Institutionalizing International Influence: The Context for Education Reform in Africa.

Overview & Synopsis

Perhaps because educational achievement often has been associated with elite status, the organization and focus of education nearly everywhere in the modern era reflects international influences, some more forceful than others. In this era, with few exceptions, the direction of influence is from European core to southern periphery. Institutional arrangements, disciplinary definitions and hierarchies, legitimizing publications, and instructional authority reside in that core, which periodically incorporates students and professors from the periphery, many of whom may never return home. Noting that education convergence in the current era has been marked by both imaginative innovations and the even more striking commonalities across diverse settings, this paper considers the general theme of international influence in education reform and explores the context for education reform in Africa, particularly South Africa. The paper discusses 20th-century education reform and the commonalities across national settings that have most intrigued scholars of comparative education. It describes the context for education reform, and socialist disarray and United States triumphalism, along with the resuscitation of modernization theory. The paper also considers the changing roles in the United Nations system, aid dependence, international education currents, education as investment, education as production, and education as delivery system. It discusses different aspects of education in contemporary Africa, the role(s) of research, and South African "uniqueness." The paper concludes by outlining the challenges for those involved in reforming education in South Africa, in particular teacher education. Contains 49 notes and 86 references. (BT)