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Postcolonial Directions in Education

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Postcolonial Directions in Education Focus and Scope Postcolonial Directions in Education is a peer reviewed open access journal produced twice a year. It is a scholarly journal intended to foster further understanding, advancement and reshaping of the field of postcolonial education. We welcome articles that contribute to advancing the field. As indicated in the Editorial for the inaugural issue, the purview of this journal is broad enough to encompass a variety of disciplinary approaches, including but not confined to the following: sociological, anthropological, historical and social psychological approaches. The areas embraced include anti-racist education, decolonizing education, critical multiculturalism, critical racism theory, direct colonial experiences in education and their legacies for present day educational structures and practice,

empire, The impact of Neoliberalism/globalisation/structural adjustment programmes on education, colonial curricula and subaltern alternatives, education and liberation movements, challenging hegemonic languages, the promotion of local literacies and linguistic diversity, neo-colonial education and identity construction, colonialism and the construction of patriarchy, canon and canonicity, Indigenous knowledges , supranational bodies and their educational frameworks, north-south and east-west relations in education, the politics of representation, unlearning colonial stereotypes, internal colonialism and education, Cultural hybridity and learning in postcolonial contexts, education and the politics of dislocation, biographies / autobiographies reflecting the above themes, deconstruction of colonial narratives of civilization within educational contexts. Once again the field cannot be exhausted. Peer Review Process Papers submitted to Postcolonial Directions in Education are examined by at least two reviewers for originality and timeliness in the context of related research. Reviews generally are completed in 30-60 days with publication in the next available issue. Open Access Policy This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. ISSN: 2304-5388

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Editors Anne Hickling Hudson, Queensland University of Technology Peter Mayo, University of Malta Milosh Raykov, University of Malta Editorial Board Carmel Borg, University of Malta George Sefa Dei, OISE/University of Toronto Gloria Lauri Lucente, University of Malta Daniel Schugurensky, Arizona State University, United States Saviour Zammit, University of Malta Editorial Advisory Board Ali A Abdi, University of British Columbia Nahla Abdo, Carleton University Vanessa Andreotti, University of British Columbia Nina Asher y Asoke Bhattacharya, Jadavpur University, Calcutta Jim Cummins, OISE/University of Toronto Antonia Darder, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. Iain Michael Chambers, Universita` degli Studi Orientale, Naples Stephanie L. Daza, Manchester Metropolitan University Mohammed Ezroura, Université Mohammed V, Rabat Christine N. Fox, University of Wollongong Ratna Ghosh, McGill University, Montreal Henry Giroux, McMaster University Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, University of South Africa Didacus Jules, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Dip Kapoor, University of Alberta Sunethra Karunaratne, University of Peradeniya Donaldo Macedo, University of Massachusetts, Boston Ibrahim A. Makkawi, Birzeit University André Elias Mazawi, University of British Columbia Peter McLaren, Chapman University, California Lynn Mario T. Menezes De Souza, University of São Paulo

Mauro Pala, Università di Cagliari Helen Phtiaka, University of Cyprus Vandana Shiva, Navdanya/ Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology Concetta Sirna, Università degli Studi, Messina Linda Tuhiwai Smith, University of Waikato Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University Shirley R. Steinberg, University of Calgary Ngugi Wa Thiong 'O, University of California, Irvine Leon Paul Tikly, University of Bristol Rinaldo Wayne Walcott, OISE/University of Toronto John Willinsky, Stanford University, California Handel Wright, University of British Columbia Joseph Zanoni, University of Illinois at Chicago Davide Zoletto, Università degli Studi, Udine


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POSTCOLONIAL DIRECTIONS IN EDUCATION Vol 4, No 1 (2015):

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articles

1. CONFRONTING COLONIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF LATINAS: RETHINKING QUALITIATIVE RESEARCH AS LIBERATION PRAXIS Lilia Monzo 1-25

2. SCHOOLING AND COLONIALITY: CONDITIONS

Saran Stewart 25-52

3. PERSPECTIVES ON BRITISH EXPATRIATE SCIENCE TEACHERS IN A CARIBBEAN CONTEXT Lydia E. Carol-Ann Burke 53-76

Tribute

EDUARDO GALEANO (1940-2015). THE UNFORGETABLE VOICE OF A WORLD CITIZEN David Cuschieri 77-80

Reports & Reviews

Conference Report

REPORT ON A UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG WORKSHOP, 4-7 MAY, 2015. Anne Hickling-Hudson 81-87

Book Review

DARDER, FREIRE AND EDUCATION Peter Mayo 89-94

Biographical Notes 95


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Lilia Monzo(2015). Confronting Colonial Representations

Postcolonial Directions in Education, 4(1), 1-24

Confronting Colonial Representations

CONFRONTING COLONIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF LATINAS: RETHINKING QUALITIATIVE RESEARCH

AS LIBERATION PRAXIS

Lilia Monzo Chapman University, California, USA.

ABSTRACT This article explores Latina representation and questions the use of research for the purpose of rendering

strengths and resources will be celebrated by the Theatre of the

Oppressed, the author argues that traditional research may unwittingly parallel the coercive function of traditional theater. The author argues instead for a

spectacles are created to support the interests of national and transnational capital, and aims at a pedagogy of liberation that involves participants as actors in the process of inquiry and where advocacy and intervention for equity are central components of reciprocal relationships. KEYWORDS Latina, Revolutionary critical pedagogy, qualitative research, representation, performativity

Throughout United States history Latinas have made important contributions to the shaping of cultural activity and political shifts that most of the general population know little about (Ruíz & Sánchez Korrol, 2005). Rather than recognizing our histories of struggle and agency and our rich diversity, we have generally been homogenized to represent the colonized Other (Molina Guzmán, 2010;; Peña Ovalle, 2011). The mainstream media typically creates spectacles of Latina bodies that signify us as unruly, hysterical, undereducated, hypersexual and in servitude to a racist, patriarchal order that sustains the capital accumulation of White men (and


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sometimes White women) through our labor in their factories and as their nannies and housekeepers or through some exotic but always temporary diversion for their sexual pleasure (Mendible, 2007;; Saborío, 2011). Although the colonized Other as a symbol of representation may be dismissed today in mainstream circles as a relic of the past, critical theorists argue that past colonial and imperialist times have taken new and hyper forms under a transnational capitalist system (Darder & Torres, 2004;; McLaren, 2012;; Robinson, 2008).

While the majority of Latinas in the United States continue to fill the low-wage labor markets that support the capital accumulation of an entangled matrix of colonial power that is male, White, heterosexual, able bodied, and Christian (Grosfoguel, 2011), some of us have made social and economic gains, attained professional status, and now struggle to confront inequities from within the very system that supports the unequal relations of production (Chavez, 2011). Our success, however, is part of a master plan for maintaining that status quo, as Augusto Boal (1979) pointed out in his seminal work, Theater of the Oppressed, in capitalisruling classes pretend kindness and become reformist in critical moments;; they give a little more meat and bread to the workers, in the belief that a social being will be less

Rather than helping to reconceptualize the Latina as an embodied and socioculturally and historically situated and dynamically diverse subject, our positions of authority often

enlightened exception (Wise, 2010). Confronting the spectacle made of Latina bodies requires more than the inclusion of diversity in positions of power but rather a pedagogy of liberation (Freire, 1970, 1998;; McLaren, 2009) that decolonizes and creates possibilities for revolutionary action on our own behalf and toward a socialist democracy.

As a Latina ethnographer and scholar, I have become

resources through our research that seem to resemble a futile begging for acceptance. I have come to recognize that although local changes are important and ethical, a system in which a small group controls the means of production will always require an exploited mass and that racial and gender

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inequities exist to maintain these social relations of production. I have begun to question how our research may

insurmountable process of changing the world capitalist system that functions to divest us of our humanity (Freire, 1970).

In this paper, I develop a conceptual argument for shifting the focus of research from one of learning about the Latina for the purpose of cultural inclusion to one of learning with Latinas as a means of building our (researcher and participants) resources, agency, and working towards a liberation praxis. I begin with a critique of Latina representation in the media as signifying colonial relations and follow with a theoretical grounding of this argument on the work of Augusto Boal (1979), who articulates a theory of performance as a tool of coercion but with the potential for transformation and liberation. Following this, I draw on critical pedagogy, specifically the work of Paulo Friere and Peter McLaren, to argue that research has a parallel function to theater in that it too can serve both as a tool of coercion and liberation. I end this paper by proposing participating in revolutionary performative research in service to our own growth and agency rather than conducting research that commodifies our bodies and our souls.

The Latina as Colonized Object The tremendous diversity among Latinas in the United States spans national origins, immigration status, and generations in the United States, language fluencies, racial and class differences, sexual orientations, and religious affiliations, among other differences. Despite the obvious heterogeneity that these overarching differences produce in our daily lives and subsequent worldviews, Latina women are homogenized

through the lens of the dominant group in ways that sustain our positioning as laborers in the capitalist national and transnational world order. Although uniting as a community with shared experiences and interests may garner us greater strength at the polls and influence policy, Latinidad must be


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2007, p. 5). The over-homogenizing of the Latino community serves

to maintain the sociohistorically developed unequal social relations between Latinos and the dominant group within the United States and, at a transnational level, between Latin America and the United States. These unequal social relations stem from a history of United States imperialism and colonization that have remained to this day, albeit reinvented, through the exploitation of our low-wage labor within the United States and across Latin America, especially Mexico, through the United States maquila industry (Tuttle, 2012). This exploitation is made generally acceptable through the spectacles created by the media, including the print and visual news media, TV, film, and other media venues.

United States mainstream media disproportionately characterizes Latinas as either feeble, submissive, and self-sacrificing or as the hypersexual Other, what Ortiz Cofer (1995) more crudely and succinctly called rendering us as

n Latina roles in United States film and TV have been as housekeepers, nannies, and other service workers or as hot blooded, passionate, and sexually promiscuous vixens (Mendible, 2007;; Molina Guzmán, 2010;; Peña Ovalle, 2011;; Saborío, 2011). Latina celebrities that have become national commodities, such as Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek, have carved out spaces in the national imagination through the performance of

shown as temporarily desirable seconsumption (Peña Ovalle, 2010). Although historically almost absent from the media, the demand for the Latina in film and TV has increased as the globalized market demands a United States image that is multicultural, altruistic, and open to diversity, which obscures the very real material, racist and sexist conditions under which most Latinas in the United States live (Mendible, 2007).

News stories (in visual and print media) often frame us as illegal aliens, undereducated, and welfare mothers with

signify eccentricity, hysteria, and irrational behaviors (Ogaz, 2007;; Molina-Guzmán, 2010). Consider the performativity of the few Latina figures who have in the past been given

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considerable national news attention, such as Lorena Bobbitt who in a moment of unusual

much more common domestic abuse (including marital rape) tence;; or the unusual case of the

political game first by performing and signifying the virtues of motherhood (aligned to the interests of the ultra conservative, anti-Castro, Miami mafia) and later through more common Latina tropes as hysterical, irrational, and over-sexualized (McLaren & Pinkney-Patrana, 2001;; Molina-Guzmán, 2011;; );; or the more recent case of Judge Sonia Sotomayor whose

was taken out of context and performed as an anti-American (read anti-White) act in the national arena. The spectacle of the Latina as an ideological tool is deployed as needed to protect capital interests.

This type casting has served to render Latinas as the

middle class (Mendible, 2007). Latinas/os, regardless of national origin, are generally more closely associated to their

attacks of Mexican-American, Sebastian de la Cruz, age 11, and United States born Puertorriqueño singer/songwriter, Marc Anthony, who sang the national anthem at sports events

2013;; Moreno, 2013). Clearly, whether born here or immigrant, we continue to be seen as something other than

The Latina, in particular, has served to authenticate

associated with intelligence (Mendible, 2007). She has been

rendering Latino communities and Latin America as -wage labor, which positions the

United States as the benevolent savior to Latin America. Whether depicted as undocumented servant or sex object, Latina representations have been used strategically by various interest groups to bring their agendas forward, whether it be for anti-immigration legislation or selling records and attracting viewers. In either case, the Latina is rendered an


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Other, temporary, easily discarded and dismissed a

Butler (1990) argues that to be a woman is to have been made a woman,

to compel the body to conform to an historical idea of woman, to induce the body to become a cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to an historically delimited possibility, and to do this as a sustained and repeated corporeal project. (p. 404-405)

In like manner, to be Latina is to have been made such by the social relations and material conditions that support particular subjectivities (Mendible, 2007). There is no doubt that public perceptions of Latinas/os, and perhaps our own perceptions of ourselves, are often highly influenced through media images constructed through visual and print media. The deficit perspective that these representations in the media support is evidenced in schools through policies and practices that directly negatively impact Latino students and families (Villenas, 2009) and that ultimately secure an exploited workforce. Theatre of Coercion

that serves to maintain the status quo. Antonia Darder (2002) note

sustain through commonsense approval the ideology of social

media support ideologies of individual effort and skill, competition, and natural selection that create an acceptance of positioning the Latina and by extension, Latin America, as naturally and inevitably suited to live out their existence in servitude to White Americans, a perfect positioning for those who seek to maintain a self-righteous image of upholding

accumulation through massive exploitation of human and natural resources (Darder, 2002).

The media as a tool of domination was well theorized by Augusto Boal (1979) in Theatre of the Oppressed, which made an important contrast between theatre as a state apparatus of

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used and by whom has a profound effect on defining possibilities for societal transformation. According to Boal (1979), since Aristotelian times, theatre has been a tool of the powerful to neutralize dissent and to establish the ruling

their

compellingly demonstrates how the infamous September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center was made into a

spectacle was so cunningly produced that it continues to serve as an ideological tool that signifies Muslims and other Arabs (including Arab-Americans and by extension all other racialized minorities here and abroad) to support numerous

anyone who would presumably seek to destroy our way of life, which basically means protecting the interests of the White national and transnational capitalist class.

Theatre controlled by the state and/or the ruling class is commonly touted as a form of entertainment, a leisure activity, or in the case of the news as something to stay informed. News reports, documentaries, and story lines are, for the most part, presumed neutral and apolitical. Yet even the most seemingly apolitical and benign plots aimed at children contain multiple hidden messages that encourage the values and beliefs necessary to maintaining capital interests (Giroux and Pollock, 2010). In contemporary film, TV, news, and literature heroes and heroines in dramatic genres often initially perform flaws that are depicted as inherently attributed to the individual and eventually resolved within them rather than depicting these flaws as part of the social relations of production and the conditions of oppression within which such flaws materialize.

Important concepts that Boal (1979) attributes to the theatre of coercion are empathy and catharsis, which he argues lead to passivity, inaction, and acceptance of existing social conditions. The audience is made to feel empathy for the characters as they identify with the same human flaws depicted and fear similar consequences to those performed within the spectacle. Such emotions, absent critical reflection and action, Boal argues, create a purging of any desire for


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spectator. Intense pain and fear can be paralyzing emotions, especially when the flaws are performed as individual deficits. Indeed theatre and other forms of media are cultural tools that have been sociohistorically constituted (Vygotsky, 1934/1987) as passive entertainment and information that comes to us pre-packaged by writers, performers, and/or other technicians who are themselves alienated by the fragmentation of their work. Such a highly structured format that leaves little opportunity for popular engagement in critique support the passivity needed to relinquish the possibilities of transformation. Further, the theatre of coercion presents stories as finished products, suggesting only one viable solution to the particular problem and almost always within the reality of the existing social structure (Boal, 1979).

Examples of the theater of coercion abound in our contemporary world of theater, film, and other performance venues within which stories are presented as fait accompli and the audience is expected to sit as passive observers, removing from them the sense of agency, hope, and impetus for action that can come about through an ethical and relational dialogic critique that presents diverse perspectives, alternative responses to authentic human experiences. Even among films that exemplify important social concerns and critique performance and audience rituals preclude subsequent dialogue that may lead to challenging structures.

check to

a young single mother of three children attempts to survive and move ahead in a world that offers little support for working mothers and pays less than living wages without medical insurance for some of the most important jobs of our society (in her case, caring for the elderly). In this film we learn to empathize for the young woman and her children and to recognize the systemic difficulties she faces in getting ahead. However, we also see multiple images and dialogue that suggests that her low-income predicament results from

-based society udience

opportunity to explore the more systemic changes that would support greater opportunities for working class single mothers in our society, much less farther reaching critiques related to

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the structure of society. The audience passivity inherent in the spectator role that characterizes contemporary performance, unwittingly and sometimes purposely, supports the status quo.

Such framing is inconsistent with the role of human beings as social actors in the making of our history (Freire, 1970, 1995, 1998;; McLaren, 2009, 2012). In this way, contemporary theatre creates apathy and the conditions for cynicism and fatalism that Paulo Freire (1998) denounced as the antithesis of human freedom and liberation. Indeed, Freire insisted that any movement toward liberation needed to be led by the Oppressed in the total assurance of their own capacity to dream and act on their own behalf. Fear, Freire argued, comes from a position of false consciousness, a consciousness rooted in the existing social structure of unequal relations and aligned to the worldviews of the oppressors, in which the oppressed cannot find and enlist hope toward their own liberation. Hope is an essential aspect of liberation but this is not an idealized hope that springs from nowhere but rather hope in the realization that we are makers of our own history and in the concrete cracks and crevices that show the proof of our possibilities (Freire, 1970, 1995, 1998).

Radical Performance Pedagogy

A theatre of and for the oppressed, as outlined by Augusto Boal (1979) is one that involves both actors and spectators in transforming social concerns as felt and expressed by the people. It is a theatre that engages all participants as equal contributors to a process of inquiry and exploration for a spectacle that can take many turns, such that plots and characters unfold in varying ways depending on the participants and their unique and collective realities and imaginations. It is a theatre that is context-specific, open to interpretation, and directed by multiple actors through their particular positioning in society, their histories, and personal proclivities. This is a theatre popularly conceived that serves the interests of the masses and seeks to transform their social

through a re-positioning of the people as actors in and on

from holding the information and doling it out like charity, to


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creating circumstances where it is imperative to inquire,

-307).

In contrast to a theatre of coercion, theatre of the oppressed, or radical theatre is based off of a Brechtinian theatre in which the performances are for the performers and participants themselves rather than for an audience (Boal, 1979). Believing empathy to be antithetical to critique, Brecht argued for creating distance between the spectator and the character as well as between the actor and the person she portrayed. Following Brecht, Boal (1979) argued that empathy

metaxis, a distancing that is created through a process of simultaneously participating in action and critique. Within this tradition lies process drama that aims to disrupt our

-charged cothe arena of action and interrupts the emotional engagement to allow for thoughtful reflection, dialogue, and the consideration of alternate possibilities. It involves participating while simultaneously observing. It is not that empathy is to be avoided. Empathy is an important aspect of radical theatre but it must be continuously tempered with critical analysis.

earthquake victims, distancing for the purposes of critical reflection allowed for the possibility of imagining

Boal (1979) acknowledges that while theatre does not, in and of itself, change social or material conditions, it provides the social space to interrogate the status quo and conceive of

Aristotle proposes a poetics in which the spectator delegates power to the dramatic character so that the latter may act and think for him. Brecht proposes a poetics in which the character who thus acts in his place but the spectator reserves the right to think for himself, often in opposition to the character. In the first case second an awakening of critical consciousness. But the poetics of the oppressed focuses on the action itself: the

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spectator delegates no power to the character (actor) either to act or think in his place;; on the contrary, he himself assumes the protagonic role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change in short trains himself for real action. In this case perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is surely a rehearsal for the revolution. The liberated spectator, as a whole person, launches into action. (p. 122).

Contemporarily, theatre of the oppressed forms part of a larger set of applied theatre that include prison theatre and theatre in education. This theatre is grounded in performances that aim at a criticality that exposes injustice and aims to heal and promote social change (Jackson & Vine, 2013). One example of this type of theatre includes work with child earthquake victims in New Zealand and China helping them to learn to have hope and construct new dreams for the future after the devastating experience of literally watching their world crumble around them and losing their families and

in The Radical Gender Based Theater (RGBT) project that takes place as part of a Community Action Center in the Palestinian university situated in Jerusalem/Al- Quds. This theater project brings together young women to explore and critique the experiences of Palestinian women in society through dramatic presentation that involve both actors and audience. Silwadi and Mayo (2014) explain:

The aim of the RGBT, composed solely of women, is to stimulate and implement social awareness, development, emancipation and change within the Palestinian community through the medium of drama. The RGBT targets women and the predicament of women exposed to the oppression of a military occupation as well as to the constraints experienced as a result of living in an often restrictive community, with heavy family and religious traditions. The actors and audience were to become leaders for change by learning the language of dialogue and using the tools of theatre to break down barriers. (p. 79)

Cultural studies and postcolonial scholars argue that the concepts of performativity and representation tied to theater and more broadly to all forms of media, are present in our everyday interactions. This work draws heavily on Erving

inal work, The Presentation of Self in


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Everyday Life, which argued that social interactions are always performances in context. Goffman argued that human beings present ourselves in specific ways, sometimes but not always strategically, depending on the audience and how we seek to be perceived. He also argued that performances are always political and pedagogical, whether intended to be or not. Postcolonial scholars come to this field with a particular eye for the ways in which otherness is performed. An important aspect of performativity is that the body carries meanings through its arrangement and the way it moves within the frame of the spectator. The assemblage of context, language, and clothing create meanings associated with the particular body. Importantly, certain bodies become spectacles of otherness as the varying performances they display in varying contexts begin to provide similar messages about the self and its relation to others in specific contexts and in the world.

Here, I move this discussion to consider how performances that enable the development of hope and the possibility of liberation must be always dialogic, open to critique and transformation, recognizing social and material conditions as historically constituted and politically motivated. Freire (1970) argued for interactions where meanings validated the epistemological and ontological foundation of the

In cultural invasion the actors (who need not even go personally to the invaded culture;; increasingly, their action is carried out by technological instruments) superimpose themselves on the people, who are assigned the role of spectators, of objects. In cultural synthesis, the actors become integrated with the people, who are co-authors of the action that both perform upon the world. (p. 180)

In cultural invasion, the assemblages of bodies and their performativity is judged on the bases of the prescribed

In cultural invasion, both the spectators and the reality to be

synthesis, there are no spectators;; the object of the actors is the reality to be transformed for the liberation of men. (p. 181-182)

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Applying this argument to the spectacle that the media creates of the Latina, we recognize the violence of cultural invasion as Latina bodies are assembled, performed, and interpreted through the dominant gaze. The spectacle of the

(McLaren & Jaramillo, 2006) that attempts to leave us without the right to speak our language, to enact our ways of being, and to deploy our bodies for our own signification and toward our own liberation.

Knowing the Other: Research that Commodifies Research often parallels the theatre of coercion. Traditional research, particularly in the field of anthropology, has been recognized as a colonizing project that served the imperialist aim of conquest and exploitation (Smith, 2012). Through the discourse of objectivity, the colonized became the object of the

justifying their forced free labor and exploitation. Lidchi (2013) points out that researchers and anthropological museum

Rather, Lidchi (2013) argues,

activities but emerge as an instrumental means of knowing

caveat is that the researcher determines what is seen and not seen and how it is signified, abstracted, and displayed as a commodity for consumption. Lidchi (2013) further argues that research

is not primarily a science of discovery, but a science of invention. It is not reflective of the essential nature of cultural difference, but classifies and constitutes this difference systematically and coherently, in accordance with a particular view of the world that emerges in a specific place, at a distinct historical moment, and within a specific body of knowledge. (p. 161-162)

An important caution, however, is that we not be seduced into the postmodern perspective that our subjectivities are the primordial focus of social relations. Such a position reduces material conditions to the realm of perception and ideology


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alone, a position that leaves little room for the articulation of the actual condition of exploitation that service the current transnational capitalist class and, therefore, limits the possibility of action toward liberation.

Although the notion of representing reality and knowing the Other have been highly problematized and research is now recognized as a highly subjective process of generating data, research is often still assumed to be a politically neutral form of knowing. Hence many of us who do ethnographies of Latinos attempt to highlight our resources in an attempt to make those strengths recognized by the dominant group, including educators. However, an important concern is whether our persistence in making the Latina presumed knowable to the dominant group in order to dispel deficit perspectives serves to legitimize the notion that we must be made knowable. This is particularly troubling as we consider that the dominant group need not be known through research they simply are accepted for being.

The notion that our actions are always politicized performances and that politics are always pedagogical suggests that research must be rethought in light of its political ramifications to participants, communities, researchers, and the academy (Denzin, 2007). I question whether knowing the Other in and of itself is a worthy project, whose interests it serves, whether we can ever adequately represent people in research, and what the political implications of coming to know the Other are. In writing about

would only, could only, capture a sliver of who the Other is and only as we have come to know them. I wonder about the ethics of studying human beings who ought not to be cut up into pieces of themselves for the consumption of those who

them through their own lenses in ways that sustain their worldviews and interests. Indeed there is no way to capture the full complexity of pewhole people. The task of categorizing and constructing patterns and themes becomes often a reductive process that fixes the meanings of particular people or phenomena by defining it through essentializing characteristics that are legitimized through the academy (Hall, Evans & Nixon, 1999).

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Indeed if the goal of displaying the Latina for the consumption of the dominant group has been to illicit empathy, then the discussion above lays out the error of this approach. As discussed above, empathy, sans critical reflection, rids the spectator of any impetus for action. Further, if the Latina can only be seen as she has been made to be seen through the dominant White, male gaze then the display of the Latina exposes her body politic to curiosity tantamount to zoo watching that momentarily fascinates but holds little opportunity for critical reflection. Even knowing the Other for the purposes of providing culturally responsive

979) if it does not articulate a vision in favor of alterity the incorporation of diverse ontologies and epistemologies and provide a means for transforming structural inequalities.

Revolutionary Performative Research: A Praxis of Liberation

Following in the tradition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1970) and Theatre of the Oppressed and invoking,

and his ideas on revolutionary ethnography (1999), I propose a performative research whose central aim is liberation praxis a mutual engagement between researchers and participants

with theory and action that has as its central aim the transformation of social relations.

(McLaren 2012, 2009, 2006) conceptualizes a utopian philosophy of praxis whereby human beings as the authors of history can imagine and create a socialist democracy whereby labor power ceases to be the unit of value in society, thus, eliminating the exploitation of labor in service of the transnational capitalist class and relieving society of the violent assaults on humanity known as racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, abilism and other antagonisms that are dialectically conceived with and through capitalism.

McLaren posits a philosophy of praxis theory informing action informing theory for transforming the existing social relations of exploitation by creating conditions for collective struggle, such that we may be able to develop the awareness of our position in a capitalist world, the ability to


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imagine new, more equal or equitable relations, and the will to self-

ically inaugurating new forms of social, educational, and political

out of thin air but is rooted in the concrete historically developed relations of production that currently exist and in the experiences of individuals and communities who actively transform their current conditions towards a humanity built on love and respect for all life forms and the earth that sustains us and that fosters the creative and intellectual development of every individual and community (McLaren & Jaramillo, 2010).

Revolutionary performative research engenders the conditions of possibility for transformation by engaging in the disavowal of entrenched ideologies used to keep the oppressed from uniting towards their liberation, by making visible the unequal material and social conditions that people experience within the existing transnational capitalist order, and by creating the conditions for hope in the act of deep engagement

sforms the way they are signified, made seen, and displayed to themselves, to each other, and to the world. Here, performative research serves as a liminal space of possibility, where one embodies the transformation of our oppressive world and we begin to imagine our liberation (Denzin, 2007). Revolutionary performative research rejects the idea of research for the sake of knowing the Other or for the sake of making the Other more acceptable or brought into the mainstream within the existing system of social relations of production. The goal of celebrating difference without transforming the current transnational capitalist order maintains the invisibility of class struggle as the root cause of oppressions under the guise of an identity politics (McLaren, 2009;; Darder & Torres 2004). Thus, attempting to educate the dominant group about the resources and strengths of the Latina is not only a futile effort but also one that serves to maintain existing social and material conditions that dehumanizes, marginalizes and kills our Latino sisters and brothers and other oppressed groups.

Revolutionary performative research draws on decolonizing research methods (1999) and other culturally

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responsive and socially responsible methods (Berryman, Soohoo, & Nevin, 2013) that recognize participants as resourceful, creative, knowledgeable agents of their local contexts and requires researchers to be responsive to the cultural contexts of study and individual interests and attempt to engage in research practices that counter the effects of the historical legacy of exploitation at the hands of researchers, particularly anthropologists, who served to support and legitimize coloniality and imperialism.

Applied to research with Latinas, revolutionary performative research involves learning for ourselves and each other. It is research used for the purpose of strategizing toward our own individual and collective agency rather than for the commodification of our bodies. This calls for a critical research that helps us recapture our lost or submerged epistemes and provides opportunities to give our testimonios so that we may learn from each other (Delgado Bernal, Burciaga, & Flores Carmona, 2012). In the Freirian tradition, participants must have a say in the research process and be able to guide it and transform it as needed for their own and each others learning, questioning, and imagining. All in the research context would be actors (including researchers and participants) who in a reciprocal dance invoke a commitment to each other and to a transformed world where freedom from exploitation, racism, and patriarchy can be imagined. Research, then, becomes a context for performing advocacy and creating social and cultural networks that support the development of greater agency and increased opportunities.

Solidarity across ethnic and racialized difference can be established through a revolutionary praxis of research that honors our respective strengths and epistemes, where dominant frameworks and knowledge systems can be challenged and interrogated for their assumptions and the power it yields to signify the Other. Our research must provide the spaces to develop new ways of seeing that allow our subaltern voices to be recaptured, reimagined, and reinvented and where perhaps a new humanity can be forged that draws on the best of our respective ways of knowing. At the same time, we must remain cognizant that although we inhabit this liminal sea that takes us up as we learn together, that the waters will often be murky, filled with the pain, rage, and frustration of centuries of oppression and with the often


18

contradictory discourses that we have learned to perform and that are evident within our bodies and in the spaces that mark our social interactions with the dominant group.

At the forefront is the recognition that research happens in the process of building relationships and that people ought to always come first (Author, 2013c). Rather than an invasion of how people experience their material and social conditions and the meanings they assign to these, revolutionary performative research becomes a reciprocal attempt to explore each others experiences, how these intersect and where they diverge, and how each trajectory has differed and for what reason in short, research can and should be a context of mutual reflection, self-revelation, invention, advocacy, and when possible intervention that confronts existing social and material conditions, allowing for greater access and opportunities whenever possible.

to feel their pain and their anger and their fear and be humbled by their courage and their ability to still feel joy and love. The shifts that are produced when people come to feel, think, and learn together may provide the hope of being seen and authored, signified, in ways consistent to our own performativity, the hope for a humanity where people can and are willing to give up the masks of greed and self-interest and don those that represent a more humane aspect of themselves. Hope is revolutionary praxis in the making. As Peter McLaren (1999) notes:

Hope can be frustrated;; it can be diminished, but it cannot be eliminated. For this reason we must always remain loyal to hope. (p. 276)

Revolutionary performative research goes beyond approaches that respect and validate the Other. Revolutionary research must make visible the unequal social relations that exist between the world of the researcher and the researched. As difficult as it may be, revolutionary researchers must denounce the very acts that bring about the social conditions of exploitation, marginalization, poverty, fear, and pain, even at the cost of our own self-interests. We must be willing to stand in solidarity with and advocate for participants and to do what is necessary to bring about justice at any given moment where our intervention is warranted and also sought

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by participants, without precluding their agency. We must be willing to mobilize our resources as researchers to transform in whatever ways possible the unequal realities that participants experience. No doubt this is risky business. We risk our data, our tenure possibilities, and most importantly we risk making mistakes and make them, we will. Revolutionary research is research that involves engaging with participants with your heart exposed, learning to love participants and allowing yourself to be loved by them, and in these contexts mistakes help us all grow and learn about ourselves, each other, and revolutionary praxis. As the autobiographical account by Antonia Darder (2007) exemplifies, our histories of pain and oppression can be courageously taken up to support a dialogic relational praxis that teaches us to love, support, and take necessary risks for each other and wherein an active political agenda is set into motion for the broader goal of creating a better world.

An important aspect of this critical research is that research with Latinas are undertaken through and within

participants who are discursively positioned through differential power relations. This phenomenon supports different conventions for interactions and tends to take up and are taken up by often different and sometimes competing subjectivities that are historically contingent and sociopolitically defined (McLaren, 1999). These field relations are grounded in what McLaren (1999) terms the politics of

ith and made to carry, perform, and signify the colonized spectacle. Participants and researcher come to the context of inquiry and perform their rituals of Latinidad and/or Whiteness and other subjectivities on, within, and through the flesh and in the social spaces between them. Interrogating these performances, creating new performances, changing the inscriptions within our bodies, and making them bend and fold in new and transformative ways is a critical aspect of this revolutionary research.

In line with transforming social relations, revolutionary performative research searches for ways to challenge and disrupt disciplinary regimes that have sociohistorically served to represent and signify the Latina. This emphasizes the need to move beyond pre-determined methods that satisfy and


20

prescriptive and westernized knowledge systems. Disrupting such disciplinary regimes suggest creating the conditions that support the development of what Antonia Darder (2012) has termed a critical bicultural identity. This is an identity rooted in a sense of value for our cultural practices, our histories, and our languages but extends beyond the mere support of success within dominant frames and instead seeks to empower Latinas to recognize their own ability to act collectively. While bilingual programs have supported a positive sense of biculturalism, they have rarely moved beyond traditional and deceiving meritocratic ideas to examine encourage critical understandings of our world and our own realities within it. Given the current neoliberal onslaught against education that has called into question the validity of bilingual programs and created schooling contexts that are more focused on producing technical knowledge rather than critical thinking, an important avenue for creating this critical bicultural identity is in the context of a revolutionary performative research.

Participatory action research (PAR), characterized by projects that are co-constructed among researchers and participants is an approach that may serve the ontological and epistemological goal of recognizing, validating, and empowering traditionally marginalized communities, as their views and ideas become legitimate sources of knowledge and knowing in the context of PAR. Although PAR has not always been applied toward the broader goals of transforming the social relations of domination that exist in the broader society and that function to maintain the capitalist mode of production, its democratic foundation, collaborative process, and action focus can be a fruitful starting point from which to build a revolutionary performative research that emphasizes praxis action that results from theory and informs further action and is based upon the consicentization of the communities affected by social inequalities.

This epistemology of complexity draws on local

worldviews, interests, and engagement with the research process. The disavowal of traditional approaches and the encoded power among them frees the researcher and participant to find new ways of producing knowledge, ways that are mindful to existing unequal power relations and

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grounded in a locally developed ethics of interaction and engagement.

This critical perspective is not an idealistic venture of pretty but empty words. For while we critique and work toward a more socially just world, we cannot step outside of the existing structure of society nor are we immune to the multiple ways in which we too are taken up by subjectivities that serve to alienate us and create a market of desire for commodities that serve the transnational capitalist class, White supremacy, and patriarchy. We, critical researchers, walk always a fine line, critiquing even as we live out our contradictions, knowing fully that we are in bed with the masters of manipulation while keeping a vigilant eye on the clock in hopes of liberation. Shame comes not in admitting our inability to eject the ideologies and fetishes that have been sold to us and that we have unwittingly and often even willingly bought but rather in the failure to hope or act within a pedagogy of liberation that is ours for the making.

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Saran Stewart (2015). Schooling and Coloniality


SCHOOLING AND COLONIALITY: CONDITIONS

Saran Stewart

The University of the West Indies Mona Campus, Jamaica

ABSTRACT: Little research has been influenced by postcolonial analysis of educational issues in specific island-state systems. The focus of this article is on the Jamaican education system and its relationship with extra tuition paid for by parents who hope to give their children an educational advantage. This study seeks to address the gaps in the literature by critically positioning an anti-colonial discursive framework to examine the conditions underlying the prevalence of this extra tuition, popularly

he article reports the qualitative data collected from a larger study based on mixed-methods design. The holistic case study describes a rich and contextual macro level system from 3-education regions in the country and a total of 62 participants. The data illustrates a historical pattern of social stratification and the lasting impact of an inherited examination-driven system. Essentially, extra lessons in Jamaica thrive because of two factors: a) unsatisfactory conditions of learning, especially in less-resourced schools;; and b) the drive leading parents to provide an advantage for their children even in traditionally elite schools. KEYWORDS: coloniality.

In 2004, the Jamaican Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture reported that the main problems and challenges

full secondary education, equity and quality of schools, poor performance rates, and increasing gender disparities amongst students. In 2008, the Jamaican Minister of Education, giving details on school performance in the regional Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) exams, reported to the parliamentary cabinet that 71% of a sample population


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cohort of 16 year olds in Grade 11 passed two or fewer subjects at the minimum grade level (Ministry of Education, 2008). The 2009/ 2010 poor performance of students particularly in CSEC mathematics, showed that close to 70% of the secondary school students were performing below average. In 2013, the National Education Inspectorate report

English in 75% of the schools studied was below average and needed immediate support (NEI, 2013, p. 20).

As a direct outcome of the inadequacies of the Jamaican education system, after-school tutoring and academic lessons, described locally as extra lessons, continue to address the growing gap in achievement due to inequities between schools and teaching standards (Spencer-Rowe, 2000). Extra lessons are essentially additional academic lessons, through private or public tutoring, outside of the regular school curriculum. Public tutoring refers to teachers providing additional tutoring at no charge. This occurs with the support of government subsidies as well as through the altruism of teachers addressing a perceived need to provide additional tutoring to their students. Private tutoring involves the charging of fees for lessons. Lochan and Barrow (2008) defined extra lessons

timetable that attempt to cover the formal school curriculum

Caribbean represent a response to inequitable teaching in the classroom, overcrowded classrooms and the inadequacy of preparing students for CXC exams (Brunton, 2000;; Lochan & Barrow, 2008). Although not studied in this paper, at the primary level, extra lessons are prevalent for the purposes of preparing students for the various standardized national exams, such as the Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy Test and the Grade Six Achievement Test, to name a few.

Against this background, this paper discusses the conditions underlying the current situation of extra lessons in Jamaica. In doing this, the paper presents findings on the role of education, the examinations-driven society and the conditions of schools from the perspective of secondary students preparing for the CSEC exams, their parents, teachers and key government officials. The paper derives from a larger mixed-methods study, which sought to quantitatively predict and qualitatively explore how extra lessons impact

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(Stewart, 2013).

Background and Context

Lochan and Barrow (2008) argued that the demand for extra

Cambridge Local Examinations in 1882, an examinations-driven culture would later develop among those who had the possibility of taking the common entrance examination for secondary school entry at age eleven plus, as there was increasing competition for the few prestigious schools in the country.

Initiaproduction that was entirely under the control of

Negro population. Rose (2002) stated that the legacies of

over a century, the upper echelons of British colonial rule necessary

indoctrinate the colonized to accept an inferior role, both in

(Bacchus, 2006, p. 260). Further explained by Campbell (2006):

Colonial education has been one of the most damaging tools of imperialism because it has inculcated populations from a young age with ways of understanding themselves as culturally

stage of my own educational journey in Jamaica while I was in high school. At the age of thirteen, I gave up on education, believing that education had given up on me. In a classroom of some 40 students, my last name landed me at the back of the class, in the left hand corner of the room. I attended a co-educational public, religious-based high school in which some teachers had the girls sit on one side of the classroom away from the boys. At the back of the classroom, it was difficult


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both to see the blackboard as well as hear the teacher lecture. The few times I attempted to raise my hand and ask a question, I was told to be quiet. I remember one day, the Dean of Discipline called in my father as I was doing poorly in math and English literature to name a few.

As a result of the meeting, he enrol

the first time in my educational journey, I was expected to ask as many questions as needed, and encouraged to challenge

registered me, as a fourth form or grade 10 student, to sit the Mathematics CXC exam, which was normally taken in fifth form or grade 11. I earned a distinction and realized that I was not the problem;; the issues arose from the conditions of traditional schooling. I would later find out, that even though extra lessons accounts for the third highest household education expenditure after transportation and lunches, there was little to no empirical evidence on the impact of extra lessons on education in Jamaica (JSLC, 2009). Motivated by my own schooling in Jamaica to challenge this lack of research, I embarked on a doctoral study to examine the scope and prevalence of extra lessons in Jamaica and its impact on secondary school students (Stewart, 2013).

Examinations-Driven Education System Even though this article focuses on extra lessons at the secondary level, I start by explaining the context of the primary and secondary examinations-driven system in order to set the background of the study. Primary level education essentially lasts for 6 years and is offered in primary schools, preparatory schools, junior high schools, and all-age schools (MoE, 2010-foll see Appendix A for flow chart of education system). Students are assessed in grade 1 using the Grade One Individual Learning Profile (GOILP). In grade 3, students are tested using the Grade Three Diagnostic Tests in Mathematics and Language Arts. The Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy tests are a pivotal marker in primary education, as students who are certified literate are then allowed to go on to take the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) (MoE, 2012-2013). As such, there is a common trend

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to have students in primary extra lessons in preparation for the Grade Four Literacy Test. The Common Entrance Examination (CEE), which was discontinued in 1999 and replaced by the Grade Six Achievement Test, was essentially useDue to the limited number of full secondary high schools (grades 7 to 11) and the outnumbering demand for student placements, especially in high-performing or better resourced schools, there was a resulting access problem for children each year.

The secondary schooling system used to follow the

education starts in grade 7. The first level of lower secondary education spans grades 7 to 9. All-age schools and junior high schools only cover lower secondary education. Upper secondary education covers grades 10 and 11. Opportunities to matriculate to upper secondary schools from junior high schools and all-age schools exist when students sit and successfully pass the Grade Nine Achievement Test (GNAT). Students at full secondary high schools (Grades 7 to 11), Technical and Agricultural high schools mainly take the CSEC exams set by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), when they are in Grade 11. Thereafter, students either have an option to matriculate into grades 12 to 13, or to go into tertiary education. There are very few schools that offer grades 12 to 13 for preparation of the CXC Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE).

Several types of institutions in Jamaica provide tertiary or higher education. These range from teacher colleges, community colleges, and vocational training colleges to the university level. Entry qualifications into these institutions require CSEC and/ or CAPE qualifications. The importance of passing these examinations in the society is further exacerbated by the fact that most employers and tertiary institutions require successful passes of CXC exams for consideration of employment and entry. Passing at a specified level of the CSEC six-point grading scheme denotes to employers and tertiary institutions what CXC considers as

-should be considered as s


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Theoretical Perspective

The theoretical framing of this study derives from contextualizing the term coloniality within the Jamaican decolonizing society, which is still entangled in negative, inherited colonial structures and beliefs about education. As informed by theories of coloniality (Mignolo, 2011;; Ngugi,

schools and their communities, in which schools are at the

peripheries (Ghiso & Campano, 2013). This hierarchical divide seems to be at the root of the problematic conditions that still shape the Jamaican education system. As such, I am situating an anti-colonial discursive approach in order to analyse the underlying conditions of extra lessons in Jamaica.

According to Dei (2000) an anti-colonial discursive approach acts as a dichotomous framework, because it is

Both a counter-oppositional discourse to the denial and repudiation of the repressive presence of colonial oppression, and an affirmation of the reality of recolonization processes through the dictates of global capital (p. 117)

More importantly, the anti-colonial discursive approach recognizes the importance of culturally responsive and nationalistic-constructed knowledge, inclusive of oral stories,

histories and daily human experiences and social

of this approach that indigenous knowledge is affirmed and -creation and

re-Additionally, Dei (2004) established questions, methods, and strategies to apply an anti-colonial discursive framework to academia.

Specifically, I used the anti-colonial discursive

cognitive categories and cultural logic to create social

utilize and combine indigenous literature with socioeconomic understandings of the Jamaican society;; (c) recognize and contribute to the importance

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indigenous and local scholars in reintegrating local and native

and (d) celebrate and value the use of oral, visual, and traditional materials of resistance and re-historization (Dei, 2000). Thereby, this approach centered the voices of the participants through the modes of data collection and interpretation of their stories in describing the conditions that gave rise to the current situation of extra lessons in Jamaica.

at meaningful and genuine theories (discursive frameworks) that take into account different philosophical traditions (e.g.,

explain that the formulated question should interrogate institutionalized power and privilege. This led me to question whether the current education system is a legacy of the colonial past, a result of neocolonial policies which include socially biased planning. Is the phenomenon of extra lessons today an unintended outcome of capitalism? Further to this, I use the framework to argue that extra lessons can be attributed to a capitalist approach to education that is driven by a business model and exacerbated by the dominant elite class. As found in the larger study (Stewart, 2013), the business model included forces of demand and supply with perceived returns on investment similar to that explained in

can be used to problematize the prevalence of extra lessons as arguably a continued neoliberal and capitalist residuum of coloniality.

Methodology

This article reports the selected qualitative findings from a larger, transformative mixed methods study (Stewart, 2013). The qualitative portion of the study employed a holistic multi-case design (Yin, 2009) applied to a single unit of analysis: extra lessons. The decision to use a mixed methods study

1. The research seeks to address issues of social justice

and calls for change 2. The researcher sees the needs of underrepresented

or marginalized populations


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3. The researcher has a good working knowledge of the theoretical framework used to study underrepresented or marginalized populations

4. The researcher can conduct the study without further marginalizing the population under study. (p. 97)

framework that is inherently change oriented.

The transformative mixed methods design followed a sequential order in which I collected and analyzed the quantitative portion of the study first. For the purposes of this article, I will report on only a small portion of the descriptive statistics from the Stewart (2013) study to establish how the qualitative methods then followed. Data was collected from a total of 1,654 grade 11 students in 62 schools across 14 parishes. From the descriptive statistics, 90.3% (n=1494) of the students reported taking extra lessons in high school. As a response to the format of delivery (in which a total of 1498 students answered the item), 81.1% (n=1190), reported taking extra lessons in an in-class group setting by a teacher or tutor, whether after school or before school. A small portion of students reported peer-to peer-small group tutoring, 11.9% (n=175), one-on-one tutoring, 5.7% (n=84), Internet tutoring, 0.6% (n = 9), and lecture-style video format tutoring, 0.7% (n = 10).

Guided by the principles of mixing methods, the level of interaction between the quantitative and qualitative approaches (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2011) was determined by the number of students who reported taking extra lessons in the form of an in-class group setting by a teacher or tutor. I used a sampling strategy of confirming and disconfirming cases in which the purpose was to elaborate on initial analysis and seek exceptions that look for variations (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 28). I purposefully selected three of the

responses to participation in extra lessons (see Appendix B for selected regions). I selected the first region and coded it as Region A as it represented students with the highest participation rate in extra lessons. Region A also represented (although not purposefully selected for this reason) the urban

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capital hub of the country with the most schools in the country.

The highest resourced schools in the country are situated in this region. I selected the second region based on the second highest participation rate in extra lessons. Region B is also the second largest education region in Jamaica according to population of residents and number of secondary high schools. However, unlike Region A, Region B is more rural and, with a lower socioeconomic income rate than Region A (Stewart, 2013), and has fewer well-resourced schools. The third region, Region C was selected as having the lowest number of students participating in extra lessons. This region is predominantly rural with low socioeconomic income rates, high unemployment rates and the fewest well-resourced schools in the sample. With a resulting sample of 62 participants from all three of these regions, including, parents, teachers, students and government officials, I conducted both focus groups and one-on-one interviews.

In addition to the interviews, I conducted observations of classes held during the official or regular school day (henceforth referred to as regular-school classes) and extra lessons classes. I also completed document analysis of

used in extra lessons. The focus group and one-on-one interviews were digitally/audio-recorded as well as documented through note taking. After transcribing the recording, I cleaned and edited the data.

Thereafter, I used a series of coding techniques namely, descriptive, in vivo, pattern and theoretical (Saldana, 2013) to derive several thematic constructs, themes and representative

participants selected pseudonyms in their interviews, and as such, only pseudonyms of participants are utilized in this article.

Findings The findings from the larger study (Stewart, 2013) illustrated

Ecologies of Education, which I have termed Ecologies of Extra Lessons. conceptualization in which he argued that education requires


34

an understanding of the interrelationships of educational institutions with each other and their surrounding environment. Expanding on this concept, my construct of Ecologies of Extra Lessons emerged through the process of data analysis, mainly based on the their views that extra lessons represented a constant interrelationship between education institutions and the larger society. Furthermore, participants described a complex interrelationship between external drivers and internal constructs of extra lessons. The external drivers focused on the larger societal and colonial legacy factors as well as the business of extra lessons, whereas the internal constructs focused on the within-school influences and conditions of learning.

The findings set out below describe the larger societal and colonial legacy factors underlying the current occurrence of extra lessons. Specifically, the thematic construct Colonial Drivers of Education is explained followed by related themes such as Role of education, Examination-driven society, Conditions of schools, and sub themes, underperforming and uninterested teachers and barriers to learning.

Colonial Drivers of Education Essentially, the external constructs of extra lessons represent the core drivers and resulting need for extra lessons to exist. As a participant in the study, the Chief Education Officer

there are deficiencies within the system, then it [extra lessons]

providing free education that all people should find it necessary to have to pay for additional support for them to be

th February, 2013).

What is not explicitly stated is that these drivers replicate some of the patterns of colonial schooling. For example, there is an overwhelming inherited exam-driven motive in the society due to the important role of education and the competition arising from the desire for social upward mobility. Additionally, the skewed and stratified nature of educational resources in schools in the postcolonial period

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and the psychosocial conditions in this school system replicate the conditions of the school system established in the colonial era. These conditions highlight an undergirding social division between the traditional elite schools and the newly upgraded high schools. Traditional high schools in Jamaica were established as secondary schools and mostly

Newly upgraded high schools were former junior high schools that were upgraded to secondary high schools. There has been a resulting stigma surrounding the upgraded high schools as they tend to be less-resourced and considered academically inferior to traditional elite high schools, most of which were built during the colonial era. This stigma is deepened by government reports labeling some schools as failing, which has been done with respect to selected lower-status schools by the National Education Inspectorate Reports

according to a five-poi

Role of education Patterns in the data suggested that education plays an important role in providing or limiting access to social upward mobility. Parents often used this concept as a driver and justification to explain their support of extra lessons. In the words of one parent:

Both my parents, now deceased, were teachers. And for us growing up, the only way to upward social mobility was education. There were no other means to reach the stars that you wanted to achieve, other than education. And that has been inculcated by me into my children. (Focus Group with Paul, 27th January, 2013, Region A)

Similarly a single mother in Region A stated,

My parents were not educated, but they said that education was the only way out, right? and they wanted (for) all their children at least a university education. (Focus Group with Angie, 27th January, 2013, Region A)


36

This strong desire for what parents saw as upward mobility arguably resujobs and pay fees for extra lessons for their children (which is described later). A single father in Region B spoke about the

To me the opportunity cost is not a real quote/unquote [gestures quotation marks in the air] towards the education. Education is the key to success, so therefore from a tender age, no matter what the cost, we're

they can buy with it, but looking at tomorrow what they can gain. (Focus Group with Sam, 1st February, 2013, Region B)

this mantra as they described varying levels of sacrifice and commitment to education. These views are subsequently linked to criticism from parents of what they perceived as the inadequacy or poor quality of schooling experienced by their children in regular school classes. Such views increased the desire for extra lessons and willingness of parents to pay for lessons, as schools fail to provide the quality of education parents desire for their children. Examination-driven society The views of my participants, demonstrating their strong desire for a high-quality education, suggests that society as a whole has bought into the belief that increased education leads to upward social mobility. Although the study focused on secondary school students preparing for the CSEC exams, some participants traced the pressure to the highly structured exam curriculum starting at the primary level. For example, the CEO at the Ministry of Education stated that,

Our system is very exam driven, so we have a national assessment programme that starts from grade one right through to end of grade six. The curriculum is largely dictated by the exam requirements. (Interview with CEO, 6th February, 2013)

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This programme of examinations, working up to the high-stakes examinations at Grade 6 (entrance to high school) and Grade 11 (school-leaving), was inherited from the British. When the British left, curriculum content was somewhat adapted to Jamaican culture, but the exam system remained. This inherited system was never designed to provide equitable education to all, but rather continued to be a stratification tool with which to differentiate social classes. With increasing numbers taking the exams leading to an increased examinations push, issues of curriculum alignment, remediation, and need for subject reinforcement became evident. From all participants, patterns in the data suggested there was a need for enhanced reinforcement of subject matter, and consequently, students and parents turned to extra lessons for such reinforcement. As mathematics and English language are compulsory subjects in schools, the majority of students referenced these subject matters in addition to the sciences, business subjects, history and

group with Patience, 31st January, 2013, Region B).

especially outside of school, gives you a better reinforcement th January, 2013,

Region A). Another parent in Region B described

(Focus group with Sam, 1st February, 2013, Region B). Similar to the parents and teachers in Regions A and B, students in Region C explained that extra lessons used repetitive practice.

something (Focus group with Nikki, 4th February, 2013, Region C).

get it in regular class, and you get to learn it again in extra h James, 4th February, 2013, Region

C).


38

The theme of remediation emerged from the data as being similar but slightly different from that of reinforcement. In fact, extra lessons were viewed as a remediation facility in which students who did not understand a subject or never learned the topic, can learn it in extra lessons. I was fortunate to receive an interview from the Minister of Education, who stated that although remedial extra lessons were supported by the government, this was in his view, wasteful:

The government heavily supports remedial education, extra lessons. The government partners, for example, with USAID, with Camp Summer Plus, which is a very useful remediation for deficiencies in grade school. The government spends in excess of a billion dollars, well in excess, on what is called the ASTEP programme [Alternative Secondary Transition Education Programme -- a remedial education programme introduced under the previous government] which is effectively a remedial programme. Can you imagine, the announcement in the press this week, which you must have seen, that the University has to be setting up what are effectively remedial courses in language for people who have reached the tertiary level. The government is hugely and, in my view, wastefully invested in remediation. (Interview with Minister, 6th February, 2013)

Extra lessons, in this view, are seen as a direct form of remediation. I found this quote to complement other sections of the data as later described in the section below on Conditions of Schools. Teachers explained that they did not always complete the syllabus in the regular school day and as a result students attended extra lessons to make sure they were taught all the topics of the syllabus. In some cases, this notion is supported by some students, parents, and teachers who explained extra lessons as a result of doing poorly in a subject, getting failing or low grades, or never seeing the topic introduced in class. A student in Region B explained,

ting to understand more now. (Focus group with Nancy, 1st February, 2013, Region B).

Students often described levels of remediation and reinforcement needed, especially in Grade 11 as they prepared

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to take the CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certification) exams. Interestingly, the participants used the terms remediation and reinforcement to describe the role of extra lessons within the society, further supporting the concept of the examination-driven motive in the society.

Conditions of schools

Based on the above findings, the question emerges as to why schools are generally not producing an acceptable level of academic achievement or embodying the best aims of education. From the garrisons of Trench Town to the uptown alcoves of Hope Road, the conditions of schools varied greatly. The conditions of schools were repeatedly referred to by every participant interviewed, as they described the need and reasons for extra lessons. From the data, the theme, Conditions of Schools was sub-divided into two supporting themes: under-performing and uninterested teachers and barriers to learning.

Patterns in the data suggest that due to the poor conditions of low-resourced schools, ranging from lack of resources to the poor performance of teachers, extra lessons are the primary alternative for pursuing effective learning. However, students in high-resourced schools in which there are repeated successful CSEC outcomes, also reported attending extra lessons. The reasons ranged from not being challenged enough in school to the distraction experienced by the behaviour of peers in regular school classes.

In addition to the voices of my participants, I constructed my theme Conditions of Schools using data from the observations and journal notes taken while conducting surveys across the 62 high schools in my study. My journal entries noted the prevalent social and physical borders between uptown and downtown schools, and the urban and rural schools. Most if not all schools had a designated area for a computer lab;; however, depending on the school, there were either no computers, no Internet, and/or in some cases, no phone services. It can be argued that technology is a luxury in some developing countries, but in Jamaica, technology is prevalent in the more affluent schools. Teachers in the poorer schools constantly complained about the lack not only of


40

technological resources available, but even of basic resources such as textbooks, writing materials, and the like.

In classrooms where there were upwards of 35 or more students, metal chairs were often welded together in columns of six chairs. When I asked teachers why the need for welded chairs, their response was, to prevent students from stealing them. It should be noted that schools in the uptown areas I visited did not have welded chairs, but schools in the garrison communities did. The psychosocial implication is the belief that students or even citizens from poor communities would be likely to steal from the schools. Furthermore, the impression of holding down students in the poorer communities was evident, with jail-like cell gates used to close in students in a classroom or library. In these cases, classrooms were locked with a padlock for which the teacher had the keys, and students remained in the classrooms behind the grills until teachers chose to open them.

My participants criticised not only the physical space of

care, training, and qualifications. Students, parents, and representatives from the Ministry of Education explained the need and importance of extra lessons as being due to the lack of qualified teachers in the system.

Underperforming and uninterested teachers I asked each of the groups why they believed extra lessons were important. All participants, including those in the Ministry of Education, described some aspect of poor-performing teachers. The Minister provided this explanation:

We are not cultured to provide targeted attention and support for our students. And how we, let's say for example how we compensate our teachers and how we support them,

the other social challenges and concerns that they have as individuals. So when you compare the kind of emphasis that is placed on making teachers competent in some other countries, it's very different in Jamaica. (Interview with Minister of Education, 6th February, 2013)

The Minister went on to explain how students get left behind on a constant basis in the Jamaican education system:

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And so, if you have a class of 40 and they're doing mathematics and their learning styles are different, then it becomes very difficult for the teacher to handle. And because the teacher has a curriculum that is followed, the teacher has a tendency to move on even if it is just one or two students who are following. (Interview with the Minister, 6th February, 2013)

I also asked each participant to share his or her idea of a teaching philosophy. The Minister expressed this view:

The general teaching philosophy? I presume [this entails] a high measure of goodwill towards the kind of hope that is meant to fulfill and improve the cognitive and social skills of the students, but for many it is a job of frustration and for

seeking what they can best get out of it [teaching]. And this is where the difficulties aproponents of organizing promotion [seeking additional means of pay such as extra lessons] and to me that is a recipe for destruction. (Interview with the Minister, 6th February, 2013)

Several parents said that teachers often lacked the training and qualifications necessary to identify both students who need special education and those who need gifted education.

they [teachers] are not able many times to identify children who have capacities beyond the regular school, and to motivate them and stimulate them

with Paul, 27th January, 2013, Region A). He went on to decry the lack of resources that teachers have to cope with on a daily basis, that are coupled with large class sizes and limited time. He stated,

I have a realization that the constraints that exist at school in the regular school day are such that teachers are not able, do not have the equipment, do not have the class size, the limit of class size to be able to cover the material that is perhaps required for them to cover at school. And in the absence of the teacher being able to do that at school, it becomes incumbent on me as a parent to seek to have that covered other than at school. (Focus Group with Paul, 27th January, 2013, Region A)


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Such views cited by parents are examples of how most of them saw themselves as being responsible for guaranteeing optimal education for their children by paying for extra lessons. This seemed to be a direct response to the conditions of poorly resourced schools that result in barriers to learning. Barriers to learning This theme, which emerged strongly from the data, represents some of the physical and spatial barriers as well as some of the social barriers to learning. The physical barriers refer mainly to the large class size as well as the lack of resources. The social barriers refer to the consequences of large class size, such as indiscipline among students and the constant reference to not enough time to teach. The supporting themes explained below may overlap, because most are interrelated. Large class-size. Schools visited for this study had upwards of 50 students in a classroom. A student in Region C explained the implications regarding time when there are so many students in the classroom:

us doing history for CXC, and the general class there was 50

amount of time to get to everybody I mean they don't have time. (Focus Group with Nikki, 4th February, 2013, Region C)

Parents and teachers complained in the focus group that the

B, 15th February, Region A). The larger class size was also shown to be interrelated with increased indiscipline, not enough resources to share with every student, and not enough time to complete the topic or syllabus.

Indiscipline. In the student focus groups, I asked them to each describe a typical class at school in the day and compare it to an extra lessons class. The quote below is powerful in describing the scene of a typical mathematics class from the perspective of this student in Region A:

Class is noisy;; everybody has their own mini group. The persons at the front of the class are the only ones in the discussion with the teacher, the teacher is not paying

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saying to the others they s

around you. And then when you come here [extra lessons], if

is silent, you are settled as soon as class should start and everybody is listening, and sir is up there talking, and you

17, probably smaller sometimes. And at school, it took all like one session to settle down the class. If I had a two-session class, you waste one session, and we getting less work;; and at [extra lessons] class, you getting a lot more in the 2 hours than at school. (Focus Group with Pebbles, 20th January, Region A).

Her description provides a rich context in which to understand the interrelationship between the barriers to learning at school, and the societal drivers for the alternative solution of extra lessons.

Lack of resources. Extra lessons teachers who also taught in schools recognized the limited resources due to large class sizes and the feeling of frustration to still perform under

share among students in regular classes, but the extra classes are much smaller, so they can

The classroom setup limits me because there are not enough plugs, or you have to be transferring equipment that can be damaged back and forth for different classeswith Dora, 31st January, 2013, Region B).

Parents, especially in Region B, compared the level of resources between schools in Region A and Region B. One parent explained,

We have too few resources, and the school doesn't have the resources. If you go like to Excellence Academics, they have all the resources. If you go [to] Trident High, they have all the resources. And if a computer breakdown today, come tomorrow it is back up. (Focus Group with Sam, 1st February, Region B).

The discussion quickly turned from lack of resources to lack of time. In this instance, parents reinforced an emergent


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equation that the larger the classes, the less discipline and time used to produce success. Not enough time. Time, and more so, the lack of time, was an unexpected theme that emerged from the data. I asked students to describe for me a picture of class time and extra lessons time. The contrasts were most striking in their descriptions of time needed to settle a class. As was

up to one session (or 45 minutes) to settle a class. Some parents, although they were not asked for this same description, also provided examples of wasted time due to inadequate or poor classroom management. A father in Region A stated,

One other problem is that in the regular school, the teacher is spending more time trying to get the class under control. So by the time the class is now quiet and the teacher is able to teach, they are the time to go over the topic as they would like to. (Focus Group with Paul, 27th January, 2013, Region A)

Teachers also acknowledged the lack of time to complete the The time that

is spent (during the school day) is just not sufficient;; they [students] are doing Focus group with Simba, 31st January, 2013, Region B). Students reported studying upwards of 11 subjects in one year. The average across all the regions ranged between 5 and 8 subjects but in Region A, some students reported higher numbers. In Region

to learn bout certain things, and you get to learn bout it in (Focus Group with Pablo, 4th February, 2013,

Region C).

These impediments to teaching and learning that exist within the schools drive alternative forms of schooling. To sum up, the interrelationship between the roles of education, the examinations driven society and the conditions of schools is marked by colonial legacies and drivers. My argument is that

Jamaica.

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Discussion

The continuing historical pattern of stratification found in the data represented much of the challenges mentioned a decade ago in 2004 by the Ministry of Education: (a) access to full secondary education, (b) equity and quality of schools, (c) poor performance rates, and (d) increasing gender disparities in which girls are outperforming boys in schools (MoE, 2004). Arguably, this pattern can be attributed to what Hickling-

-divided and unequally gendered mhegemony has been in existence since colonial times and continues to stratify the society and the education system. Hickling-Hudson (2011) described three interacting factors that maintain the hegemony:

The refusal of local elites to yield their domination of socio-educational advantage, the governmental and international support that they marshal and manipulate to maintain this privilege, and the fact that majorities challenge this pattern in limited ways, often having little access to the information

In agreeing with this statement, I suggest that my data on extra lessons point to an important aspect of the hegemony of this model of education. Extra lessons in this school system arguably perpetuates the division of Jamaicans by social class. Reliance on extra lessons can represent a false hope among poorer students for high quality education, as wealthier students can afford better quality extra lessons. This is likely to deepen the stratification of the social classes. My study found that students in Region A received a distinctly better quality of extra lessons than those in the other two regions studied.

As seen in the qualitative data, I make the case that the widespread occurrence of extra lessons in Jamaica can be explained by the colonial drivers of education. Examining the

the inherited examination-driven society, the role of stratified education in determining upward social mobility, and the poor conditions of schooling in the less well-resourced schools. As mentioned by some parents in the quoted excerpts above, extra lessons provide a space not only for remedial education


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but also for differentiated instruction in which gifted students can be challenged more than they would normally be during the regular school day. As a result, I observed students from affluent backgrounds who attend high performing schools also attending extra lessons as they reported being bored in class and not being challenged to learn more.

I argue that extra lessons exist to provide remedial and/ or gifted education, and that this is due to a lack of educational capacity and inadequacy of factors that would drive educational decolonization. From an anti-colonial discursive perspective, the prevalence of rote and lecture-style learning in many schools increases issues of inequity in teaching and learning practices. For those who can afford high-quality extra lessons, it is possible to purchase more critical and radical approaches to pedagogy that are inclusive and engaging, and more likely to help students achieve excellence in competitive examinations.

The issues of equity and quality of schools, as referred to by officials from the Ministry of Education as well as by some parents, are a continuing challenge in the education system. I have argued in this study that they contribute to the prevalence of extra lessons. A member of the Ministry of Education in his interview intention of the government to provide free tuition for parents to pay for private lessons so their children can pass the

th February, 2013). The relationship between socio-economic class and cost of extra lessons is dynamic in that, in each of the regions studied, some extra lessons were paid for at cost or provided at subsidized rates by teachers. However, there is a distinct difference in quality for extra lessons in which higher fees were charged.

In those cases, parents reported paying more for extra lessons in one term than they paid for school fees for the entire year. These costs were defended by parents who wanted value for their money and control of the quality of lessons. This in turn exacerbates a stratified capitalist micro-economy within the education system. However, when it is

(CEO Interview, Ministry of Education, 6th February, 2013),

education in the form of extra lessons.

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The reported access problems today for students are directly inherited from the colonial era in which not enough schools were built to educate secondary students. When British colonialism ended in Jamaica in 1962, there were a reported 723 primary-level grammar schools and 60 secondary schools established throughout the country (MoE, 2010-2011b). In 2012, there were a total of 923 primary-level schools and 148 secondary high schools;; the latter were inadequate for offering education to all primary school leavers. The secondary school sector was expanded, but close to 70% of the secondary-level students who took the mathematics CSEC exams performed poorly (MoE, 2010-2011a), and results were also poor in other subjects. Although Jamaica has made significant strides in increasing the capacity of existing schools and access to secondary schools, students are competing not only for quality of education but also for access to education. There are simply not enough spaces in secondary schools to accommodate all graduating primary-level students. External agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations with the Millennium Development Goals (UN Millennium Project 2005) may have contributed to this situation by putting precedence on the enrollment of children in primary education. The inherited examination-driven ethos of the society deepened the stratified hierarchical education system in which students from the upper social class continued to have disproportionate access to the better schools.

From a postcolonial perspective, the spatial and metacognitive barriers to learning within schools inhibit conditions for learning. As mentioned previously, the psychosocial representation of welded chairs, fastened to each other, as well as grilled, locked gates to prevent unwanted students and persons from entering the room and school, reflects spaces of confinement similar to prisons. The physical grounding of chairs to each other in poorly resourced garrison, inner-city schools inculcate a message of subservience and belittlement.

attention to the effects of a neoliberal and capitalist understanding of the current system of education. Toward this, Hill (2009) explained,


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In schools, intensive testing of pre-designed curricula (high-stakes testing) and accountability schemes (such as the

only penalizes working class schools) are aimed at restoring schools (and further education and universities) to what dominant elites the capitalist class perceive to be the

worker/citizens with just enough skills to render themselves useful to the demands of capital. (p. 119)

This divisive effect is clear in systems which continue to educate students based on their social class. The prevalence of extra lessons has potential to counteract this pattern if equity and quality of lessons were accessible to all students, however that is not the case. For classrooms to become spaces

and drivers of education must come to an end. Otherwise, we as educators continue to perpetuate unsupportable dichotomies of what is meant to be postcolonial education.

Conclusion Essentially, extra lessons in Jamaica thrive because of two factors: a) unsatisfactory conditions of learning, especially in less-resourced schools;; and b) the drive leading parents to provide an advantage for their children even in traditionally elite schools. Whereas this paper discussed the conditions that gave rise to extra lessons such as the poor conditions of learning and the drive for increased upward social mobility, the data does not focus on the scope and prevalence of extra lessons. Although such material was collected in the larger study (Stewart, 2013), this article focuses on the conditions that explain and increase the demand and supply of extra lessons.

-colonial discursive approach framed my way of analysing the data and understanding the themes. From a postcolonial stance of considering implications for the future, I would go further, arguing that extra lessons are likely to deepen the problem of the stratification of access and equity issues already faced in the education system. Whereas students can benefit from additional learning through extra lessons, some may not be able to afford quality extra lessons.

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My data illustrated the continuing impact of a colonial heritage through an inherited examination-driven society with severe limitations in schooling. It seems to be the case that this pattern is being repeated by current government policy

consumers of education.

The question remains, why does the current system continue to replicate colonial issues of inequality? The question arguably calls for an examination, utilising

socio-historical context, which may throw some light on the current problematic state of the education system.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Anne Hickling-Hudson, for her mentorship and editorial assistance with this article. References Bacchus, M. K. (2006). The impact of globalization on curriculum

development in postcolonial societies. In Y. Kanu (Ed.), Curriculum as cultural practice: Postcolonial imaginations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bray, M., & Lykins, C. (2012). Shadow education: Private supplementary tutoring and its implications for policy makers in Asia. Philippines: Asian Development Bank.

Brunton, R. (2000). Extra-lessons in Trinidad and Tobago: Qualification, inflation and equality of educational opportunity. Caribbean Curriculum, 7(2):1-17

Campbell, M. (2006). Indigenous knowledge in Jamaica: A tool of ideology in a neo-colonial context. In G. Dei & A. Kempf (Eds.), Anti- Colonialism and education: The politics of resistance. Rotterdam, Boston & Taipei: Sense Publishers.

Caribbean Examination Council. (2015). Grading scheme (CSEC). Retrieved from https://www.cxc.org/examinations/exams/ csec/grading-scheme-csec

Cremin, L. (1976): Public education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design:

Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.


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Creswell, J., & Plano Clark, V. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dei, G. (2000). Rethinking the role of indigenous knowledges in the academy. Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(2):111-132.

Dei, G. (2004). Schooling and education in Africa: The case of Ghana. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Ghiso, M.P., & Campano, G. (2013). Coloniality and education: Negotiating discourses of immigration in schools and communities through border thinking. Equity & Excellence in Education, 46(2): 252-269. doi: 10.1080/10665684.2013.779160

Hickling-Hudson, A. (2010). Curriculum in postcolonial contexts. In P.D. Pearson & A. Luke (Eds.), Curriculum development. Subsection of the International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd edition, B. McGraw, E. Baker, & P. Peterson (Eds.).

Hickling-Hudson, A. (2011). Teaching to disrupt preconceptions: education for social justice in the imperial aftermath. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 41(4), 453-465.

doi: 10.1080/03057925.2011.581513. Hill, D. (2009). Class, Capital, and Education in this Neoliberal and

Neoconservative Period. In S. Macrine, P. McLaren, & D. Hill (Eds.), Revolutionizing pedagogy: Education for social justice within and beyond global neo-liberalism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://0-www.palgraveconnect.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9780230104709

Jamaica Survey on Living Conditions (JSLC) (2009). Planning Institute of Jamaica and Statistical Institute of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica.

Lochan, S., & Barrow, D. (2008). Extra-lessons: A comparison

Caribbean Curriculum, 15, 45-69. Mignolo, W. (2011). I am where I think: Remapping the order of

knowing. In F. Lionnet & S. Shih (Eds.) The creolization of theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture. (2004). The development of education: National report of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education. (2010-2011a). Jamaican education statistics report. Kingston, Jamaica: Author.

Ministry of Education. (2010-2011b). Educational school profile. Kingston, Jamaica: Author.

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Ministry of Education. (2012-2013). Jamaican education statistics report. Kingston, Jamaica: Author.

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National Education Inspectorate. (2011). Chief inspectorate report. Kingston: Ministry of Education.

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Ngugi, w. T. (2012). Globalectics: Theory and the politics of knowing. New York City, NY: Columbia University Press.

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Spencer-Rowe, J. (2000). An investigation of the practice of extra lessons in schools at the primary level of the Jamaican education system. Kingston: Planning Institute of Jamaica/The Ministry of Education and Culture.

Stewart, S. (2012). Problematizing racism in education: A comparative analysis of critical race theory and postcolonial theory using autoethnography. In M. Vicars, T McKenna & J. White (Eds.), Discourse, Power, and Resistance Down Under. Rotterdam, Boston & Taipei: Sense Publishers.

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http://moe.gov.jm/sites/default/files/Chief%20Inspectors%20Rep

http://moe.gov.jm/sites/default/files/Chief%20Inspectors%20Rep


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Appendix A Table 1 Jamaica Education Regions and Parishes

Regions Parish

Kingston* Kingston St. Andrew

Port Antonio* St. Thomas Portland St. Mary

St. Ann Trelawny

Montego Bay St. James Hanover Westmoreland

Mandeville

St. Elizabeth Manchester

Old Harbour* Clarendon St. Catherine

Note. Adapted from 2010-2011 Jamaican Education Statistics. Ministry of Education 2010-2011. Kingston, Jamaica.

Appendix B

Figure 1: Adapted from Jamaica Education Statistics 2012-2013. Ministry of Education, 2012-2013.

Lydia E. Carol-Ann Burke(2015). Perspectives on British Expatriate Science Teachers ...


PERSPECTIVES ON BRITISH EXPATRIATE SCIENCE TEACHERS IN A CARIBBEAN CONTEXT

Lydia E. Carol-Ann Burke

University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

ABSTRACT: In this article, I report on the findings of a qualitative critical analysis of student, teacher and administrator accounts of the employment of British expatriate science teachers in a given Caribbean context. I utilise the complicity/resistance construct of postcolonial theory as the analytic framework for this inquiry, foregrounding the meanings that research participants attached to the geographic origins of science teachers. These meanings place the expatriate teachers in complicated positions of privilege that elicit certain responses from students, colleagues and the expatriate teachers themselves. I discuss the implications of participant insights that reinforce a call for further postcolonial critique of the employment of Western expatriate teachers in once-colonised settings. KEYWORDS: coloniality, science, Caribbean, expatriates, Satyagraha, education for all.

Introduction The recent upsurge in international migration has brought educators face-to-face with the challenges and contestations of globalisation. Outside of the realm of teachers of English as an additional language, rarely are the articulations about teacher migration considered in the context of colonisation. In this article I report on the findings of a research study examining the positioning of British expatriate science teachers in The Bahamas, a Caribbean nation that gained legal independence from British rule in 1973. Teachers (local and expatriate), students and administrators described the meanings that they associated with the educational


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experiences and geographic origins of British science teachers working in The Bahamas. The contemporary positions of British expatriate teachers are historically embedded. The expatriate teachers occupy a space of complexity described by a dynamic and continuing association between discourses of coloniser and colonised. These British teachers have come from a country that once dominated much of the Caribbean, and they work with curricula established to reinforce social inequities that once progressed imperialist objectives.

established the framework of globalisation, I employ a postcolonial framework in my analysis of perspectives on British expatriate science teachers. My aim is to use the deconstructive emphasis of postcolonial theory to explicate issues associated with the employment of these expatriate workers. Particularly important are notions of complicity and resistance that mediate the ways in which science students respond to both experiences of oppression and the subjugation of knowledges that the students value.

Background to the study In 2006 I made a successful application in response to a listing in the Times Educational Supplement for a high school science teacher in The Bahamas. I loved teaching and, although I was born and educated in the UK and had worked for more than a decade as a science teacher holding a range of positions of responsibility, I felt that I still had the energy and enthusiasm for a new kind of educational challenge. Being of Caribbean origin both of my parents were born in the Caribbean and I was an active participant in Caribbean communities in the UK I was keen to experience this challenge in a setting where I could learn from, and contribute to, a geographic region from which I felt I had already gained so much.

I was given a two-year contract to work within the private school system something I had resisted in the UK but which was the only option available to me in the Caribbean at that time. The learning curve was steep and I found that I was frequently required to re-evaluate what I had taken for granted about science, teaching, learning, students, and myself. I was particularly struck by the way in which my

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immersion in this unfamiliar context revealed just how heavily my British education had influenced the way that I interpreted the curriculum: something I had not felt the need to examine when teaching in the country of my birth. The fact that the

ity of religious knowledges in Bahamian life caused me to contemplate on my role as a science teacher, presenting what some might classify

-such as the use of bush medicines, were being considered for inclusion in science curricula. I was not used to such explicit and sanctioned cultural considerations being given prominence within the culture of science education.

I remained at the school for a total of three years during which time I often reflected on how my unique combination of circumstances was shaping my impression of what it meant to be an expatriate teacher. I became increasingly intrigued by the apparent contradiction of recruiting teachers into a country from a nation that had previously colonised that country. As time went on my awareness of explicit and unspoken power plays grew;; these seemed to delimit my positioning as a science teacher and the responses available to my students. Two years after leaving the school I returned to The Bahamas to conduct research on science education in

outline one aspect of my research that explores how students, administrators, and teachers describe and respond to the positioning of British expatriate science teachers.

The postcolonial lens In this article, I privilege postcolonial theory as a means by which the positioning of expatriate science teachers may be interpreted. Positioning refers to how social rules (both explicit and implicit) reinforce the roles or parts that people assign for themselves and to which people are assigned by others (Ritchie, 2002). I am particularly concerned with the way in which the geographic origins of science teachers contribute to the construction of teacher positions. Since teacher positioning is a co-construction, negotiated in relation to others participating in a given community, my study looks at perspectives expressed by teachers (local and expatriate), students and administrators in the educational setting. The


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position that the teacher occupies indicates a certain power status that is available to that teacher, as well as the power statuses available to his or her students and colleagues as they interact with that teacher.

Acknowledging the range of themes explored by postcolonial theorists, I focus my analysis on the complicity/resistance dimension of responses to expatriate science teacher positioning. This emphasis necessarily responds to issues of power, agency, negotiation, subjectivity, and nationobservation that, for some science education theorists:

Western science was just one ideology among many, and its

where the winning side simply had better rhetorical skills or more power, they did not have more truth or better agreement with the world. (p. 644)

I consider that the search for truth or attempts to discern patterns of reality are valid endeavors but the subtle challenge in this work is to examine how the reporting of such endeavors serves to validate hegemonic positionings. As with

knowledge is associated with a complex interaction of mechanisms that facilitate or resist dominance over alternative knowledges and/or individuals.

I have presented complicity with, and resistance to, this dominance as part of the same analytic dimension in order to reinforce their interconnectedness but this is not to say that their relationship is linear. Although complicity and resistance might reasonably be thought of as representing opposing positions on a continuum, it is also possible to conceive of these terms as being intimately related and intersecting. By

Satyagraha might be perceived, by some, as constituting a compliant

expressions of anger, without complaint, or counteracting unjust acts of violence perpetrated by the oppressor.1

lier notion of passive resistance in that Satyagraha describes using the force of truth and justice to convert the oppressor.

1 Satyagraha represents a portmanteau term composed by the contraction of two Sanskrit words: satya (truth) and agraha (force).

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This approach is manifest in non-violent acts of resistance aimed at appealing to the conscience, rather than merely the behavior, of the oppressor. Thus, the complicity/resistance dynamic incorporates a nuanced intersection of responses to domination that are not always expressed as perceptible actions;; these responses include deliberately subversive behaviors, unconscious acceptances, and conscious re-appropriations.

Parry (1994) described the challenge of reading refusals and compliance from within a Eurocentric framework. She warned that the ways in which others assert their identities can often violate our notions of rational protest, being read as anarchic or nihilistic. She encouraged a contextual reading that considers historicity, questions simplistic assumptions of imitation and traces indicators of re-creation that do not seek the political ends presumed by the dominant discourse. In this study, Western modern science with its reliance on a particular form of logic(Taylor, 2008, p.883) is mobilized by local and expatriate teachers negotiating culturally-complex spaces of historical and contemporary conquest and oppression. In this scenario, teachers, students and/or administrators could act as agents of colonisation, either knowingly or otherwise, facilitated by the tool of Western modern science.

In the section below, I trace a brief history of the development of the science curriculum in the English-speaking Caribbean to provide a context for the contemporary interpretations and communications that are presented by participants in this study. Foucault described this genealogical approach erudite knowledge and local memories which allows us to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make use

Framing the science curriculum within its historical setting also provides insight into intents that may have remained embedded in the curriculum structure and content. Marxian ideology and postcolonial theory were used by Deng and Luke (2008) to emphasise the point that it is wrong to assume that knowledge can ever be truly devoid of ideological or sociocultural interest. So, curriculum contextualisation is fundamental to this kind of study. As with any historical account, I acknowledge the presence of alternative versions of


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actions and motivations and present the narrative below as a plausible explanation of events.

An historical context for science education in the English-speaking Caribbean The spread of the British Empire was grounded in the struggle

human. This

facilitated by an interplay of coercion and conquest under the

unwilling, to help themselves. In her overview of the educational history of the British Caribbean, King (1995) emphasised the class distinctions supported by national systems of education introduced during the colonial period and expanded after the abolition of slavery in the 1830s.

These systems were established to educate the children of expatriates and select locals, incorporating testing structures that would provide the best students with the chance to take the Cambridge examinations and potentially win a scholarship to study at a British university. These

only for those who fit the intellectual mould and complied with

-emancipation curriculum prioritised literacy, numeracy, and religion as foundational knowledge at the primary school level. Study of the natural sciences was adopted by certain secondary schools, mirroring educational development in England.

The new wave of imperialism that followed slave

p. 23) that distanced itself from discredited notions of race as a context for legitimising inequity. The newly-embraced concerns of cultural difference overshadowed talk of race and

identified the allusions to development as being rooted in the Enlightenment promise of social progression as a result of rational measures to promote harmonious systems, as are observed in nature and aspired for in European academic centres. To ensure that the educational provision in the

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colonies was comparable to that of English secondary schools, English expatriate teachers were recruited into colonial schools (King, 1995).

Just as the sociopolitical tide was shifting, so were school curricula. Shapin (2010) described the pervasiveness of a form of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thought that supported the shift in cultural authority granted to science, replacing the position previously held by religion. He credited George Sarton (the founder of the History of Science discipline) and August Comte (the founder of the Sociology discipline) with the notion of science embracing a moral vision for humanity, driving humanity to its highest and noblest ideals. Since the 1960s, when many Caribbean nations started gaining independence from colonial rule, those high ideals of science were incorporated into school curricula. Tracing the rapid expansion of educational provision in developing countries during the 1960s, Lewin (1992) described the appropriation of existing science syllabuses (designed for the élite) as being the norm for countries experiencing the first phase of independent governance. He stated:

In those countries with a colonial experience that penetrated the fabric of their education systems deeply, science educational practice shadowed that in industrialized countries. Syllabi were borrowed, or perhaps more accurately lent (Little 1990), with little more than cursory attention to local conditions. They closely resembled those to be found in the more conservative parts of the education systems of the ex-colonial power. Thus in the case of British ex-colonies throughout the world there are many examples of mildly modified General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.) type science rubrics for secondary schools current in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and even those derived from the School Certificate which preceded G.C.E. (p. 10)

It should not be assumed that the post-independence use and expansion of a pre-existing education system necessarily marks the endorsement of the system and its curricula as being suitable to local needs or logically the most effective system;; the decisions to expand established education systems are likely to have been taken on more pragmatic grounds. Luitel (2007) suggested that, any developing country hoping to participate in the global economy feels the necessity to engage with the education systems of the global


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superpowers, despite the perceived compliance with Western hegemonic practices. Given this consideration, and the historical context of educational development in the Caribbean, it is hardly surprising to note that local science curriculum reform in the English-speaking Caribbean continues to mirror the reforms of the national system of education in England. In addition, many Caribbean private schools which represent élite organisations within their geographic contexts still seek support in development and interpretation of these curricula from British expatriate workers.

Methodology: a qualitative critical analysis

is particularly meaningful for researchers conducting work using a postcolonial analysis. For me, it has meant that I was concerned about the discourses carved out of the intersection of culture, history and sociopolitical relations (Browne and Smye, 2002) that have elevated science education to a gatekeeper status, serving to regulate student access to further educational opportunities, often outside of The Bahamas. It is important for contemporary descriptions of science education to be read in a critical sense, supported by historical insights that avoided reductive interpretations that would attribute science education challenges to the culture of the student or the expatriate teacher.

I used an interpretive approach to look for meaning in the stories and illustrations that were shared by participants. Tobin (2000) described interpretive research in science education as acknowledging researcher subjectivity while

activity focused on efforts to understand the interactions between participants in social settings in terms of the

depictions presented as commentary that exists in the given society rather than the fixed perspectives of the disclosers. (My own positioning within the research context has been described more fully in Burke, 2014.)

Based on a research protocol that I have described extensively elsewhere (Burke, 2015), I conducted a series of 26

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in-depth narrative-gathering episodes (interviews) with a selection of high school students (or recent graduates), teachers (expatriate and local), and administrators (directly involved in the recruitment of high school science teachers) from seven different educational institutions (five private and two public). The study explored a range of science-related themes but in this article I will discuss only the components associated with the positioning of British expatriate science teachers. The research participants contacted me, based on materials circulated on my behalf by former students and colleagues.

Each interview consisted of two key components, the first was a series of open-ended free-response questions, provided to the participants in advance of the interview that included a question about what British science teachers bring to, or take away from, the Caribbean context within which they work. In addition to the questions, I had prepared a set of statements that had been adapted from research literature on science teaching in intercultural settings. I used the statements to provide points of engagement around which participants could express their thoughts about the given science educational context. I asked participants to express the extent of their agreement or disagreement with each statement as well as to provide an explanation for each decision. Examples of statements used included:

British science teachers could learn a lot from

Caribbean ways of understanding the world. There is a difference between the teaching style of

British teachers and the teaching style of Caribbean teachers.

British teachers need to understand the backgrounds of their students in order to teach science well.

We should only use Caribbean science teachers in Caribbean classrooms.

Each interview was audio-recorded and I made reflective field notes after meeting with each participant. The findings detailed in this article were the result of a constant comparative analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) of transcripts and field notes guided by the question: How do research participants describe and respond to the positioning of British


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expatriate science teachers? This analysis was supported by the use of the NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software that allowed me to trace coding pathways and histories in order to map the development of themes.

Three themes were derived that are addressed below: Distinguishing characteristics of the British expatriate teachers, The power of rhetoric, and The meaning of independence. The reader will notice that I have not presented detailed information about individual participants in this article;; this was done in order to limit the potential for participant identification in a location employing a small pool of British expatriate science teachers. For this same reason, I have not always used gender identifications provided by the participants. It is not my desire to trace specific teachers, their colleagues or their students, instead I have only identified speakers according to their designation within the school system to indicate their positioning within the power structure of a school.

An exploration of the research findings British expatriate science teachers in this study readily identified and acknowledged the inadequacy of their prior understandings in equipping them for success in their new cultural context. Defining success by the likelihood of remaining in The Bahamas beyond the term of the initial contract, each teacher was able to identify how he or she was driven to a greater level of reflection than initially anticipated due to the challenges presented by a national system that

valued by so many students. As one expatriate teacher put it: Bahamian religion and that is the big

difference between me and my students and me and other

as problematic but did not seem to alter the historically-embedded role of the British expatriate teacher: ensuring that academic standards reflect those established in the motherland. Despite the combination of employment fairs and

none of the teachers in the study described receiving any form of instruction regarding the needs of the local community or their role in fulfilling such needs outside of the curriculum

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material that they were hired to teach. So, the assumption was made by expatriate teachers that they would be able to

sea, sand, and sun.

Distinguishing characteristics of the British expatriate teachers While the Caribbean teachers and students in this study expressed respect for the knowledge and organisational skills of British science teachers, the compliments were not reciprocated. One British teacher described the Caribbean teachers as masquerading as teachers, presenting information but not really displaying the pedagogical flexibility of good teachers. The power to evaluate good and bad practices in a foreign context, by reference to systems encountered thousands of miles away, underlined the endurance of the

English and colonial education systems. Coming from the mother country, British teachers were able to identify familiar characteristics in the policies and practices of the Bahamian education system;; any deviation from the systems of their homeland might be interpreted as failed attempts to replicate. Bhabha (1994) described this almost but not quite manifestation of mimicry as distorting the quintessence of what the coloniser has attempted to teach the colonised.

This distinction between the qualities of British and Caribbean teachers was reinforced by a number of students who described their local teachers as having a good understanding of the lives of their students but being

less able to help the students to understand science. This variability in the characterisation of local science teachers suggested an unpredictability that was associated with a lack of competence. In contrast, students participating in this study tended to rate the efficacy of British science teachers as higher than that of local science teachers. Nevertheless, praise associated with the pedagogical strength of British teachers was often tempered with comments suggesting that local sensibilities were not always being considered by the teacher. As expressed by one s I think


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went on to explain that it is easier to learn when the teacher is precise and the student doallusion to an external standard that the expatriate teachers were upholding, without compromise, strengthens the

but that knowledge will only be made available if students comply with certain learning conditions outlined by the teacher. It was interesting to note the frequency with which local teachers and students commented on what seemed to be a desire of the expatriate teachers to divorce themselves from the baggage of locally-valued knowledges so that they may

extraneous understandings as possible.

This seemingly dispassionate approach of certain British teachers was favoured by some students as it prevented the confusion of the scientific knowledge system with beliefs that were locally valued. Most participants were clear about one cultural difference that stood out between

Christians or did-partisan disinterest

seemed to reinforce the validity of scientific information being presented by the British teachers whilst posing a fundamental challenge for many students hoping to resist the unspoken push to accept atheism or agnosticism as a prerequisite for demonstrating a mature scientific persona. One student explained how she was eventually able to employ a pragmatic approach towards learning in the science classroom by looking at the knowledge system as she imagined it is seen in the broader global context. She explained that her local teachers were often not as convincing as the British teachers

God d

classes with her British teachers to facilitate her achievement in the course. Thus, the positioning of the British science teacher described by participants in this study was one that was well aligned with the nature of what he/she hoped to convey about the subject matter: a neutral, powerful knowledge system communicated in an authoritative, matter-of-fact manner.

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The power of rhetoric As alluded to above, a number of participants in the study described the high esteem afforded to British teachers in this

(a student). Local teachers and students alike endorsed the

approach. When this position is compounded with what was described as the respect due to a teacher in Caribbean society because of their status as an elder, then it is no surprise that

can present utter nonsense and if you say it authoritatively

description of the activities of colonisers, focused on training

academies and the rhetorical strength of their own scientific literature, all the time legitimizing the dominance of the European perspective. The extent to which this may be perpetuated in a contemporary setting is supported by certain

influence.

It was not just the British teachers who acknowledged the power of their own rhetoric, as one student explained:

confidence was again traced to the assurance that comes from accepting the logic of the knowledge being communicated. Students who view the world from outside of this scientific framework might be inclined just to accept what is taught for fear of being labelled illogical: disagree with [science] because then when the teacher asks

students described British teachers as being invested in scientific knowledge being accepted as truth and not just learned in order to pass examinations. Another student, who revealed that he had secured a scholarship to study abroad, explained that students need to adjust their way of thinking if they wa

school experience of feeling forced to learn scientific ideas that


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clashed with understandings passed down by parents and grandparents helped him to evaluate his own belief system.

teachers. This even allowed some British teachers the authority to speak on subjects for which their own educational backgrounds could not have prepared them. As

the Caribbean teacher would know more about the Caribbean-related topobservation. My British teacher knew more about the

the coldness, arrogance and indifference towards students, British teachers were described as better educated and better able to communicate that education, no matter what the content. This assessment of expatriate teacher positioning seemed to be willingly accepted by British teachers in the study.

The meaning of independence The historical backdrop of the education system was described by local teachers in the study, most of whom had at some time been taught by British teachers, particularly at the high school stage of their education. As explained by one local

ach the way I was taught by British teachers and I find that most Caribbean teachers have

given the average age of teachers in the country, and the legacy of British rule and establishment of the local education system, many teachers of a given generation have close affiliations to the British teachers employed in the contemporary context. This notion was reinforced by one administrator who stated that:

the Caribbean teacher may have undergone a student teacher program based on a British program. A lot of the

in the Caribbean and teacher training is very British, so

student teachers.

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Teachers who participated in this study would have been schooled prior to the introduction of a local national system of education in 1993 when British systems of governance were still in place and a larger number of British expatriate teachers were employed in the country. This draws expatriate and local teachers together in a common heritage that gives a normalcy to British models of educational development and limits the potential for critique or analysis of policies and practices. As stated by Hickling-Hudson and Ahlquist (2004), many self-initiated expatriate teachers do not question their commitments to Western curricula and curricular practices. In this study, local teachers did not seem to question that commitment either. So, the validity of Eurocentric perspectives is reified in the readiness with which students, local teachers, and administrators accept, and strive to emulate, the curriculum interpretations presented. This situation is not as uncomplicated as it might seem at first. One British teacher described a feeling of being duped into

The Bahamas. On closer examination, he found that references to some fundamental scientific theories such as the

teacher feeling that he was being asked to teach less than the full truth.

Another administrator saw the situation as being more than just a matter of training explaining that:

our local people so we need to bring in persons from other nationalities and cultures to fill some gaps we have and we welcome them but we also want them to understand that

level of tolerance.

In addition to the unproblematised presentation of an education system constituted by a knowledge deficit, it was interesting to note that it was tolerance that was being called for from the outsider, not respect, acceptance or any response suggesting that there are things that British teachers could learn from the context. The contradiction of a training system that is almost indistinguishable from that in the UK but which is described as producing a teaching workforce that is incomplete in some way, underscores the need for external


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support in educational development, but that support may come at a cost.

As one British teacher explained:

listen.

ideas would or could be received by students and local

trying to get policy and procedural ideas heard and adopted is

teacher questioned why we (British expatriates) were recruited

Focussing on being careful not to offend sensibilities may be just one strategy that would serve to allow the British

support the local education system with strategies and initiatives brought from abroad.

The notion of expatriate teachers finding ways to make effective contributions to local educational policy decisions was further complicated by another British teacher who described the Bahamian (post)colonial relationship with Britain as being one that is limiting the development of The

themselves and if you go around holding other people up then

difficult for this teacher to imagine that their own complicity

described by the participant referenced above about The Bahamas being a young country in the process of development, struggling to express independence while working with British educators but not fully embracing all that the British have to offer. So the British teacher is in a position of ambivalence where, despite widespread understanding and endorsement of their presence as bastions of European educational standards and practices, there is a

educational identity.

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Expatriate teaching within a postcolonial framework Contemporary manifestations of colonisation are carried in discourses that maintain and reinforce the social, economic and/or political inequalities established during European occupation. These inequalities need not look the same as they did in a past era but they serve the same ideology of personal

schema established for advancement of the Westerner. In the discussion and implications that follow. I explore how the complicity/resistance framework can be used to illuminate

British expatriate science teachers in The Bahamas. I focus on the accountabilities of expatriate teachers and those who recruit or employ them in once-colonised locations. This is not to ignore the responsibilities of students and local teachers in these contexts but to place the emphasis on those with greater agency in educational decision-making (at least where employment is concerned).

Harding (2001) described trust as being an essential condition of the ability to homogenise and standardise knowledge, rendering it truthlike as it travels between place

that is reliant on trust so examining the interplay of the

and ethnic origins is an important focus for the field of contemporary science education. From such a position of privilege, science teachers need to be cognisant of, and intentional about, what they are asking of their students and

affiliations to other knowledge systems and the security of the

lack of deliberate and explicit attempts to define desired expatriate teacher roles prior to their employment has resulted in the reinforcement of certain historical positionings that provide the expatriate teachers with implied consultant status.

We have seen that as national systems of education expanded in the Caribbean, expatriate teachers came from the European metropolises. circumstances of a colonial European who chooses to expatriate records motivations that are similar to those of the


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more contemporary expatriate described by Armitage and Powell (1997). Even though the expatriate may cite adventure, the desire for a change of environment, or the search for scenic surroundings as the drive for migration, the fact that

his choice) seeks a country where his own language is spoken, and that possesses systems of governance that are familiar to him, is very telling. The expatriate, in search of personal gain, might underestimate the complexity of the historical shaping of interpersonal relations. After all, what does he need to know about the tastes and sensibilities of a people who have been

expatriate is content if he can maintain a status of privilege in it or not, he is

received as a privileged person by the institutions, customs

expatriate teachers in this study, experienced and as much as it troubles me to admit it, the position of privilege is one that tends to ease some of the challenges of cultural adjustment.

The expatriate teacher then becomes part of an élite class of workers, supported by local workers described by Said (2003) as the native élite to maintain a system designed to serve an élite class of student. The private school status of most of the students in this study suggests that today expatriate workers are still used to support the interests of a minority. In this way, the cycle of imperial domination expands into contemp2010) where imperial coercions satisfy a new and collective goal of providing a form of education that secures a unidirectional flow of knowledge. In the context described in this article, expatriate teachers support local teachers in scientific knowledge building within certain structural constraints that seek to protect locally-valued knowledge systems. Curriculum content has been filtered (when compared with that identified in the UK) to remove material that is not seen as meeting local needs, and locally-valued material (as seen with the introduction of bush medicines into the science curriculum) adds a local flavour to the science

adaptation of the curriculum constitutes a form of science denial may be somewhat simplistic. Local teachers and students that I spoke with in this study expressed their

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ese localised curriculum interpretations for affirming and maintaining a certain cultural identity.

The acceptance of part but not all of the British curriculum content represents a point of friction where complicity intersects with a structural component of colonisation (an inherited curriculum), which also intersects with a resistance to its full adoption a reappropriation, if you will. Such a curriculum backdrop would present an invaluable artefact that might be used to educate expatriate teachers about the history and socio-political climate of the educational context within which they work. In my experience, no curriculum context was ever provided. A challenge associated with the recruitment of British high school teachers into Caribbean contexts and, indeed, the employment of British teachers in their own home contexts, is that the historical setting of curriculum rationalisations of the subjects they teach might have long been obscured. If Deng and Luke (2008) are correct in their assertion that all institutionally-located claims of knowledge, as reflected in curricula, manifest historically established principles of power and social control then the Bahamian science curriculum is no exception. Study of the natural sciences was established at the secondary school level to act as a counterbalance to the religious foundation forged in the primary school curriculum. Only those deemed intellectually competent were afforded the privilege of scientific study, the mastery of which would secure access to further academic opportunities abroad.

Spivak (1990) discussed the need to seek a reversal of the conventional flow of knowledge from West to East in order

unclear whose interests would be served by such a transforming activity, given that (by birth or by association) the majority of stakeholders of all designations benefit from the élite status afforded by the expatriate arrangement. The knowledge flow identified here is not enforced by stakeholders in a simple West/East or North/South dichotomy;; the relationships between geographic origins and colonising activities are more subtle than that. A select student group is competing for opportunities to study abroad, or at least to qualify to work in a company of strong national standing, but


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the imperial headquarters have expanded to North America. Today, students seem to be willing subjects of an education system that is drawing them into a universalising discourse, encouraging a disregard for the particulars of their given cultural context. Although students in this study, many of whom had their goals set on international educational opportunities, seemed to have accepted the idea of scientific knowledge being universal, the pragmatism described by a number of students indicated that at least some students are adopting a stance of separating methodological convention from ontological requirement.

As described by Jegede and Aikenhead (1999), many students successfully manage the dissonance that exists between their everyday lives and the world of school science by employing a mechanism of collateral learning. One key feature of this approach, as explained by my research participants, is that students do not attempt to resolve dissonant experiences, rather they keep their understandings of various ways of knowing distinct so that each can be mastered, uninhibited, until such a time as the student may choose to reconcile the systems for themselves.

Said (1993) encouraged people in once-colonised locations to actively engage with the dominant culture on a voyage in that can act to counter rather than simply reject the once oppressive authority;; this is a task that might be facilitated by the employment of expatriate teachers in such locations but this perspective was not presented by my research participants. Hickling-Hudson (2004) used the combined frameworks of sociopolitical literacies and education for all to conceptualise a Caribbean knowledge society, where the neocolonial, exclusionary function of the education system is re-them the dominant, critical and powerful literacies needed to

condition of an education system, and teacher education facility, which is far from adequate for the task. Even though

colonisation of the region, I could conceive of ways that certain Caribbean communities might use, albeit temporarily, the descendaddress some of the problems generated by their ancestors.

-defined terms that

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were made explicit to the expatriate teachers employed and that highlighted an historical context and contemporary imagining for the involvement of expatriates in the Caribbean.

Subedi and Daza (2008) draw attention to the subtext of globalisation, and the discourse of global competence, that is, the requirement of the individual to learn about and be conversant in identifying and expressing imperial reasonings and processes. In line with the critical global perspectives advocated by Subedi and Daza, I ask expatriate (and local) educators, and those responsible for their hire, to consider the value of making explicit their attempts to foreground and background various aspects of their identities and to consider the implications of such exercises as they relate to students in once-colonised locations. These examinations cannot occur effectively in the absence of an historical context for both the curriculum and the students. Recruiters have a responsibility to provide professional learning opportunities that confront teachers with powerful counter-narratives that disturb accepted notions of culture, development, progress, and independence. These counter-narratives expose complicities and forms of resistance, expressed within the curriculum structure and in behavioural terms as pragmatism by students, which might otherwise go unnoticed. In the absence of such confrontation we risk the persistence of narratives

trajectory along which societal knowledges progress. A deconstructive postcolonial reading of teaching and learning resists the tendency to dichotomise scientific and non-scientific modes of thinking, drawing attention to notions of hybridity that reject ideas that once-colonised communities are somehow frozen in time.

Conclusion This article discusses an under-theorised field of education: the subject-specific challenges of employing expatriate teachers in once-colonised locations. Except for the extensive literature on teachers of English as a foreign language, there is little consideration given to the culturally complex spaces generated by the recent rise in student and teacher migration across the globe. Key themes that emphasise the élite


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positioning of expatriate teachers and the rhetorical power that is associated with the process of maintaining this status have emerged that have significant implications for expatriate teacher preparation and education. The frictions associated with the struggle of students for personal independence, impact their agency to continue with their education whilst reformulating their belief systems. If expatriate teachers are

understanding without causing experiences of oppression or attempting to subjugate non-scientific understandings, then opportunities exist for a role for expatriate teachers in building nationally or internationally robust educations systems in once-colonised locations. The kinds of confrontations that teachers and administrators must face in order to facilitate the counter-hegemonic negotiations of expatriate teacher re-positioning must be further explored. This study, therefore, reinforces a need for further investment in research that utilises a postcolonial framework to challenge our thinking about expatriate employment in necessary but often uncomfortable ways.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Anne Hickling-Hudson for her support and encouragement during the writing of this article. Along with the anonymous reviewers, her insights have helped to shape this paper. Thank you.

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King, R. (1995). Education in the British Caribbean: The legacy of the nineteenth century. La Educación, 121(2). Retrieved from http://www.educoas.org/portal/bdigital/contenido/laeduca/laeduca_121/articulo5/index.aspx?culture=en

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David Cuschieri (2015). Tribute: Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015)


TRIBUTE:

EDUARDO GALEANO (1940-2015) THE UNFORGETTABLE VOICE OF A WORLD CITIZEN

David Cuschieri

ABSTRACT: Uruguayan writer and journalist, Eduardo Galeano is here remembered for his passionate belief in the possibility of building a different type of world, a more caring world characterised by greater social and economic justice, a world that is free from the neoliberal chains that continue to enslave millions of human beings. RIASSUNT(Maltese/Malti): Il-Urugwajan -twemmin

-possibilità li nibnu kollettivament dinja dinja

-ktajjen neoliberali li qed

Keywords: globalisation, death squads, world citizen, Cold War, imperialism, colonialism.

I first came across Eduardo Galeano during my time in El Salvador way back in 2005. I singled out a copy of Patas Arriba: Escuela del Mundo al Revés (Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World, 1998) as I was searching for some books to read about various social as well as political phenomena pertaining to Latin America.

As I was reading Patas Arriba, I was immediately captivated by two things. First, I was amazed by his mighty pen as he analysed countless issues relating to capitalism and globalisation. Bearing in mind the international financial crisis that erupted in 2008, Galeano was amazingly prophetic

present detailed arguments concerning a breath-taking range


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of subjects. Among the many topics mentioned in this book, one could find education, sexism, and justice.

Having finished one book, I wanted to read more of his works. The more I read, the more I could understand several events that I witnessed during the five months that I spent living in El Salvador. In a country where the minimum wage was around USD 160 a month and where gang warfare contributed strongly to the average of 11 murders a day that were reported on the evening news, one could not help asking many questions about the social consequences of the dominant neoliberal economic model.

most famous works - Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971). Although more than four decades have gone by since the time it was published, the book remains extremely popular and relevant to present-day events. During the fifth Summit of the Americas in 2009, Hugo Chavez the former Venezuelan President gave a copy

to President Obama as a gift.

What is the main reason underlying the huge success of Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina? The latter presented a left-wing analysis of the history of Latin America starting from the European colonisation associated with Christopher Columbus to events that were taking place in the 20th century. Galeano focused on the social and economic consequences of centuries of imperialism exercised first by a number of European nations and then by the United States.

During the 1970s, many Latin American countries were governed by right-wing military dictatorships. Determined to contain the spread of Marxism-Leninism at all costs, the US government frequently provided a great deal of financial as well as military support to the dictators who vowed to wipe out

Venas Abiertas was banned in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

Similar to several other leftist writers and activists living in Latin America during the Cold War years, Galeano was often subjected to persecution by the authorities. Imprisoned in his native Uruguay following the military coup of 1973, he went to Argentina following his release. In 1976, he escaped to Spain shortly after becoming aware that he was being targeted by death squads. He was unable to return to

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Uruguay prior to 1985. The fact that Galeano lived in a number of different countries makes it possible to consider him as a world citizen.

Galeano could also be regarded as a world citizen given that his works convey various messages that can apply to numerous countries. Regardless of whether one is reading about his views concerning racism or poverty, it is clear that many of his writings transcend specific places. Put differently,

lyses of various phenomena could be regarded as valid across several borders.

In his later works, Galeano continued to explore the theme of the dynamics between the most powerful members of a particular society and the most vulnerable persons or groups. His Memoria del Fuego (Memory of Fire, 1982-1986) trilogy is a clear example of this.

Throughout his long writing career, Galeano never stopped focusing on the plight of the downtrodden, the have-nots, those who are usually ignored by the more prosperous

chilling:

good luck will suddenly rain down on them will rain down in

tomno matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms. The nobodies: nob -ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way. Who are not, but could be. Who

but superstitions.

but human resources. Who do not have faces, but arms. Who do not have names, but numbers. Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper.

(quoted in Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, Paul Farmer, 2004, University of California Press, p.1).

To conclude, Eduardo Galeano was surely not the type of person to believe that there is some fixed destiny or economic


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model that cannot be changed. Indeed, he will continue to be remembered for his passionate belief in the possibility of building a different type of world, a more caring world characterised by greater social and economic justice, a world that is free from the neoliberal chains that continue to enslave millions of human beings. References Galeano, E. (1998), Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-

Glass World, New York City, NY: Picador, USA. Farmer, P (2004), Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights,

and the New War on the Poor, Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Anne Hickling-Hudson (2015). Report on a University of Fribourg workshop Postcolonial Directions in Education, 4(1), 81-87

CONFERENCE REPORT

OF FRIBOURG WORKSHOP, 4-7 MAY, 2015.

Anne Hickling-Hudson

Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

An exploratory workshop with the theme: , was held at

the University of Fribourg in Switzerland from 4-7 May 2015. t of

Educational Sciences, was made possible when the head of department Professor Edgar Forster and lecturer/PhD candidate Ms. Rose Eder applied for and won a grant of 24,810 CHF (Swiss Francs) from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Participants in the workshop included a number of invited global scholars of international education from universities in Canada, the USA, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Vietnam (papers listed below), as well as graduate students in Education and their supervisors from the University of Fribourg, some from the transdisciplinary

As an invited participant in the workshop, I gained new insights into international education from perspectives based on postcolonial theory, critical theory and post-structural theory. The workshop took inspiration from the concept of exploring and further developing epistemologies of the Global South, discussing (i) how this could be useful in recognising potential emergences and future possibilities in the field of


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education, and (ii) how it could be integrated in educational collaboration, particularly in international education.

Discussing how postcolonial /critical perspectives provide different understandings and analyses of international education led participants into exchanging experiences concerning the nature of knowledge. Case studies of education in different cultures, social groups and socio-economic strata illuminated questions such as: What do we want to know, what can we know, what is absent from our mental frameworks? Postcolonial theorising was applied to exploring different ontologies and epistemic difference, and we made progress in understanding ways in which knowledge production is shaped in unexpected ways through the lens of postcolonial thinking.

I experienced this week-long workshop as a stimulating meeting of minds, with global scholars and PhD students exchanging critical papers on, among other issues, how ways of knowing influence education (with examples from research into Amazonian, Quechua and Tamil cultures);; colonialism without colonies the case of Switzerland;; elite schooling, examinations and imperialism (examples from Africa and the Caribbean);; Spain and the encroachment of English accreditation programs;; Chinese aid to education in the Pacific region;; an historical analysis of Japanese colonialism in South East Asia;; problems in organising the education of Indigenous groups in Vietnam, and how international education is being conceptualised in the USA, Canada, Switzerland and other countries, with discussion of the extraordinary case of Cuban internationalism in education and health.

The exploratory sharing of different ways of knowing sharpened our scholarly criticism of these objects of interest:

(i) current international education policies for their complicity in perpetuating the commodification of education, especially higher education, and

(ii) the asymmetrical power relationships produced when education imitates and partially reproduces the ethos of colonial structures.

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When these current developments were analysed from the framework of critical theory and postcolonial theory, reflection was enhanced on the directions that international education takes and on the values, ranging from commodification to socio-political solidarity, that it promotes. Special attention was paid to the three heuristic concepts set out by the workshop proposal: stories (including matters of representation, identities and agency), systems (including socio-historical processes promoting injustices, resistance and challenges), and spaces (including the idea of education as a sphere of tension, conflict, struggle, dialogue and transformative action). A selection of papers presented by participants (listed below) gives an overview of how themes in the workshop were introduced and explored. It was valuable to the four PhD candidates to be able to present their research projects and have them commented on by the other workshop participants. At the same time, established scholars benefited from the early-career researchers and students by getting fresh insights and ideas on the practical implications of employing postcolonial studies in the study of education and international education.

As the week of scholarly exchange progressed, the presentations laid a foundation for workshop participants to discuss ways of theorising the future of international education. The following issues were explored:

(i) To what extent are we witnessing paradigm shifts in

the epistemologies of education? (ii) How could the current social imaginaries in

changed? (iii) How could academics and other stakeholders engage

and collaborate to overcome the market-led thrust of international education, and enhance their practical support to interventions for social justice?

This innovative workshop therefore contributed to current

a meta-reflexive concept that was explored to facilitate recognition and acceptance of emerging alternative possibilities in international education.


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At the end of the workshop we agreed to work on developing articles based on the lecture-seminars and discussions. Two journals have the possibility of bringing out special issues the journal Postcolonial Directions in Education, and the Journal of Education Studies. We decided that each special issue would be co-edited by professors who participated in the workshop. These publications will help to concretize the achievement of the workshop, which appears to be bringing about intense intellectual change for many of the students who attended. In post-workshop feedback some of the Masters students said that it had opened for them new

others expressed appreciation with comments such as this: this life-

also felt discomfort, as they started to question the very foundation of their knowledge and practices as Europeans which is surely a good space from which to start rethinking education. From the group of PhD candidates, appreciation was summarised in this unsolicited comment in an email sent to all of the professors a week after the workshop:

In my reflections, I came to the realization that the workshop was without a doubt one of the most formative - and indeed pivotal - experiences of my PhD journey thus

21 May 2015: PhD candidate who attended the workshop)

PAPERS AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS IN THE WORKSHOP Monday, 4 May 2015 09:00 Welcome and introduction to the programme and overarching theme;; overview of the conceptual framework (Rosalyn Eder, Edgar Forster) 09:15 12:15 Deconstructing the imperialist education project mapping the blueprints of colonialism and new imperialism in education (Roland Coloma, Vanessa Andreotti) 13:30 Colonialism without colonies: perspectives on Switzerland, and lessons for international education (Bernhard Schär)

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15:30 17:30 Between governance and governmentality: critical discussions and practical implications (Edgar Forster, Edgar Porter) Tuesday, 5 May 2015 09:00 Conceptual reflection on travelling theories: Universalism vs. / and particularism? (Doris Gödl) 10:00 12:30 International education, politics and the sphere of influence of supranational organisations. (Anne Hickling-Hudson and Maria Cuevas Tabuenca). Case study (1) how supranational organisations continue to influence

national languages and the challenges posed by English accreditation programs. 13:30 Indigenous education: perspectives from Latin America. Knowledge systems in Amazon cultures. (Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza) 15:30 Indigenous education: perspectives from Malaysia and Viet Nam (A. Mani, T. N. Tran) Wednesday, 6 May 2015 09:00 12:00 International education as a critical space of struggle: tensions and contentions in the North/South and South/South relationships (Anne Hickling-Hudson, Roland Coloma) 13:00

14:00 Geopolitics on Educational Aid: Exploring Shifting Pacific

15:30 Higher Education in ASEAN. Postcolonial perspectives and Sou


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16:30 contributions in Swedish scholar Gunnar Myrdal's 1968 work

17:30 18:00 Summary Thursday, 7 May 2015 09:00 re-framing international education based on alternative epistemologies and theories, future possibilities, limitations and implications, theoretical and methodological issues (Vanessa Andreotti, Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza) 13:30 16:00 Summary, feedback and conclusion (Edgar Forster, Rosalyn Eder) 16:00 End of Workshop GUEST SPEAKERS (ALPHABETICALLY) Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti Canada Research Professorial Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change, University of British Columbia, Canada Maxwell Caughron PhD candidate, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan Roland Sintos Coloma Professor & Chair of Education, Miami University, USA Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza Professor, University of São Paolo, Brazil Rosalyn Baldonado Eder Lecturer and PhD candidate, University of Fribourg , Switzerland Edgar Forster Professor and Head of Education, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Doris Gödl Professor, University of Fribourg, Switzerland Anne Hickling-Hudson Professor (adjunct), Queensland University of Technology, Australia A. Mani Professor, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore and Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan Edgar Porter Professor, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan Bernhard Schär Professor, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

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Nima Sobhani PhD candidate, University of Melbourne, Australia

PhD candidate, University of Oulu, Finland Maria Cuevas Tabuenca Associate Professor, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, Spain Tran Ngoc Tien - Lecturer;; Faculty of Foreign Languages, Da Lat University, Da Lat City, Vietnam ORGANISERS Rosalyn Baldonado Eder and Edgar Forster


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Peter Mayo. (2015). Book review: Darder, Freire and Education


BOOK REVIEW

Darder, A. Freire and Education. New York, NY and London: Routledge, ISBN-13: 978-0415538404 ISBN-

10: 0415538408 2014, 198 pages. It has been seventeen years since Paulo Freire passed away and yet books containing his writings or assessing his work continue to be produced. During the last three years no less than four books, apart from the one under review, have been printed (Schugurensky, 2011;; Mayo, 2013, Roberts, 2013;; Torres, 2014). All four are either studies on Freire or on topics and thinkers and activists inspired by Freire. This book comprises both a study on and writing by Freire.

tion in a dialogue involving Antonia Darder, Peter Park and Paulo Freire himself. This moving dialogue took place in 1992;; just a couple of years after Freire had retired from serving as Education Secretary in São Paulo. Twenty-five years later,

deas obviously continue to inspire people, constituting an important lens through which one can analyze a variety of socio-political situations and forms of cultural production.

Antonia Darder, the author of this slim volume, needs no introduction to readers acquainted with critical education and especially critical pedagogy, the latter embracing a movement for which Paulo Freire serves as a key source of inspiration.

Having followed her work over the years and collaborated with her as an international colleague and good friend, I feel that she is one of the best persons to write a book such as this. I therefore congratulate the editors of this series for their choice of writer for this specific volume. And Darder delivers at the level expected of her.


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She critically fuses some of the most important concepts

accounts, interspersed throughout this expository and, at the same time, analytic text. She is an established thinker in her own right, whose work reflects the pain, joys and struggles of her own life as a Puerto Rican woman who survived a rough and turbulent upbringing as part of an impoverished and ruthlessly colonised social class (see her revealing account in an interview in Borg and Mayo, 2007 and in Darder, 2011).

Antonia Darder also deeply embodies the freirean spirit throughout. Reading through this volume and knowing her personally, I felt that this book is as much about Freire as it is about Darder herself. Her particularly heartfelt engagement with the main themes around which the discussion at hand is organised, namely Liberation.

Love, Conscientização and Problematizing Diversity, immediately recalls the various writings which have rendered her, in my estimation, and I am sure that of many others, one

As always, the writing is imbued with passion - great passion - and exudes a strong sense of love and commitment to the plight of the oppressed.

She underlines in the book, echoing Freire, as well as revolutionaries such as Ernesto Che Guevara, that this sense of love is the hallmark of all genuine educators and revolutionaries.

I confess that, in my early years of reading and writing about Freire, initially as a graduate student and subsequently academic, I erroneously and misguidedly tended to give short shrift to the concept of love. I focused more on the

of dialectical relations, praxis, conscientização etc. Make no mistake, all of these concepts deriving from social theory, and many more, are present

reinventions in contemporary contexts.

It was, hoFreire, aptly subtitled A Pedagogy of Lovework, that I came round to embracing one of the key aspects

my own thinking and writing on education. I acknowledge this

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in the first chapter of my book Liberating Praxis (Mayo, 2004;; 2009). In short, I partly owe this to Antonia!

In my view there are both Christian (Christianity was a great fount of inspiration to Freire, whatever others might say or the means by which they try to play this down) and

As Darder is at pains to point out, a Freirean approach to knowledge is not concerned solely with the cognitive aspects of learning (Darder, 2002, p. 98). It involves

its core. Freire was reported to have said a few days before he died:

I could never think of education without love and that is why I think I am an educator, first of all because I feel

For Darder, a point made previously in her 2002 Freire book, the central pedagogical process of dialogue cannot exist in the absence of a profound love for the rest of humanity and other species. It is therefore from this love that, Freire felt, teachers could derive the strength, faith and humility to acquire the solidarity and engage in the struggle necessary to transform the oppressive ideologies and practices of public education. (Darder, 2002, pp. 91-92)

A key point stressed by Darder throughout this book is that, by extending the pedagogical approach well beyond the simply cognitive, Freire bequeathed to us a legacy that foregrounds the relationship between love, the body and knowledge. The thoughtful discussion around these interrelated aspects of learning together (collective learning, a dimension of learning which both Freire and Darder underscore) is one of the most inspiring in the book. She writes of a critical praxis of the body and elaborates on this particular aspect of moral regulation and control with which we have to contend throughout our lives.

The dichotomy between mind and body is a false one in , as banking education in its

worst and all embracing forms has much to do with control of the body, ideas and imagination. Philip Corrigan (1991) captured the whole process brilliantly in a title of a paper he


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what Grammar School did With, To and For My Body.liberation is a pedagogy for a liberation of total integral human beings, a liberation of mind, soul, spirit and body carried out,

with others. Otherwise there is the danger that one would be

replacing the oppressor rather than bringing an end to the -

that are not to be perceived as binaries as they exist in a dialectical relationship.

These are just some of the many aspects and concepts from Freire tackled and powerfully elaborated throughout Freire and Education. Quite important is the discussion on difference conceived as existing within the totalizing structuring force of global capitalism, a recurring theme in

bonus of a three way discussion involving Paulo Freire himself, a favourite means through which Freire would convey

This discussion raises issues around the quest for struggling coherently within hegemonic structures in a country, such as the USA, which is not liberating in so far as its traditional official line of politics is concerned, very much felt by a Brazilian and a Puerto Rican who have been born and raised on the receiving end of USA direct (Puerto Rico) and indirect (Brazil and the rest of Latin America) colonialism. The issue of coherence and the struggle to be less contradictory and therefore more ethical is a recurring theme throughout, as is the point, resonating with many, that, despite all the difficulties and contradictory class locations we experience, some of us have a political platform from which to make our voice heard. It would be criminal not to use it.

Our privilege as critical scholars and tenured academics, despite all the concerns about the way academics are increasingly under assault to be rendered vulnerable and powerless, comes at a price, necessitating a duty. It is our duty to use any platform we have to speak truth to power, something which Freire did throughout his life, at one stage paying a heavy price for it.

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I can attest that Antonia Darder has, for years, been speaking truth to power. As is often the case, she and others have been doing this with the support of some (alliances and kindred spirits are key), but also with the astonishing lack of support from others for whom radical posturing is exactly what it is, posturing for career advancement in fields such as critical education and cultural studies which superficially

ones who deny solidarity just when it is most needed. They sound radical or progressive in the lecture hall or other public forums but then act non-radical and conservative when dealing with the powers that be or serving on or contending with administrative bodies.

Yet, it is the very need for problematizing the contradictions faced daily in our lives as subaltern educators and activists, that most speaks to the powerful manner in which Freire and Education and its contribution to the transformation of schools and society. This is indeed a lovely, thought-provoking and inspiring book!

Peter Mayo University of Malta References Borg, C and Mayo, P (207) Public Intellectuals, Radical Democracy

and Social Movements. A Book of Interviews, New York and Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Darder, A (2002) Reinventing Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy of Love, A. Darder, Westport Connecticut: Westview Press.

Darder, A (2011), A Dissident Voice. Essays on Culture, Pedagogy and Power, New York and Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Corrigan, P R D(1991). The Making of the Boy. Meditations on what Grammar School did With, To, and For My Body. In Giroux, H.A (Ed.) Feminism and Cultural Politics. Redrawing Educational Boundaries, Albany: SUNY Press.

McLaren, P. (2002) Afterword. A legacy of hope and struggle, In A. Darder, Reinventing Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy of Love, Westport Connecticut: Westview Press.

Mayo, P (2004;; 2009) Radical Education and Politics, hbk, 2004, Westport


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Connecticut: Praeger;; pbk 2009, Rotterdam, Boston and Taipei: Sense Publishers.

Mayo, P (2013) Echoes from Freire for a Critically Engaged Pedagogy, London and New York: Bloomsbury.

Roberts, P (2013) Paulo Freire in the 21 st century. Education, Dialogues and Transformation, Boulder Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.

Schugurensky, D(2011), Paulo Freire, London and New York: Continuum.

Torres, C. A (2014) First Freire Early Writings in Social Justice Education, New York: Teachers College Press.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS LYDIA E CAROL-ANN BURKE ([email protected]>) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Science Education and Public Engagement at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. She gained her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Prior to entering the academic arena she was a science teacher for 15 years in a range of school contexts. Her research explores the interstices of scientific understanding and other culturally-valued ways of coming to know, drawing attention to the ethical dimension of prioritisations in the field of science education. DAVID CUSCHIERI ([email protected]) is a 36-year-old Psychology graduate who also studied Philosophy for many years. He has lived for some time in Spain and in El Salvador. He has been active in a number of organisations. He is currently the secretary of the NGO known as Alliance Against Poverty (Alleanza Kontra l-Faqar). LILIA D. MONZÓ ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of Education in the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University. Her research and scholarship are based upon a Marxist humanism and revolutionary critical pedagogy. Dr. Monzó engages

inequities and examines the possibilities for dismantling capitalist relations and developing a socialist imaginary. Her recent work appears in such journals as Policy Futures in Education, Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Postcolonial Directions in Education, and Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. SARAN STEWART ([email protected])is a Lecturer in Comparative Higher Education and a Research Specialist in the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Dr. Stewart earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Denver (USA) and has studied at the University of Miami (USA), Barry University (USA) and Charles University in the Czech Republic. The focus of her research is on access and equity in education and teaching and learning in developing country contexts, utilising postcolonial theories. Her recent research comparatively examines the scope and prevalence of private tutoring and its effects on access to Higher Education in several Caribbean countries. Her work has been published in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Student Affairs, and the Applied Anthropologist Journal. Dr. Stewart recently received the International Scholars Award at the Research in Education Symposium in 2014 from the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the Inter-American Development Bank.

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