limbic/subcortical and frontal lobe functions that extended well into young adulthood. Badenoch (2008, p. 287) explained this in less technical terms: essentially, in adolescence the brain undergoes a thorough reconstruction. Changes in connectivity, transmission speed and functional balance pave the way for a fully mature brain in the mid-20s, without which teens have less than consistent capacity for an integrated brain and a coherent mind. The evidence detailing specific areas of brain growth and function does not add up to a case for biological determinism. The social environment is particularly influential on the way in which the brain develops, especially during later periods of growth. The mind emerges in interaction between neurological and interpersonal processes and with other environmental features, developing as ongoing experience shapes the genetically programmed maturation of the nervous system (Siegel 2006, pp. 248-249). When neurons become activated, both experience and genes create the connections between them. In particular, the cortex is largely undifferentiated at birth, i.e. it has neural plasticity and is shaped heavily by experience and behaviour, developing executive functions that can change during its lifetime. “Consciousness may play a direct role in harnessing neural plasticity by altering previous automatic modes of neural firing and enabling new patterns of neural activation to occur” (Siegel 2006, p. 250), which is consistent with Lancy’s (1983) view that the nature of formal operations is culturally derived.

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All this has implications for educational research. Obviously enough, schooling is an important part of the social environment that helps shape neural activation, so “another important direction forïfuture neuroimaging studies will be increased integration with social and educational science, which have remained relatively separate despite the shared goal of guiding individuals through the adolescent years safely and optimally prepared for the adult world” (Giedd 2008, pp. 340341). The implications for schooling of the recent increase in knowledge about brain growth only began to surface in the late 2000s. Some directions are indicated by consideration of curriculum implications in a collection edited by Meltzer (2007), the use by Duijvenvoorde et al. (2008) of imaging to analyse the effects of different types of feedback on 8-9, 11-13 and 18-25 year olds, Gilbert and Burgess’ (2008) discussion of the implications of executive function and social cognition for education, and Schmidt-Wilk’s (2009) questions about the role of reflection in learning relative to recent advances in brain science. Possibly neurobiology provides an explanation for a feature of Russian education observed by Alexander, that it aims to outpace natural development rather than follow it. In doing this, it may generate a proactive approach to, quite literally, building the brain’s neural pathways. This does not necessarily imply progressive teaching methods, for it is coupled in Russian schools with traditional pedagogy, but neurobiology does appear to provide a systematic and independent basis for reviewing curricular approaches. There may well be implications for structuring of the school curriculum, types and timing of classroom activities that may work in conjunction with the development of the brain, and for teaching styles. One question that arises from this book is the possible effect that late maturation of cognitive functions, such as judgement and planning, might have on the development of higher order enquiry skills. Does biological maturation help account for mismatches found in Piagetian research between the formal operational tasks that many advanced secondary and undergraduate tertiary students are asked to do and their concrete level cognitive performance? Correlations between changes in the coherence of EEG signals from different parts of the brain and the Piagetian capacity for formal operations were reported some time ago (Hudspeth & Pribram 1992). What will imaging technologies tell us now? The development and functioning of the brain are highly complex issues only briefly canvassed here. There is some way to go before there may be usable findings for schooling from studies of hypotheses about interactions among physical maturation and culture, the location in the lateral prefrontal cortex of complex reasoning, the type of teaching methods used in primary and secondary schools, and the timing of curricular activities. This has implications for the earlier progressive assumption that the brain is fully developed by the early teens and that enquiry teaching is appropriate early in school. Rather, it seems, advanced capacities are

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not fully formed in the brain until a decade or so later, the implication being that progressive attempts to utilise such abilities in the mid and late teens may be premature. The hypothesis that the introduction of enquiry learning methods in primary and early secondary school is premature, given the later growth of the lateral prefrontal cortex, may be a stretch, but the issue is on the table. If physical maturation is one key factor, the underpinnings of the failure of progressive teaching innovations may in part be biological, and not just educational, cultural or social, and therefore apply as much to youth in developed as developing countries. If this book helps provoke further investigation into this matter, the results may raise the possibility that progressive education is as much a fallacy in developed countries as developing ones. One can only hope that this generates careful research rather than a quasi-ideological struggle among educationists. 12.6 Conclusion A widespread educational commonality is implied by the conjecture that formalism is relevant to developing countries. As far as I can tell, this is a very strong conjecture. But the general claim for favouring formalism in developing countries will not be true of all of them, or of all cultures within them, or of all schools, or of all teachers, or of all classrooms. Superficially, a simple answer to lack of local research is borrowing solutions from research and practice elsewhere, but the failures of international borrowings, due in considerable part to their cultural limitations, seem more widespread than the successes. Nor may South-South transfer of findings about formalism from one developing country necessarily be relevant to others, as we saw in Papua New Guinea. They will possibly be more relevant than North-South transfer from developed countries, but they will always need adaptation to local circumstances. Just because China and Papua New Guinea, oddly enough, have some elements common to their traditional epistemologies and pedagogies does not necessarily mean that modern applications will be similar. They may, but they may not. Academics, especially in the school effectiveness field, may find all that confusing or counter-intuitive, but administrators rarely need any concern other than for their own situation, so concern for context is not a practical administrative problem within educational systems. Theoretically inelegant though it may be, solutions need to be grounded in local realities. This is not to say that there are no valid generalisations about education across the globe. There are many, but they may or may not be relevant to any particular context. For example, old conjectures about the application of progressive Western models of educational change in developing countries have been rejected herein as not being of general validity. But that is not to say that progressive models are never appropriate. They may be effective with higher cognitive levels in

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schools; they may be relevant in those parts of educational systems that aim for an ‘international’ education; and they may be appropriate in some cultural settings. Lest that be taken as an escape clause for on-going attention by values-bound progressivists, I trust that we can agree to focus on formalistic classrooms because they are the vast majority in the poverty-ridden developing countries that most need support. The time has come to work with rather than against formalistic teaching. References Alexander, L., & Simmons, J. (1975). The determinants of school achievement in developing countries: The education production function. Staff Working Paper No.201. Washington: World Bank. Alexander: R. (2000). Culture and pedagogy: International comparisons in primary education. Oxford: Blackwell. Alexander: R. (2001). Border crossings: Towards a comparative pedagogy. Comparative Education, 37(4), 507-523. Avalos, B., & Haddad, W. (1981). Review of teacher effectiveness research in Africa, India, Latin America, Middle East, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand: Synthesis of results. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Badenoch, B. (2008). Being a brain-wise therapist: A practical guide to interpersonal neurobiology. New York: Norton. Barrett, A. (2007). Beyond the polarization of pedagogy: Models of classroom practice in Tanzanian primary schools. Comparative Education, 43(2), 273-294. Barrett, A., Chawla-Duggan, R., Lowe, J., Nikel, J., & Ukpo, E. (2006). The concept of quality in education: Review of the ‘international’ literature on the concept of quality in education. EdQual Working Paper No.2. Bristol: University of Bristol. Boorer, D. (2003). Some reflections upon Guthrie’s paper ‘Cultural continuity in teaching styles’. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education [Special Issue on Formalism], 39(2), 85-90. Boorer, D., & Pat, V. (1992). Child abuse in teaching. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 28(1), 1-12. Burgess, P., Gilbert, S., & Dumontheil, I. (2007). Function and localization within rostral prefrontal cortex (Area 10). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences, 362, 887-899. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duijvenvoorde, A., Zanolie, K., Rombouts, S., Raijmakers, M., & Crone, E. (2008). Evaluating the negative or valuing the positive? Neural mechanisms supporting feedback-based learning across development. Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 9495-9503. Dunkin, M.J. (1977). A study of classroom interaction in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 13(2), 1-11. Ellis, H. (2006). Clinical anatomy (11th Ed.). Malden: Blackwell. Fuster, J. (2001). The prefrontal cortex – An update: Time is of the essence. Neuron, 30(2), 319333. Giedd, J. (2008). The teen brain: Insights from neuroimaging. Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4), 335-343.

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Gilbert, S., & Burgess, P. (2008). Social and nonsocial functions of rostral prefrontal cortex: Implications for education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 2(3), 148-156. Goldberg, E. (2001). The executive brain: Frontal lobes and the civilized mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guthrie, G. (1989). Higher degree theses and educational decision making in developing countries. International Journal of Educational Development, 9(1), 43-52. Guthrie, G. (2004). Typology of educational knowledge. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 40(1), 1-11. Guthrie, G. (2010). Basic research methods: An entry to social science research. New Delhi: Sage. Hall, E. (1983). The dance of life. New York: Doubleday. Harber, C. (2002). Schooling as violence: An exploratory overview. Educational Review, 54(1), 7-16. Hudspeth, W., & Pribram, K. (1992). Psychophysiological indices of cerebral maturation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 12, 19-29. Lancy, D.F. (1983). Cross-cultural studies in cognition and mathematics. New York: Academic Press. Larking, L.G (1974). Some difficulties in improving the quality of teachers in Papua New Guinea. In Educational perspectives in Papua New Guinea (pp. 130-137). Melbourne: Australian College of Education. Lewis, M.P. (Ed.). (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (16th Ed.). Dallas: SIL International. Meltzer, L. (Ed.) (2007). Executive function in education: From theory to practice. New York: Guilford. Popper, K. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Rev. Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schmidt-Wilk, J. (2009). Reflection: A prerequisite for developing the ‘CEO’ of the brain. Journal of Management Education, 33, 3-7. Siegel, D. (2006). An interpersonal neurobiology approach to psychotherapy. Psychiatric Annals, 36(4), 248-256. Sternberg, R.J. (2007). Culture, instruction, and assessment. Comparative Education, 43(1), 522. Waltz, J., Knowlton, B., Holyoak, K., Boone, K., Mishkin, F., de Menezes Santos, M., Thomas, C., & Miller, B. (1999). A system for relational reasoning in human prefrontal cortex. Psychological Science, 10(2), 119-125.

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Index A Africa, 16, 29, 55-56, 58, 67, 79, 82, 86, 88, 89, 156, 201, 209, 240, 245 Alexander, R., 11-12, 13, 54-55, 203, 208, 244-245 Alternative independent variables, 218-222 Anglophone issues, xxi, xxiii, xxvi, 6, 55, 58, 122, 196, 225, 237, 238, 244-246 Asia, 16, 26, 35, 55, 57, 58, 67, 79, 82, 84, 86, 110, 201, 240, 243, 245 AusAID, xviii, xix, xx, 128, 140, 148, 222 Australia, ix, x, xiv, xv, xviii, xxiv, 26-27, 35, 72, 95, 110, 130, 131-132, 140, 143-144, 146, 155-157, 159, 189, 245 authoritarianism, 4, 14-15, 23, 26, 35, 38, 154, 168, 184, 203-207, 209210, 241-242, 245

B Background variables, 79, 81, 85, 218-222, 242 Barrett, A., 6, 8-9, 22, 28, 32-33, 37, 63, 87, 91, 203-205, 209, 239, 245 barriers to change, 2, 12, 61, 62, 67-74, 123 Beeby, C.E., x, xiii, xv, xvi, xvii-xviii, xxi, xxii-xiii, xxiv, 1-2, 5-6, 8-14, 16, 21-30, 31, 36, 37-38, 43-60, 61-62, 63, 66, 67, 72, 74, 77-78, 84, 96, 103-107, 111, 114, 116, 128-130, 135, 143, 146, 147, 173, 195, 202, 208, 214, 222, 237-239 Biggs, J., xi, 7, 15, 35, 70, 181, 184, 189, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, 181, 222-223 Botswana, xi, xvi, 7, 11, 30, 32, 33, 55-56, 83, 86, 95, 199, 200, 201, 225, 241

Brazil, 91 bureaucracy, 5, 200

C Cambodia, 11 Canada, xxiv, 245 Caribbean, 87 cerebral cortex, 246-249 Chile, 81, 93, 145 China, ix, x, xiv, xviii, xix, xx, xxii, 1, 3, 7, 16, 17, 30, 35, 36, 69, 104, 147, 173-193, 199, 201, 209, 210, 225, 245, 249 Chinese Learner Paradox, 15, 35, 84, 184, 189, 211 class size, 17, 68-69, 88, 146, 186, 229, 230, 233 classroom observation, 10-11, 31, 32-33, 64, 72, 78, 85, 87, 90-91, 94-95, 97, 109-110, 117, 121, 137, 141-142, 158, 186, 188, 195, 197, 211-213, 221, 228, 233, 241 cognitive levels, 4, 82, 86, 166, 196, 197, 210, 217, 220, 222-224, 233234, 249 cognitive skills, xxvii, 9, 57, 86, 166, 217, 224, 247 collectivism, 188, 245 colonialism, xix, xxiv, 158-161, 167, 245 commonalities, 32, 94, 198-199, 225, 238241 community, xxii, 68, 70, 88, 129, 133-138, 143, 161-165, 168, 171, 244, 245 comparative education, xvii, xviii, 13, 54, 56, 212, 240, 244 Confucianism, xx, 15, 16, 35, 57, 84, 167, 173-193, 199, 201, 233, 241 Confucius, 174-176, 179, 181

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conjectures, x, xvi, xxi, 1-2, 3, 15, 49-50, 61, 77, 103, 106, 108, 129, 195186, 195-196, 197, 249 constructivist learning, 6, 8, 34, 63, 73, 83, 142, 163, 189, 202, 245 constructs, xv, xvi, 2, 57, 61, 62-65, 70, 74, 119, 122, 154, 163, 167-168, 181, 198, 201, 209, 212, 213, 228, 242 context, ix-xii, xv, xxii-xxiv, 1-2, 3-4, 9, 10, 13-15, 17, 21, 26, 28, 31, 35, 36, 44, 54, 56-57, 61, 64, 66, 69, 73-74, 77, 78-101, 106, 108, 109, 117, 122, 123, 142, 143, 145, 147, 161-165, 167, 184, 185, 187, 189, 195-196, 198215, 217-218, 220-225, 228, 229, 234, 237, 239, 240, 242244, 249 costs, x, 12, 67, 71-72, 112, 143, 213, 230, 232 CRIP, 140-142, 144, 147, 149, 221 Crossley, M., ix-xii, 13, 36, 62, 67, 70, 136-138, 230 Cultural Revolution, 182-183 culture, ix, xi, xix, xxi, xxiii, xxvi, 2, 3-4, 9, 10, 13-14, 17, 30, 33, 35, 37, 51, 54-58, 64, 77, 86-94, 97, 123, 131, 145, 153-172, 173, 179-181, 182, 184, 187-190, 196, 197-215, 217, 218-221, 223, 225, 231, 238, 242-245, 246, 248,-249 curriculum reform, x, xx, xxv, 2, 4, 8, 1011, 12, 27, 28-30, 56, 61, 62-65, 71-72, 74, 87, 90, 91, 92, 103, 127-152, 153, 161-163, 165, 186-187, 195-196, 200-202, 214, 217-222, 225, 228, 229, 233-234, 238, 244, 248

D dependent variables, 10, 11, 79, 87, 88, 92, 108-109, 114, 122, 167, 196, 218-223 development education, xviii, 25, 208 direct instruction, 210,

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E ecological validity, 10, 77, 87, 92, 97, 109, 121, 123, 220 Egypt, 11 empirical issues, 58, 208 empiricism, xxiii, 88 England, 26, 54-55, 116, 185 English language, xxiv, xxvi, 132, 244-246 epistemology, xx, xxii, 13, 16-17, 53, 56, 58, 64, 73, 93, 97, 104, 154, 157-159, 162, 163, 167-168, 169-170, 174-176, 190, 196, 198, 199-200. 222, 224-226, 237, 238, 249 ethical issues, xxiii, 208 ethnomathematics, 130-131, 166 examinations, 2, 5, 12, 14, 34, 61, 63-64, 65, 67, 70, 85-86, 91, 106, 107, 119, 136, 174, 177-189, 198, 201, 208, 230, 233 experimental research, xx, xxi, xxv, 9, 79, 82-86, 94, 121, 123, 164, 165166, 195, 208, 210, 211, 214, 217, 218-222, 224, 226, 229, 231, 232, 233, 240, 242-143

F Fiji, 231 formal education, xvi, 119, 120, 154-157159, 167, 168, 170, 183, 199 formalism, xv, xvi, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, 1, 3, 4-5, 7, 9, 14-17, 2142, 44, 48, 55, 56, 58, 61, 63, 73, 86, 93, 103-104, 105-126, 128, 144, 146-147, 153-172, 173-193, 195-196, 197-208, 209-210, 213-214, 220-221, 222, 224, 225, 229, 231, 232234, 237-251 France, 54-55 Fuller, B., 13, 32-33, 83, 86-87, 89, 90, 91, 96, 87, 231

G generalisability, xxii, 16, 27, 29, 92, 95-96, 97, 211, 239-240 generalisations, 238 Ghana, 36 globalisation, 36, 57

Index

Goroka Teacher’s College, xiv, 108, 110 Guthrie, G., x-xii, xiii- xxxii, 5, 8, 12, 22, 25, 29-30, 37, 49, 52, 62, 70, 92, 93, 95, 106-126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 140, 144, 145, 154, 159, 161, 168, 202, 203, 205, 209, 211, 219, 225, 229, 230, 232, 240, 241

H Hall, E., 13, 244 higher operations, 223 Hong Kong, 7, 26, 35, 63-65, 84, 86, 91, 173, 181, 184, 189, 190-191, 201

I IEA, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 91, 92, 95, 165, 184 independent variables, 88, 108, 114, 196, 217, 218-222, 233 India, 7, 30, 54, 57, 63, 81, 91, 231 individualism, 244-245 informal education, 154, 157, 163 INSET, 29, 33, 71, 72, 136, 187, 188, 210, 227, 231, 232 inspections, xiii, xvi, xxi, 5, 14, 15, 23, 101, 106-110, 112-113, 114, 116-123, 143, 160, 180, 198, 200, 202, 211, 212, 213, 219220, 233 international education, ix, xvii-xviii, xxii, 95, 198

J Jamaica, 7, 88, 91, 96 Jordan, 11

K Kenya, 85,-86, 93, 97, 201, 231 Korea, 36, 173, 184 Kuznets, S., 29, 43-44, 46-48 Kyrgyzstan, 8, 11

L Latin America, 79, 82, 87, 145

M Malawi, 11 Matane Report, 138-139, 140, 143, 144146, 164 maturation, xxvii, 9, 17, 166, 246-249

Meaning, xxi, 2, 3, 5-9, 23-25, 30, 31-32, 43, 44, 46, 48-54, 58, 61, 72, 74, 104, 106, 111, 129, 135, 138, 144, 147, 153, 166, 169, 217, 222, 239 measurement scales, 47-48, 94, 225 Melanesia, xxvi, 167, 174, 233 meta-analyses, 239-240 modernisation, xxvi, 4, 17, 53, 145, 162, 183, 189-190, 213 Morris, P., 7, 63-65, 70, 91, 190, Myrdal, G., 29, 43-48, 51-52

N Namibia, 8, 30-32, 71, 91, 200, 209, 211212 neo-colonialism, xxiv, 57 Neo-Confucianism, 178, 180-181 Nepal, 30, 31, 71, 186, 206, 210, 211-212 New Zealand, ix, xiii-xiv, xvii, xxiv, 21, 27, 29, 47, 50, 245 Nigeria, 83, 84, 86, 201 Niue, 26, 231 non-formal education, 155-158, 164, 179, 182

O O’Sullivan, M., 8, 68-69, 72-73, 87, 91, 200, 209-210, 212 observation, 10, 11, 31-33, 64, 72, 78, 85, 87, 90, 91, 94-95, 97, 109-110, 117, 119, 121, 137, 141-142, 158, 176, 186, 187, 188, 195, 210, 211-213, 221, 228, 233, 241 OECD, 5, 241, 245

P Papua New Guinea, ix-i, xiv, xv-xviii, xxxxii, 1, 3, 8, 11, 15-16,, 17, 21, 26-27, 28, 36, 53, 68, 71, 72, 95, 103-104, 105-126, 127-152, 153-172, 173-174, 199-201, 211, 212, 213, 214, 221, 225, 230, 238, 239-240, 241-242, 245, 249 paradigms, ix, xvi, xxiv, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 15, 17, 22, 37, 43, 44, 51, 54-58, 61, 63, 74, 89, 93, 95-96, 97, 104, 121, 123, 144, 153, 157, 158,

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162, 163, 167-170, 173, 180, 181, 189, 195, 197, 198-202, 224-225, 238, 245 pedagogy, x-xi, xxi, 4, 8-12, 16, 17, 33, 37, 54, 57, 65, 83-88 96, 104, 143145, 153, 154, 162-163, 167, 168, 170, 173, 182, 187-189, 198-201, 203, 208, 220, 244, 248, 249 Pfau, P. , 31-32, 186, 206, 210, 211-212 Philippines, 83 Piagetian research, 166-167, 223, 248 Popper, K., xv, xvi, xxi, xxv, 1-2, 3, 15-16, 43, 49-51, 58, 103-104, 105, 195-196, 187, 238, 240 practical knowledge, 63, 119-123 prefrontal cortex, xxvi, 17, 223, 246-249 process and product, ix, xx, xxv, 2, 4, 9, 10, 35, 56, 77, 80, 84, 85- 8690, 91, 94, 97, 117, 119, 142, 158, 165-168, 184, 185, 186, 188, 195,197, 200, 205-207, 217, 233, 242 progressivism, ix, xv, xvii, xx-xxviii, 1-2, 3-20, 21, 22-31, 36, 38, 43, 44, 52-58, 61, 63-65, 67-69, 71, 7273, 74, 77, 83-86, 91, 93, 96, 103-104, 106, 108, 109, 110111, 114-116, 122, 123, 127152, 153-154, 162, 164, 165170, 173, 174, 180-184, 188189, 190, 195-196, 197-214, 217, 219-228, 230, 233,-234, 237-239, 244-250 Progressive Education Fallacy, ix, xx-xxii, 1, 3-4, 11, 84, 96, 105, 123, 133, 165, 195, 211-213, 221, 228, 233, 246

Q questionnaires, 10, 78, 90-94, 141, 212, 213, 221, 228, 233

R refutation, x, xvi, xxi, 1, 3, 15-16, 44, 4951, 103-104, 105, 128, 147, 170, 173, 195, 197, 201, 241 relevance, ix, xx, xxv, xxvi, 6, 10, 13, 66, 71, 77, 80, 92, 94-95, 97, 109,

256

121-122, 123, 127, 131, 133, 145, 147, 168, 196, 220, 231, 237, 239 reliability, 2, 10, 49, 77, 90, 92, 93-94, 96, 97, 109, 121,-122, 212, 220 revelatory knowledge, xxi, xxii, xxvi, 2, 45, 17, 43, 71, 93, 104, 123, 153154, 157, 162, 167, 173, 175176, 185, 186, 197-201, 206, 214,217, 224, 225 Rogers, E.M., 12-13, 65-67, 201, 228 Russia, 26, 54-55, 182, 187, 245, 248

S school effectiveness research, ix, x, xxvi, 1-2, 3, 10, 28, 44, 63, 68, 77101, 109, 141, 204, 211, 220, 239-241, 249 Singapore, 26, 83-84, 86, 173, 184, 201, 231 Solomon Islands, 26, 231 South Africa, 8, 56, 231 South Pacific, xvii, 2, 21, 26, 29-30, 36, 43, 47, 58, 166, 233, 245 Sri Lanka, 231 SSCEP, 71, 135-138, 147, 162, 221 stages, ix, x, xv-xvii, xxi, xxii, 1-2, 3, 5-6, 8, 9-12, 16, 21-42, 43-60, 6162, 74, 77, 85, 92, 103-104, 105, 106-108, 127,128-129, 166, 169, 173, 195-196, 197, 202, 208, 214, 237, 238-239 Sternberg, R., 14, 221, 242-243 Sudan, 26 syllabuses, 2, 4, 14, 23, 61, 62, 64, 68, 70, 74, 105-106, 109, 115, 119, 128-136, 140, 145, 146, 162, 178, 183, 185-188, 197, 202, 205-207, 218-221, 225, 228229, 230, 242

T Tabulawa, R., xi, 7, 11, 33-35, 37, 55-56, 58, 63, 87, 95, 119, 194, 198200, 241-242 Tanzania, 8, 32-33, 91, 209 Taoism, 175-176, 177, 182 teacher education, teacher training, xivxvi, x, xx, xxvi, 2, 4-5, 8, 14, 15,

Index

25, 26, 28, 69, 77-82, 85, 88, 96, 103, 105-116, 121-122, 123, 127, 129, 130, 132, 139, 140, 143-144, 145, 147, 153, 157, 160, 161, 164, 165, 169, 187, 188, 196, 197-198, 200, 208, 214, 217, 218, 220, 225, 229, 232, 233, 237-238, 239 teaching styles, x, xv, xx-xxi, xxv, 1-2, 320, 22-24, 27, 31, 37, 47, 49, 57, 61,64, 67-74, 77, 78, 82-86, 8788, 91, 94, 95, 96, 104, 105, 128, 130, 134, 137-138, 140, 144, 146, 153-154, 161, 162, 165-167, 169, 179-181, 187, 195-196, 197-211, 211-214, 217-222, 224, 225-228, 230, 231-234, 237-242, 245, 248 Teaching Styles Model, viii, 202-211 teleology, xv, 2, 8, 9, 30, 43-60, 84, 105, 107-108, 175, 176, 196, 237239 textbooks, xxvi, 4, 14, 17, 23, 29, 32, 34, 87, 88, 106, 119, 132, 181, 185, 186-188, 197, 205-207, 229, 230-231, 233 Tonga, 69

U Uganda, 8 UNDP, 6 UNESCO, xi, xvii, 5, 6, 21, 27-28, 49, 6768 UNICEF, 6, 67 United Kingdom, xxiv, 245 United States, xxiv, 26, 31, 54-55, 62, 78, 245 universality, xxi, 9, 13-16, 30, 47, 49-50, 53, 96, 103-104, 128, 147, 173, 196, 201, 212, 224, 237, 238241, 245-246

University of Goroka, xiv, 116, 202, 232233 University of Papua New Guinea, x, xiv, 108, 110, 170, 172 USAID, 6, 11

V validity, xv, 10, 25, 29-30, 31, 44-49, 66, 77, 87, 92-93-97, 109, 121-123, 141, 212, 213, 220, 249 values, xi, xxii-xxvii, 2, 6-9, 12, 13-14, 21, 28, 36-38, 51-57, 65, 69, 85, 92, 156, 163, 167-168, 179, 181, 196, 197-198, 201, 203, 208, 209, 233, 237, 238, 244-246, 250 Vernacular Confucianism, 181 vernacular schooling, 164-165 Vietnam, 8, 45 Vulliamy, G., 95, 126, 136-138, 185, 201, 212

W Western, ix-x, xi, xv-xxvi, 1, 3-4, 6, 8--9, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 57, 71, 78, 84, 86, 96, 104, 111, 129, 153, 156-158, 163, 167,168, 173, 174, 181, 182, 184, 188, 189, 190, 196, 201, 204, 214, 223, 237, 238, 239, 241, 243, 245, 249 westernisation, 8, 45, 46, 51, 105 Western Samoa, xvii, 21, 29, 37, 47, World Bank, xix, xx, 1, 6, 21, 22, 28, 29, 38, 44, 71, 78-80, 84, 94, 95, 98, 108, 136, 138, 230, 239, 245

Z Zaire, 232 Zambia, 82-83, 86, 201, 221 Zimbabwe, 88

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